The Impact of Principal as Authentic Leader on Teacher Trust in the K‐12 Educational Context

Abstract

K‐12 principals exhibiting authentic leadership and the benefits derived from teacher trust in the principal beg for attention in today's educational milieu. Authentic leadership scholars proposed a major conceptual framework, which linked authentic leadership to follower's attitudes and behaviors. The framework purported that authentic leadership leads to trust, yet is mediated through personal and organizational identification. The current study empirically tested these relationships within the context of principals and teachers in the K‐12 setting. The context is ideal because principals are increasingly called upon to create open, collaborative, and positive learning communities. Nineteen public and private schools in the state of Maryland participated in the study, with 398 teachers (77% response rate) responding. The results support a framework of principals exhibiting authentic leadership where personal identification is a mediator in the causal pathway from authentic leadership to teacher trust. The results do not substantiate the framework regarding organizational identification being a mediator in the same causal pathway. Educational leaders can view the study as prescriptive, thereby building overall trust in the often strained asymmetrical relationship between administrators and teachers.

Reframing commitment in authentic leadership: Untangling relationship–outcome processes

“…Therefore, authentic leadership behavior directly influences followers' trust in the leader (Clapp-Smith, Vogelgesang, & Avey, 2009), while followers' personal identification with their leader mediates the relation between their perceptions of authentic leadership and their affect-based trust in the leader. Existing empirical studies support this partial mediation effect on trust (Fox, Gong, & Attoh, 2015;Wong, Spence-Laschinger, & Cummings, 2010). Congruent with their results, we propose that followers' personal identification functions as a mediating mechanism through which authentic leadership produces increased follower trust.…”

The Ecology of Teachers’ Experiences with Violence and Lack of Administrative Support

“…More specifically, Tickle, Chang and Kim () found administrative support was a key predictor in teachers’ job satisfaction and intent to remain in the profession. Further, perceived authenticity of principal leadership is associated with greater personal identification with the principal and teacher trust in the administration, illustrating the importance of building strong interpersonal relationships (Fox, Gong & Attoh, ). Qualitative work has demonstrated greater teacher motivation and a more positive learning environment when principals utilize transformational leadership styles as opposed to authoritarian styles (e.g., Finnigan, ).…”

Authentic Leadership: A Value-Laden Leader

“…A growing body of evidences has identified principals' authentic leadership as being related to a series of school desirable outcomes such as teachers' attitude towards their profession and behaviour, more specifically, organizational citizenship and withdrawal behaviour (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014), teacher trust (Fox et al, 2015), emotional intelligence (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Levy-Gazenfrantz, 2016), psychological capital (Feng, 2016), academic optimism (Kulophas et al, 2018), teachers' intentions to return (Bird et al, 2012) and work engagement (Kulophas et al, 2018;Wang & Bird, 2011). However, the body of knowledge is still relatively limited.…”