The Relationship Between School Administrators’ Leadership Styles, School Culture, and Organizational Image

Abstract

In this study, the relationships between the leadership styles of school principals, school culture, and organizational image are examined according to the teachers’ perceptions. The study is designed according to a relational survey model, and it consists of 370 teachers working in 20 schools in Selçuklu, Karatay, and Meram districts of Konya, Turkey. The leadership style scale of school principals (LSSSP), the scale for school culture (SSC), and the scale of the organizational image (SOI) were used as data collection tools. Pearson’s correlation, regression, and path analysis were used for analyzing data in addition to descriptive statistics. It was found that school principals manifest transformational leadership characteristics, the perception of school culture by the teachers is strong and the perception of the organizational image by the teachers is medium. It was also found that there are significant relationships between leadership styles, the school culture, and organizational image, along with the leadership style of school principals, which significantly predicted school culture, and school culture, which significantly predicted organizational image. School culture has a mediator effect on both leadership styles and the organizational image. This is due to the realization of the leadership styles that have an important role in developing an organizational image, through school culture. This research offers the presumptions that leadership manifested by the principal creates a positive effect on the members of the organization and contributes to the formation of strong school culture, in addition to leadership and school culture making a positive contribution to the organizational image of the educational institution.