Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Jeffery Peal

Abstract

This study’s purpose was to examine teacher job satisfaction, teacher preferred leadership behaviors, and the impact of these behaviors on teacher job satisfaction. Current research points to a myriad of contributing factors regarding teacher job dissatisfaction including increased accountability, heavy workloads, low salary, and perceived lack of principal support. In this study, 81 teachers secondary from an urban school district in North Carolina completed the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (Bass & Avolio, 2004) and the Job Satisfaction Survey (Spector, 1994). This online survey identified job satisfaction levels of teachers, preferred leadership behaviors, and correlations between teacher job satisfaction and the preferred leadership behaviors. Findings from this study indicated that teachers were ambivalent regarding their job satisfaction level overall but were very satisfied with the job itself. They were not satisfied at all with pay. The teachers preferred leaders who exhibited qualities such as being good communicators, supportive, honesty, integrity, team players, and who appreciated and recognized achievement. They did not prefer laissez-faire leaders. These characteristics would include leaders who did not act with urgency or waited for things to go wrong. Findings form the study indicated that there were no significant relationships between teacher job satisfaction and preferred leadership behaviors. This research may assist in developing leadership training and effective practices that can cultivate effective climates for maintaining teacher job satisfaction in schools.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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