Women and men teachers' approaches to leadership styles

In this study, the aim was to find out how frequently teachers at compulsory-education level school − primary and junior high schools − perceived that they would adopt various leadership styles in their schools if they were the principal and if this frequency was gender related. Data were collected from 321 teachers from compulsory-education schools by means of the Leadership Questionnaire (Bowers & Seashore, 1966) measuring four leadership styles – support, interaction facilitation, goal emphasis, and work facilitation. The questionnaire was translated and reliability analyses for teachers in Turkey were carried out. On average, the teachers scored at a very high level for leadership style in goal emphasis; and at a high level in interaction facilitation, support, and work facilitation. The highest score was for goal emphasis, the lowest for work facilitation. Men scored at higher levels than women did in all leadership styles. Suggestions are made about what should be done to achieve effective leadership in schools, to help teachers have a positive approach to more participative leadership styles, and to remove gender inequity among school principals and leaders.