The Relationship between Principals' Leadership Styles and Democratic Attitudes and Behaviors

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between the leadership styles of principals and their democratic attitudes and behaviors. The study group consists of 173 teachers working in the public schools in the central districts of Konya. 54,3% of the teachers are female and 45,7% of the teachers are male. Akan, Y？ld？r？m and Yal？？n’s (2014) Principals as Leadership Style Scale and Bak？r’s (2007) Democratic Attitudes and Behaviors Scale of Principals in School Management were used in this study. As a result of the research, it was seen that the means of democratic attitudes and behaviors significantly differed among the principals while the point averages of the transformational leadership, laissez-faire leadership and transactional leadership significantly did not differ among the principals according to gender variable of the teachers. According to the teachers' education level, it was seen that there was no significant difference in the means of the leadership styles and the democratic attitudes and behaviors of principals. According to the variation of teacher's professional seniority, the means of democratic attitudes and behaviors of principals differed significantly. When the leadership styles were assessed in themselves, it was found that the difference between the point averages of the transformational leadership style and sub-dimension of the laissez-faire leadership style was significant, whereas the difference in the sub-dimension of transactional leadership style was not significant according to the variable of teacher’s professional seniority. There was a significant positive relationship between the democratic attitudes and behavior points of the principals and their transformational leadership style. There was a significant negative relationship between the democratic attitudes and behaviors points of principals and the points of transactional and laissez-faire leadership style