Principals’ Leadership Styles and Teachers’ Organizational Commitment: The Mediating Role of Teachers’ Job Satisfaction in Addis Ababa Government Secondary Schools
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Date
2024-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study explored the relationship between principals‘ leadership styles and teachers‘ organizational commitment as mediated by teachers‘ job satisfaction. A convergent parallel mixed research method employing a correlational research design was used to achieve the objective of the study. A total of 385 teachers were selected from 931 using simple random sampling techniques and took part in filling out the study questionnaire, and 39 purposively chosen school principals from 54 took part in key informant interviews. The study adopted and used three standardized questionnaires: MLQ, TJSQ, and OCQ for the quantitative data collected from teacher respondents and self-developed semi-structured interview guides to collect qualitative data from principals. The findings of the study showed that secondary school principals are practicing transformational leadership by pushing their staff members to consider new thoughts, use a variety of technologies, and organize training to fill gaps in their knowledge. Transactional leadership is also applied in schools trough provision of incentives and rewards for teachers‘ accomplishments. But, laissez-faire leadership style is rarely employed. Transformational and transactional leadership styles were positively and significantly related to teachers‘ organizational commitment. Despite principals striving to take into account the needs of each teacher and function as role models in all of their activities, their practice of transformational and transactional leadership does not operate to its fullest potential in schools due to challenges related to teacher engagement in routine activities rather than creating new methods and ideas, multiple responsibilities of school principals, COVID-19-related activities, and a poor school environment. It was also found that the relationship between transformational leadership style and teachers' organizational commitment is partially and significantly mediated by teachers' job satisfaction. Enhancing the exercise of transformational and transactional leadership through improving the school environment and delegating principals‘ authority to the department heads, teachers,‘ and student representatives is suggested to escalate the teachers‘ organizational commitment. In addition, schools should establish a public relations department that can help information sharing including school goals and related activities between school management body, students, students‘ family, and other stakeholders. Besides, Ministry of Education should collaborate with Addis Ababa education bureau and Universities to develop transformational leadership training programs to school principals in order to help them increase teachers' organizational commitment. Further research should be conducted on the topic using larger sample sizes and demographic mediators like sex, age, and work experience.
Key Words: Job Satisfaction, Leadership, Mediating variable, Organizational Commitment, Leadership Styles.
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Keywords
Job Satisfaction, Leadership, Mediating variable, Organizational Commitment, Leadership Styles