The Relationship between Teacher Job Satisfaction and Principal Leadership Style

Abstract

This study made use of Hersey and Blanchard's concept of situational leadership to investigate the relationship between teacher job satisfaction and the leadership behaviors of “telling,” “selling,” “participating,” and “delegating.” Questionnaires were mailed to a sample of 520 teachers, stratified by gender and school type. Three hundred and thirty-nine usable responses were returned (65 percent) and analyzed by correlation and analysis of variance procedures.About 42 percent of the respondents were either “very dissatisfied” or “dissatisfied.” Teachers were least satisfied with the financial aspects of teaching and most satisfied with their co-workers. There were no differences in satisfaction by teacher gender, principal gender, experience, or school type.Additionally, job satisfaction was not significantly related to leadership style. Suggestions for further research speak to the need to take into account the “consideration” aspect of leadership style and to measure job satisfaction in specific task areas such as curriculum development, faculty evaluation, staff development, and instructional organization.Policy implications of the findings were discussed.