Teachers' Views on the Role of Leadership in the Implementation of Total Quality Management

Abstract

The purpose of this research is the identification of the Greek teachers’ opinions concerning the role of the schools’ principals in the implementation of the five dimensions of total quality management. For the measurement of the total quality management’s dimensions, SERVQUAL model was used. For the identification of the leadership styles followed, the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used. The research sample consists of 217 teachers of Thessaloniki region in Greece, who are working to schools that operate in both public and private education. The questionnaire was online distributed and the convenience sampling, in combination with the avalanche method, were followed. The main results of the present research concern the positive correlation between all dimensions of total quality management with the transformational and transactional leadership style and their negative correlation with the laissez-faire leadership style. In addition, they relate to the identified statistically significant difference between the schools that operate on public and private sector, in the tangibles’ dimension, in which the public sector lags behind the private sector. Finally, in both the private and public sector schools in Greece, the most prevalent leadership styles are transformational and transactional, and the least prevalent is the laissez-faire leadership style, where no statistically significant differences were identified between the two sectors in terms of the leadership style that is followed.