The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of teachers' perception of the leadership style of the heads of daycare centers to their job satisfaction in a bid to help improve the performance of daycare centers. The subjects in this study...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of teachers' perception of the leadership style of the heads of daycare centers to their job satisfaction in a bid to help improve the performance of daycare centers. The subjects in this study were 202 teachers who worked at daycare centers in Cheongju.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, regarding their way of looking at the leadership styles of the heads of daycare centers, 51.5 percent, the largest group, found their heads to exert an efficient leadership, followed by relationship-motivated leadership, inefficient leadership and initiating-structure leadership.
Second, as for connections between the general characteristics of the heads and their leadership style, efficient leadership style was most common. By career, educational background and major field of study, this type of leadership style was more prevailing among the heads who had 10-year or higher career(52.8%), received graduate-school education (69.3%) and majored in social welfare(65.4%).
Third, concerning relations between the leadership style of the heads to the job satisfaction of the teachers, their satisfaction with job itself and interpersonal relations were most tied into initiating-structure leadership, and their satisfaction with social recognition, working environments and pay were most correlated to efficient leadership style. The leadership style of the heads made a statistically significant difference to every job-satisfaction subfactor.
Fourth, as to correlation between the leadership style of the heads and the job satisfaction of the teachers, the leadership style of the heads had a negative correlation to the career of the teachers, and that was positively correlated to their educational level. Their relationship with the heads and colleagues had a positive correlation to their satisfaction with working environments, and this finding implied that those who had more satisfactory relationship with the heads and colleagues expressed higher satisfaction with working environments, and that more satisfaction with working environments led to higher satisfaction with pay.
Based on the above-mentioned findings, there are some suggestions:
First, in regard to the impact of the leadership style of the heads on their job satisfaction, those whose supervisors exerted an efficient leadership were most satisfied with their job. To improve the quality of education and attain its objects, the heads of daycare centers should be wise enough to employ both relationship-motivated and initialing-structure leadership styles properly.
Second, the chiefs of daycare centers should provide strong motivation to teachers by cutting down on their heavy work load and offering sufficient reeducation opportunities, and they should give sufficient financial backing to them.
Third, how to enhance the job performance of teachers should carefully be studied, and the chiefs of daycare centers should be qualified and tare a determined attitude toward how to educate children and run their institutes to ensure management efficiency.
Fourth, the heads of daycare centers should put their energy into reinventing themselves to have a more ideal leadership, and it's needed to take legal steps to have them get training to improve their leadership.