The relationship between leadership styles and conflict solution strategies of school managers

The aim of this study is to determine the leadership syles of school managers, to specify what extent conflict solution strategies are used and to reveal whether there is a relationship between leadership styles and conflict solution strategies of school managers depending on school managers' and teachers' opinion. For this purpose,Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire developed by Bass (1985) was used in order to determine leadership styles of school managers. Organizational Conflict Questionnaire developed by Rahim(1983) and adapted to Turkish by Gümüşeli (1994) was used so as to determine conflict solution strategies of school managers. The research is a relational survey method. The datas were collected from total 365 teachers and school managers which serve in official primary school, middle school and high school in Kağıthane district in 2015-2016 academic year. Quantitive datas obtained from the surveys were analyzed with SPSS 22.0 packet program. In the analyze of datas, frequency (f), percent (%) and mean ( )are given place,and also, in determining the level of significance of the two independent groups , independent t-test, in comparing the avarage of more than two groups ,One Way Varience Analysis (ANOVA), and in the analysis of relation Pearson Correlation Analysis technique were used. According to the results of this research, the most common leadership style of school administrators is Transformational Leadership Style.The second is Transactional Leadership Style, and the least is Laissez-Faire Leadership Style. There are significant differences between leadership styles of school managers and their gender, their educational status, type of school in which they work and the number of staff of their school.But It is found that there is no significant difference according to seniority variable. In conflict situations, school managers uses Integrating Strategy most, Compromising Strategy, Obliging Strategy, Avoiding Strategy, Dominating Strategy come later. There is positive and middle-strength relation between school manager's leadership styles and conflict solution strategy. Key words: School Managers, Leadership Styles, Conflict Solution Strategies.