Teacher Leadership and Conflict Management in EFL Classroom in the Light of the Contingency Theory of Human Resource Management: An Interdisciplinary Study

Abstract

The present interdisciplinary research was enlightened by the contingency theory of human resource management (HRM) and aimed to explore Iranian EFL teachers’ leadership and conflict management styles in the private sector. To this aim, Fiedler’s leadership measurement instrument along with Thomas & Kilmann’s conflict management instrument were used to collect data from 51 EFL teachers teaching in private language institutes of Khorasan Razavi, Iran. The aim was to find what proportion of teachers were task-oriented and what proportion were relation-oriented in leadership, and which conflict management styles were more prevalent among task-oriented and which were dominant among relation-oriented teachers. Furthermore, comparisons were made between male/female, younger (20-30 yrs.)/older (>30 yrs.) and experienced (>5 yrs.)/novice (<5 yrs.) teachers in terms of the leadership style as well as the conflict management style. Descriptive as well as inferential statistics were used to analyze the data in SPSS21. The results revealed that the majority of participants used task-oriented leadership style in class. Task-oriented teachers showed to use the accommodating conflict management style more while relation-oriented teachers prevalently used the collaborating style. Statistically significant differences were found between demographic groups in terms of the leadership and conflict management styles. Awareness of different leadership and conflict management styles can enrich teacher training courses and professional development programs in Applied Linguistics.