A research on crisis management skills of school administrators in terms of leadership styles (Case of İzmir)

The purpose of the research is to determine the relationship between school administrators' crisis management skills and different leadership styles. In the study, it was tried to determine teachers ' perceptions of school administrators' crisis management skills and leadership styles. It was also analyzed whether there was a significant difference among the teachers' perceptions in terms of their gender, marital status, union membership status, service year, branch, type of school they work for. It was also tried to determine whether there was a significant relationship between teachers 'perceptions of school administrators' crisis management skills and teachers ' perceptions of school administrators' leadership styles. The population of the research consisted of 26.279 teachers working in the central districts of Izmir in the 2019-2020 academic year. The sample consisted of 1273 teachers. The sample was determined by cluster sampling and stratified sampling method. The data collection tools of the research consisted of two scales. In addition to the demographic characteristics of the teachers (gender, marital status, union membership status, year of service, branch, type of school), 31-item Primary School Administrators' Crisis Management Skills Survey, and 36-item Multi-Factor Leadership Scales were used to determine the leadership styles of school administrators. According to the results of the obtained data, teachers generally stated that the administrators at the school where they worked had high crisis management skills. In terms of sub-dimension, it was determined that this attitude was higher for the post-crisis period than others (pre-crisis and crisis period). There was no significant difference in the perceptions of the teachers about the crisis management of the administrators at the school they worked at, gender, union membership status, school types, and branches. In terms of marital status, it was determined that the participants who were single in the pre-crisis period scored higher than the married ones. In terms of the service year, it is concluded that teachers with 21 years or more service found the crisis management skills of school administrators higher than teachers with other service years. It is seen that teachers 'perceptions of school administrators' leadership styles were high. According to the analysis of the results in terms of sub-dimensions, it was determined that the style with the highest score was laissez-faire leadership, followed by the transformational leadership, and the lowest-scoring leadership style was the transactional leadership. When the sub-dimensions were analyzed in terms of various variables, no significant difference was found between leadership styles according to marital status, service period, and branch variables. . However, in terms of gender variable, there was a significant difference between the groups in the laissez-faire leadership dimension, and the opinions of teachers according to their union membership status only in the transactional leadership sub-dimension, and in terms of the type of school, in the transactional leadership sub-dimension. It is seen that there is a positive and high level (p = 0.00 <.05; r = 0.873) relationship between school administrators' crisis management skills and leadership styles. In addition, when the relationship between the total measures of crisis management skills and crisis management skills sub-dimensions and the sub-dimensions of leadership styles is examined, it is seen that the most measured relationship is transformational leadership, the second is transactional leadership, and the lowest measure is freedom-giving leadership.