Principals’ transformational and transactional leadership styles and teachers’ job satisfaction: A perspective from high school teachers

Abstract

The significant impact of school principals’ transformational and transactional leadership styles on teachers’ job satisfaction has been documented in different settings of education. However, until now, limited research in this field has been conducted in the setting of high school education. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the influence of transformational and transactional leadership styles of principals on teachers’ job satisfaction. The present study utilised the multifactor leadership questionnaire and the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire to collect data from 387 teachers in 24 high schools. The results of correlation coefficient analyses showed significantly positive effects of the transformational leadership and significantly negative effects of the transactional leadership on teachers’ job satisfaction. The results of multiple regression analyses also revealed that both principals’ leadership styles predicted teachers’ intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction. The findings of this study support an implementation of the transformational leadership style in the educational context to undertake necessary changes in leadership practices to improve teachers' job satisfaction. The study suggests that future studies should examine the impacts of these leadership styles on other teachers’ outcomes, such as self-efficacy, responsibility, turnover and retention.

Keywords: Job satisfaction, leadership styles, transactional leadership, transformational leadership