Strategic leadership and crisis management skills of secondary school principals

In this study, it was aimed to deterimine the strategic leadership and crisis management skills of secondary school principals according to the perceptions of teachers. It was studied if there is any difference in perceptions of teachers in terms of their gender, marital satatus, age, professional seniority, level of education and field of study. 1430 teachers working in 2020-2021 academic year in Buca in İzmir are taken as the universe of the study. 313 teachers at 27 secondary schools have responded the scales in total. Convenience sampling method has been used in gathering the data. "Strategic Leadership Scale" and "The Scale of the Crisis Management Skills of Primary School Principals" were implemented in the study. In order to conduct the study, an official permission was obtained from İzmir National Education Directorate. Scales were conveyed to the teachers through Google forms electronically means. In addition to the scale implemented to determine the demographical features of the teachers (gender, marital satus, age, professional seniority, level of education and field of study), The Scale of the Crisis Management Skills of Primary School Principals with 31 and The Scale of Strategic Leadershipwith 35 items were implemented in the study In strategic leadership scale, it has been displayed that teachers have positive perceptions on the strategic leadership skills of principals. The subdimension which the teachers demonstrated the highest mean score was Ethical Implementations (X=4,38), on the other hand, the lowest mean belongs to Administrative Leadership (X=3,71). It has been ascertained that administrative leadership skill perception displays difference according to the gender, age and study field of teachers. In terms of gender variable, in the subdimension of administrative leadership; in terms of age variable, in the subdimensions of transformational leadership, ethical implementations and political implementations; in terms of study field, inthe subdimensions of transformational leadership and ethical implementations, significant differences have been revealed. However, significant difference has not been found in terms of professional seniority and level of education. In "The Scale of the Crisis Management Skills of Primary School Principals", it has been brought out that teachers have positive perceptions on the crisis management skills of principals. The highest mean is in the subdimension of Pre-Crisis Period (X̄=4,027), and the lowest one is the Crisis Period (X̄=4,006). The mean score value of the scale is (X̄=4,016). No significant difference has been discovered in terms of the variables gender, marital status, age, professional seniority and level of education. According to the study field of teachers, a significant difference has been determined both in pre-crisis period (p=,008) and crisis period (p=,000). Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient was calculated to determine the relationship between the strategic leadership of secondary school principals and their crisis management skills. It has been revealed that the positive correlation between transformational leadership and pre-crisis period management skills is strongly significant, the correlation between administrative leadership and crisis period management skills and between and pre-crisis period management skills are both positive with a weak significance, correlation of ethical implementations and correlation of political implementations with pre-crisis period and crisis period management skills is strongly significant and positive each. In prediction of crisis management skills through strategic leadership of principals, simple regression analysiswas used and as a result of it, it has been revealed that one-unit increase in strategic leadership leads to 0,776 increase in crisis management skills. In other words, the more the strategic leadership rates of the principals at schools the scale is implemented, the more their crisis management skills increase. Key words: Leadership, strategic leadership, crisis, crisis management skills