Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Principals’ Interpersonal Emotionally Intelligent Behaviours Affecting Their Job Satisfaction

For schools to be desirable places in which to work, it is necessary for principals to recognise their teachers’ emotions, and be sensitive to their needs. This necessitates that principals are capable to correctly identify their emotionally intelligent behaviours (EIBs) they need to use in order to be successful leaders. They also need to have knowledge of their emotional intelligence and be able to identify the factors and situations that evoke emotion at an interpersonal level. If a principal is able to do this, then the control and understanding of emotions and behaviours of oneself and others could improve vastly. This study focuses on the interpersonal EIBS of principals affecting the job satisfaction of teachers. The correlation coefficients in this quantitative study strongly indicate that there is a statistical significance between the respondents’ level of job satisfaction, the rating of their principals’ EIBs and how they believe their principals’ EIBs will affect their sense of job satisfaction. It can be concluded from the data obtained in this study that there is a significant correlation between the sense of job satisfaction of teachers and their principals’ interpersonal EIBs. This means that the more satisfied a teacher is at school, the more appropriate and meaningful a principal’s EIBs will be. Conversely, the more dissatisfied a teacher is at school the less appropriate and less meaningful a principal’s interpersonal EIBs will be. This implies that the leaders’ EIBs can be construed as one of the major factors affecting the job satisfaction of employees.

Authors:

• Prakash Singh

Keywords:

• Emotional intelligence
• teachers’ emotions
• teachers’ job satisfaction
• principals’ emotionally intelligent behaviours.

References:

[1] Orme, G. (2001). Emotionally intelligent living. London: Crown House.
[2] Sterrett, A. S. (2000). The manager’s pocket guide to emotional
intelligence. Massachusetts: HRD Press.
[3] Orme, G., & Cannon, K. (2000). Everything you wanted to know about
implementing an emotional intelligence programme (but were afraid to
ask). EQ Network. Retrieved from: www.Eiuk.com
[4] Manser, P. G. (2005). The influence of school principals’ emotionally
intelligent behaviours on the job satisfaction of educators in the Eastern
Cape. Unpublished PhD thesis. Port Elizabeth: Nelson Mandela
Metropolitan University.
[5] Singh, P., Manser, P., & Dali, C. (2013). Principal leadership.
Saarbrucken, Germany: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing.
[6] Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York:
Bantam Books.
[7] Goleman, D. (1996). Emotional intelligence. London: Bloomsbury.
[8] Fehd, L. (2001). Emotional intelligence: an executive handbook. Austin:
Good Pages.
[9] Orme, G. (2000). The developing world of emotional intelligence.
Retrieved from: [email protected]
[10] Cavallo, C., & Brienza, M. A. (2001). Emotional competence and
leadership excellence at Johnson & Johnson: The emotional intelligence
and leadership study. Corporate Consulting Group. Retrieved from:
www.corconsultinggroup.com
[11] Singh, P., & Manser, P. (2002). Collegiality in education: A case study.
South African Journal of Education, 22: 56-64.
[12] Bar-On, R. (2000). Handbook of emotional intelligence. San Francisco:
Jossey Bass.
[13] Moller, T. (2002). The influence of emotional intelligence on
management with special reference to leaders of schools. In L. Calitz, O.
L. Fuglestad, & S. Lillejord (Eds.), Leadership in education. Sandown:
Heineman.
[14] Orme, G., & Bar-On, R. (2002). The contribution of emotional
intelligence to individual and organisational effectiveness. Competecy
and Emotional Intelligence, 9: 23-28.
[15] Bazerghi, E. (2003a). Organizational effectiveness. Retrieved from:
www.humanperformancestrategies.com
[16] Bazerghi, E. (2003b). Emotionally intelligent leadership. Retrieved
from: www.humanperformancestrategies.com
[17] Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence. In
P. Salovey, & D. Sluyter (Eds), Emotional development and emotional
intelligence. New York: Basic Books.
[18] Balt, D. (2003). Low educator morale: education department the main
culprit. National Professional Teachers’ Organisation of South Africa
press release, 10 February. Pretoria.
[19] Van Loggerenberg, A. (2002). Transformational leadership – a
prerequisite for implementing dynamic curriculum reform. In: Calitz, L.,
Fuglestad, O. L. & Lillejord, S. (Eds). Leadership in education.
Sandown: Heineman.
[20] Stein, S., & Book, H. (1999). The EQ edge. Emotional intelligence and
your success. New York: Kogan Page.
[21] Liebowitz, P. (2003). Job satisfaction amongst teachers. NUE Comment,
12: 13-14.
[22] Tomlinson, H. (2004). Educational leadership. Personal growth for
professional development. London: Sage.
[23] Travers, C. (1996). Teachers under pressure: stress in the teaching
profession. New York: Routledge.
[24] Maile, S. (2000). Recognition of competence: An empowerment model
for the retention of excellent teachers in the classroom. Unpublished
PhD thesis. Pretoria: University of Pretoria.
[25] Covey, S. R. (1992). The seven habits of highly effective people. Sydney:
Simon & Schuster.
[26] Elmore, R. (2000). Leadership for effective middle school practice. Phi
Delta Kappan, 82: 269-270.
[27] Strümpfer, D. J. W., & Mlonzi, E. N. (2001). Antonovsky’s sense of
coherence scale and job attitudes: three studies. South African Journal of
Psychology, 31: 31-54.
[28] Taysum, A. (2003). In search of the holistic leader. Management in
Education, 5: 9-12.
[29] Sergiovanni, T. J. (2001). Leadership. What’s in it for schools. London:
Routledge Falmer.
[30] McMillan, J. H., & Schumacher, S. (2001). Research in education. New
York: Longman.
[31] Robson, C. (2002). Real world research: a resource for social scientists
and practitioner-researchers. Oxford: Blackwell.
[32] Singh, P. & Manser, P. (2008). Correlation between the perceived
emotionally intelligent interpersonal behaviors of school principals and
the job satisfaction of their teachers. The International Journal of
Knowledge, Culture & Change Management, 8(1): 189-200.
[33] Huysamen, G. K. (1997). Descriptive statistics for the social and
behavioural sciences. Cape Town: Creda.