The Level of Faculty Members’ Spiritual Leadership (SL) Qualities Display According To Students in Faculty of Education

Abstract

Leadership is a process directing to a target of which followers, the participators are shared. For this reason leadership has an important effect on succeeding organizational targets. More importance is given to the leadership studies in order to increase organizational success each day. One of the leadership researches that attracts attention recently is spiritual leadership. Spiritual leadership (SL) is important for imposing ideal to the followers and giving meaning to the works they do. Focusing on SL that has recently taken its place in leadership literature, this study looks into what extend faculty members teaching at Faculty of Education display SL qualities. The study is in descriptive scanning model. 1819 students studying at Kocaeli University Faculty of Education in 2009-2010 academic year constitute the universe of the study. Observing leadership qualities takes long time. Therefore, the sample of the study is determined by deliberate sampling method and includes 432 students studying at the last year of the faculty. Data regarding faculty members’ SL qualities were collected using a questionnaire adapted from Fry's (2003) ‘Spiritual Leadership Scale’. Consequently, university students think that academic stuff shows the features of SL and its sub dimensions in a medium level. According to students, academicians show attitudes related to altruistic love rather than faith and vision. It is found that faculty members couldn’t display leadership qualities enough according to the students at the end of the study.