Spiritual Leadership in Primary Schools in Turkey

Abstract

In an era in which technological facilities and scientific developments dominate every aspect of our daily lives, inevitably affect almost all dimensions of life, it is a reality that although people have financial opportunities and they can access the information needed with ‘a few clicks’, there is a questioning the ‘meaning’ of what in hand and the ‘meaning and purpose’ of organizations and life in general. Thus, leadership approaches to adapt to changing paradigms and to consider spiritual needs of human beings are ‘a must’ for almost any organization. Spiritual leadership is one of these leadership approaches. This study focuses on the perceptions of spiritual leadership of teachers in public primary schools, and the relationship between their levels of perception and some variables. As for the sample, it was composed of 852 teachers in 25 public primary schools selected randomly using cluster sampling method. This study uses ‘Spiritual Leadership Questionnaire’ developed by Fry. The results and findings of the study indicate that the highest mean is for Meaning/Calling and the lowest mean is for Satisfaction with life. There are significant differences between scores for Membership and Organizational commitment dimensions in terms of gender. Seniority, branch, school type, education level and school size all appear to be a source of significant difference for spiritual leadership.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2015.v5n2p123