The relationship between the leadership styles of school heads and the levels of teachers' organizational cynicism

This research was carried out to examine the relationship between school principals' leadership styles and teachers' organizational cynicism levels. Relational screening model was used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 294 teachers working in public primary schools in the province of Tokat in the 2019-2020 academic year. In the study, the leadership styles of the school principals were determined by the "Leadership Behaviors Scale", which consists of 24 items and three sub-dimensions, developed by Terzi in 2012, and the organizational cynicism levels of the teachers were determined by the "Organizational Cynicism Scale" developed by Brandes et al. (1999) and adapted into Turkish by Kalağan (2009) was determined using the "Scale". The scale adapted by Kalağan (2009) has 13 items. The scale has three sub-dimensions called cognitive, behavioral and affective. SPSS 24.0 package program was used to analyze the data obtained from the sample group. One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), t-Test, Kruskal-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were performed on the data through this program. At the end of the study, it was determined that teachers' cynicism levels were the highest in the behavioral dimension, followed by the cognitive and affective dimensions, respectively. It was determined that teachers' organizational cynicism levels did not differ significantly according to age, length of service, type of faculty graduated from, marital status and educational status. When the gender variable was examined, it was determined that while there was a significant difference in the cognitive cynicism dimension, there was no significant difference in the affective and behavioral dimensions. It was found that the variable of professional seniority created a significant difference in all sub-dimensions of organizational cynicism. Primary school teachers think that principals with whom they work together show the most democratic leadership style and then have autocratic and liberal leadership styles, respectively. It was determined that teachers' perceptions of school principals' leadership styles did not differ significantly according to age, length of service, type of faculty graduated and marital status. It was found that there was no significant difference between the school management experience variable and teachers' perceptions of democratic leadership style, but there was a significant difference between autocratic and liberal leadership styles and this variable. It was determined that the perceptions of the school principals' leadership styles according to the gender of the teachers did not make a significant difference in the democratic and autocratic leadership style dimensions, but there was a significant difference in the liberal leadership style dimension. While there was no significant difference between the educational status variable and teachers' perceptions of leadership style in the dimension of democratic leadership style, it was found that there was a significant difference in the dimensions of autocratic and liberal leadership styles. While there was no significant difference in the dimensions of autocratic and liberal leadership style between teachers' perceptions of the leadership style of the school principals they work with and the variable of professional seniority, it was found that there was a significant difference in the dimension of democratic leadership style. It was determined that there were moderate and positive significant relationships between autocratic and liberal leadership styles and all sub-dimensions of organizational cynicism. Contrary to the positive relationships in these dimensions, it was determined that there were moderate and negative significant relationships between the democratic leadership style dimension and cognitive, affective and behavioral cynicism. According to the results of the multiple linear regression analysis, it was determined that democratic, autocratic and liberal leadership styles predicted the cognitive, behavioral and affective dimensions of organizational cynicism. It has been determined that the strongest predictor in the dimensions of cognitive and affective cynicism is the democratic leadership style, while the behavioral cynicism dimension is mostly predicted by the autocratic leadership style. Keywords: Cynicism, Organizational Cynicism, Leadership, Leadership Styles