Management approach of school principals

This research was carried out to determine school principals' understanding of management. For this purpose, the phenomenological pattern, one of the qualitative research methods, was preferred to examine school principals' understanding of management in depth. The study group of the research consists of 20 school principals working in public primary and secondary education institutions in Istanbul in 2023-2024 academic year. A semi-structured interview form was used to collect data in the study. According to the research findings, it was seen that school principals' management metaphors correspond to authoritarian manager, paternalistic manager, transformative manager and visionary manager types. School principals evaluated the characteristics that a principal should have in the context of personality traits and leadership and management characteristics. School principals consider justice and honesty as the most important characteristics that a principal should have. It has been concluded that the management approaches adopted by school principals are mostly human relations theory and scientific management theories. It has been observed that school principals adopt bureaucratic organization and system theories less. It has been determined that the emotions felt by working as a school principal are predominantly positive. Happiness is one of the most positive emotions that management brings to school principals. It has been observed that the negative emotions felt by school principals while working as administrators are primarily work pressure/stress and fatigue. School principals advise candidates who want to become administrators to develop their communication skills as managerial skills, to be familiar with the legislation, and to have theoretical knowledge of management; In terms of value equipment, they make suggestions and recommendations in terms of being patient, valuing people and being fair. On the other hand, 4 of the school principals stated that they do not recommend being a school principal to candidates who want to become administrators. 2024, xi + 81 Pages KEYWORDS: Management, Leadership, Perception, Management Approach, Ideal managerial characteristics, School Principal, Emotion, Qualitative Research