An examining of the relationship between leadership styles of elementary school principals and organizational commitment and degree of mobbing experiences of teachers in Turkish public schools

The purpose of this studywas to determine the correlation between leadership types of school principals, organisational commitment of teachers, and mobbing experience level. The study was a relational screening model research. Population of the study were composed of 1315 primary school teachers who work in Turkish Public, in Siirt, Turkey. In the study, scale of ?Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire? was used to determine the leadership styles of school principals; scale of organizational commitment was used to determine degree of ?Organizational Commitment?; scale of ?Negative Behaviour Questionnaire? was used to determine degree of mobbing experience. SPSS 15 and AMOS 6 software was used in the analysis of the study. The correlation between variables was calculated by means of path analysis.The result of the study indicated, school principals displayed transformational leadership at mid-level, and used transformational leadership more than transactional leadership; organizational commitment perception of primary school teachers was at the highest level in terms of internalization, respectively, identification, and the lowest level adaptation; primary school teachers occasionally experienced mobbing in terms of their social relations and position; there was a negative and significant relation between transformational leadership and organizational commitment and mobbing; school principals who used transformational leadership decreased the perception of mobbing according to the views of teachers; transactional leadership did not have significant effect on organizational commitment, but had positive and low-level effect on mobbing; although transformational leadership had positive effect on organizational commitment, the effect of transactional leadership on organizational commitment was not significant; there was a negative correlation between organizational commitment and mobbing; the more the level of organizational commitment of teachers increased, the less mobbing level was experienced; as the school principal displayed transformational leadership behaviours, it was seen that organizational commitment of teachers increased whereas their mobbing experience levels decreased; transactional leadership behaviours of school principals didn?t influence the teachers? organizational commitment while they increased mobbing experience levels of teachers; when compared to organizational commitment, transformational leadership was a better predictor on mobbing, and when compared to transactional leadership, organizational commitment was a better predictor.