Abstract:

This research addresses the issue of how we can benefit from school culture and school principals' leadership styles in order to reach schools that respond to the needs of the 21st century and to create dynamic schools and to provide school dynamism to meet the current and possible needs of their students both today and in the future. In this direction, seeking an answer to the question in the research, "Do the leadership styles of school principals and school culture significantly predict school dynamism?". The research is a descriptive study in survey method with relational approach. Within the scope of the research, data were collected from 747 teachers working in secondary schools located within the borders of İzmir province, using multi-stage stratified proportional cluster sampling. The relationship between school principals' level of realization of leadership styles, school culture and school dynamism was analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression. The independent variables of the research are school principals' leadership styles and school culture; The dependent variable is school dynamism. The results obtained from the research explain how we can benefit from the school principals' leadership styles and school culture to ensure school dynamism. In the research, it has been concluded that the highest contribution to school dynamism is made by the transformational leadership in schools where the culture of duty, success and bureaucracy is dominant, and the leadership that allows freedom, being negative in schools where the support culture is dominant. According to partial correlations and explained variance values in the study, it was seen that the effect of task and success culture on school dynamism was higher than support culture and bureaucratic culture. The research offers suggestions for school principals to think and act on their leadership behaviors and school culture in order to ensure school dynamism.

Keywords: