SELF-LEADERSHIP BEHAVIORS AS PREDICTOR OF TEACHERS’ TAKING INITIATIVE

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate whether teachers’ self-leadership behaviors can predict whether they will take initiative behaviors. This research was designed with the relational survey method. Research sample consists of 585 elementary school teachers working in 32 different schools in Istanbul, Turkey. Additionally, the sample was determined with simple random sampling. The data of the research was collected with the Self- Leadership Scale and Taking Initiative Scale for Educational Organizations. The relationship between teachers’ taking initiative behaviors and self-leadership behaviors was tested with Pearson Correlation analysis. Afterwards, multilinear regression analysis was utilized to analyze whether teachers’ self-leadership behaviors predict taking initiative behaviors. According to the research results, it was revealed that teachers use the strategy of focusing the idea on the natural rewards the most, and the strategy of self-punishment the least among self-leadership strategies. Moreover, it was found that teachers enact proactive action the most and self-starting the least among taking initiative behaviors. It emerged that there is a positive and significant relationship between teachers’ taking initiate behaviors and self-leadership behaviors, except for the sub-dimension of self-punishment. It was found that the sub-dimensions of self-leadership significantly predict the sub-dimensions of taking initiative. These results were discussed in the theoretical frameworks of action and self-influence theories. At the end of the research, these suggestions can be offered that in-service trainings on leadership development should be applied in order to foster taking initiatives. Further researchers can analyze the relationship between taking initiative and self-leadership behaviors with qualitative analyze. Article visualizations: