Leadership Concern: Its Causes, Consequences and The Coping Strategies

Abstract

This study aims to explore the leadership perceptions and leadership-related worries of educational administrators within the context of their own perspectives. This research was conducted as a phenomenology pattern, one of the qualitative research methods. Participants of this study include 30 school administrators and deputy principals working in schools of various types and levels. A semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher was used as the data collection tool in the study. The final form of the interview form, used as the data collection tool in the research, was given in line with the opinions of two educational science experts and two school administrators. The data obtained from the participants, chosen using criterion sampling, were collected using a semi-structured interview form and analyzed with content analysis. Participants stated that the fear of failure, according to their leadership perceptions in the context of leadership, hindered their actions. As a result of the analysis of the data regarding the concerns experienced by school administrators in the research, the theme of "Leadership Concern" and the categories of "Perception", "Leadership", "Competence" and "Bureaucratic Obstacles" and their codes were obtained. It is stated that the desire to be a leader of school administrators with the characteristics of openness to innovation, responsibility, compatibility, willingness, and balance in work-private life will increase, and their concerns related to leadership will also decrease. They also expressed the assumption that the reluctance they experienced about being a leader in their choices in schools negatively reflected in their applications.