The relationship between school principals' destructive leadership behaviors and teachers' organizational silence

In this study, it was aimed to determine the relationship between the destructive leadership behaviors of school principals and the organizational silence perceptions of teachers working in primary and secondary schools. In the study, according to the opinions of primary and secondary school teachers; the destructive leadership levels of school principals, the organizational silence levels of teachers and the differences in the opinions of primary and secondary school teachers according to gender, age, school level, professional seniority, educational status, marital status, union membership status, the duration of working with the administrator, and the district where they work were examined. Exploratory correlational design, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. The population of the research consists of primary and secondary school teachers working in Kepez, Muratpaşa and Serik districts of Antalya province in the 2023-2024 academic year, while the sampling group consists of 240 teachers who voluntarily accepted to participate in the research by being selected by convenience sampling method. The data were collected using Kahveci and Demirtaş's (2013) organizational silence scale and Uymaz's (2013) destructive leadership scale. The collected data were analyzed using t-test, anova and correlation. As a result of the research, primary and secondary school teachers' perceptions of destructive leadership were found to be at a low level, while their perceptions of organizational silence were found to be at a medium level. There was a significant difference between destructive leadership and all its factors and age variable. There was a significant difference between destructive leadership and some of its factors and school level variable. There was a significant difference between organizational silence and isolation factors and age variable. There was a significant difference between organizational silence and some of its factors and the variables of educational status and district of employment. The relationship between teachers' perceptions of school administrators' destructive leadership behaviors and organizational silence is positively and moderately significant.