A study of the relationship between leadership behavior of principals in the public schools in East Tennessee and job satisfaction of the teachers

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the leadership behaviors of public school principals in East Tennessee as perceived by the teachers and to examine any possible relationship between the perceived leadership behavior and job satisfaction of the teachers. In particular, the problem addressed by this study was which, if any, of the two critical leadership behaviors of principals, measured by the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire (namely, consideration and initiation of structure), contribute to job satisfaction of teachers, as measured by Brayfield's Index of Job Satisfaction.

The 580 teachers included in the study were randomly selected from the 12,096 teachers who are members of TEA from East Tennessee. These 580 teachers were mailed questionnaires. The questionnaire consisted of two sections. The first section was a 20-item adaptation of Andrew Halpin's Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) which included 10 items dealing with consideration and 10 items dealing with initiation of structure. The second section of the questionnaire included 18 items which were designed by Arthur Brayfield to measure job satisfaction.

The analytical procedures utilized to test the responses to the questionnaire were the Pearson Correlation and the T-Test, These statistics were used to test the following hypotheses at the .05 level of significance:

Hypothesis 1. There is no difference between the principals' LBDQ score on consideration as perceived by the teachers and the job satisfaction score of the teachers.

Hypothesis 2. There is no difference between the principals' LBDQ score on initiation of structure as perceived by the teachers and the job satisfaction score of the teachers.

Hypothesis 3. There is no difference between the principals' LBDQ score of high consideration and low consideration as perceived by the teachers and the job satisfaction scores of the teachers.

Hypothesis 4. There is no difference between the principals' LBDQ score of high initiation of structure and low initiation of structure as perceived by the teachers and the job satisfaction score of the teachers.

The analysis of data revealed that all four null hypotheses formulated for this study were rejected. That is, a significant relationship was found to exist between principals' scores on consideration and initiation of structure and teachers' job satisfaction scores. Not only was a high correlation found to exist, but also that a high score for consideration and initiation of structure was statistically significant in its affect on resultant job satisfaction of teachers.

Conclusions and implications drawn by the researcher from the results of this study include:

1. The principal should be more cognizant of his effective use of consideration and initiation of structure if he is to be a successful leader.

2. Inservice training for administrators should include more sessions dealing with consideration and initiation of structure as vital skills for successful administrators.

3. University departments of education and supervision should require adequate course work dealing with leadership style and provide opportunities for the prospective administrators to practice leadership components such as consideration and initiation of structure.

4. Studies such as this one should be replicated to explore other possible aspects of administrative behavior which affect job satisfaction of teachers so that a more complete theory of teacher job satisfaction might be developed.

5. Studies such as this one should be replicated to ascertain if a similar relationship exists between superintendents' leadership behavior and job satisfaction of principals.