The relationship between elementary school principals’ transformational leadership and spiritual well-being

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between transformational leadership and spiritual well-being among elementary school principals. A correlational research or ex post facto method was used in this study. The sample population comprised 141 subjects, of which 69 were male and 72 were female. Bass and Avolio's Transformational Leadership Questionnaires and Ellison's Spiritual Well-Being Scale were used. The results obtained indicated that the assessment of domains related to transformational leadership style would show, relatively, the importance of a 'without intervention' leadership style; however, values for passive avoidant leadership, management-by-exception and contingent reward were greater than the other dimensions used. There was a positive correlation between spiritual well-being and its dimensions, as well as transformational leadership and its dimensions, excluding the religious dimension and intellectual stimulation, contingent reward, management-by-exception and passive avoidant leadership, and between dimensional being and leadership without intervention in other dimensions (though low). The results of this study also showed that the spiritual well-being dimension can predict 12.7% of the behavior of transformational leadership of principals.

Spirituality and Transformational Leadership Practices: A Quantitative Study

“…[3,7] The results of the study showed western Pennsylvania nonprofit administrators' spirituality to be positively correlated with some but not all transformational leadership practices and were consistent with other similar studies found in the literature. [11,19] Mydin et al discovered more evidence of a relationship between spirituality and transformational leadership than the present study, showing spirituality to be positively correlated with most measures of transformational leadership. [4] Iyer, in contrast, found a single relationship between spirituality and connecting with others.…”

“God is my doctor”: mindfulness meditation/prayer as a spiritual well-being coping strategy for Jamaican school principals to manage their work-related stress and anxiety

“…The participants in this study conceptualized their use of mindfulness meditation/prayer as connected to their belief in God. They relied on their relationship with, faith in and trust in a higher being to cope with the stress and anxiety they experience as a result of their work and work intensification (Mehdinzhad and Nouri, 2016; Walker, forthcoming). For example, Principal 3 shared that when dealing with challenges such as operating with limited resources to meet work demands, he “talks to doctor God [and] also meditate…my quiet moments with meditation help me to stay present…[because] when [I] am overworked or thinking too much I feel anxious.” For this principal, meditation is a form of prayer, which he uses to stay “present.” Principal 5 described using mindfulness meditation and prayer in a similar way: “One of the things I practice…when feeling stressed…is I depend on the Lord; I try to garner my strength from him…through deep reflection.” This was a recurrent theme among the participants' responses – gathering their strength through quiet reflection on God.…”

“…For the purposes of this article, however, I focus almost exclusively on the practice as part and parcel of Christian belief, because that is how my participants conceptualized their use of the strategy. Generally speaking, spiritual belief is faith in a supernatural power; this faith can provide a sense of purpose and support when confronted with challenges (Fisher, 2001, 2011; Fisher and Ng, 2017, Mehdinzhad and Nouri, 2016; Schwebel, 2017). Researchers have argued that spiritual belief is subjective and socioculturally related to individuals' background and understanding of life, and that people can be spiritual without having any affiliation with religious groups (Bellous and Csinos, 2009; Faull, 2012).…”

Reconceptualizing principal well-being: state, measurement and consequences

“…Bech, 2004;Richardson et al, 2014;Ryff, 1989) and principal wellbeing (e.g. Mahfouz and Richardson, 2021;Mehdinezhad and Nouri, 2016;OECD, 2020;Pollock and Wang, 2020;Viac and Fraser, 2020) and then generated items for each domain. We used two principles to define the content domains.…”

“…The fifth instrument is the Spiritual Well-Being Scale developed in the US by Paloutzian and Ellison (1982) to measure both religious and existential wellbeing. Mehdinezhad and Nouri (2016) used the Spiritual Well-being Scale to measure the degree of school principals' spirituality in Iran. The final instrument is the Psychological Well-Being Scale developed in the US by Ryff (1989) as a measure of positive mental health.…”