The Relationship Between School Administrators’ Paternalistic Leadership Behaviours and Teachers’ Work Alienation Levels

Abstract

<p style="text-align: justify;">The study aims to determine the relationship between school administrators’ paternalistic leadership behaviours and teachers’ work alienation levels. The research sample group involves 205 teachers working in the Anatolian high schools in the central district of Siirt. Research data was collected through the “Paternalistic Leadership Behaviours Scale of School Principals” and the “Work Alienation Scale”. According to the descriptive and Pearson correlation analysis results of the research, it was determined that the paternalistic leadership behaviours of the school administrators are at a “strongly agree” level while the work alienation of the teachers is at a “somewhat agree” level, and a negative moderate significant relationship was found between the paternalistic leadership behaviours and the teachers’ work alienation levels. The path analysis revealed that benevolent leadership predicts the powerlessness and meaninglessness dimension negatively significantly; authoritarian leadership predicts the powerlessness dimension positively significantly, and moral leadership predicts meaninglessness and self-estrangement negatively significantly. Moreover, it was also established that, in general, paternalistic leadership behaviours predict the teachers’ work alienation negatively significantly as a whole. As a result of the research, school administrators were suggested to display helpful and ethical behaviours by watching over the teachers in various matters.</p>