Spiritual Leadership and Organizational Culture: A Study of Structural Equation Modeling.

Abstract The aim of this study is to test the spiritual leadership behaviors of school principles in a structural equation model. The study is designed to test causality with the assumption that causality exists between the two variables. In this study, spiritual leadership behavior of managers is treated as the independent variable whereas the organizational culture is the dependent variable in the model. Population of this research is 2447 primary school teachers who were working in 32 primary schools in Atasehir-Istanbul/Turkey. Sampling group consists of 359 voluntary teachers defined with (layer) cluster sampling method according to three income levels (high-mid-low). Data are collected in two scales which were originally developed by researcher. The Spiritual leadership scale consisted of two components and five subscales (performance: commitment, vision, productive and attendance: belonging, believe). The Organizational Culture Scale consisted of four subscales (managerial, social, value and aim). In order to test the structural equity model designed in the research, path coefficients and defined relations between implied and observed variables are used. Findings show that attendance highly affects performance and, in turn, performance affects school culture at the mid-level. It is suggested that the perception of spiritual leadership be improved in structural equation models in future studies. Keywords Spiritual Leadership, Organizational Culture, Structural Equation Modeling Big man approach to leadership which had dominated leadership arguments before the 1900s initiated the emergence of Personal Qualities of Leadership, the leadership approach of the 1900s. The results of Stogdill (1948, 1950) and Myers's (1954) studies, which put forth that leadership has no meaningful relationship with any physical traits including intelligence, prepared the end of personal quality approach. In the 1940s, group approach of leadership (Whyte, 1943) started to be influential. Conducted studies pioneered the earliest experimental studies of Ohio State (Halpin, & Winer, 1957) and Michigan Universities (Katz, & Kahn, 1952) which were the source for modern leadership studies. Parallel to these developments, in the 1960s, behavioral leadership approach (Fiedler, 1967) was effective. These leadership theories are such: administrative style leadership theory (Blake, & Mouton, 1964), X-Y leadership theory (McGregor, 1960), system four leadership theory (Likert, 1971). Following this period however situational leadership approach which builds its theory on the present situation, was attempted to be clarified. They were: Active leadership theory (Fiedler, 1967); 3D leadership theory (Reddin, 1970); way-objective theory (Hause, 1971); contingency leadership theory (Hersey, & Blanchard, 1972) and normative leadership theory (Vroom, & Yetton, 1973). In the aftermath of the 1990s new theories emerged in leadership approaches: Shared leadership (Gronn, 2006), future focused leadership (Marx, 2006), ethical leadership (Rubenstein, 2003), cultural leadership (Sergiovanni, & Starratt, 1988), service leadership (Ferch, 2005) and spiritual leadership (Fleischman, 1990; Fry, 2003; Maddock, & Fulton, 1998) are some of them. Spiritual Leadership The origin of spiritual leadership concept is based on the word spirit. According to Anderson (2000), spirit is originated from the Latin word spiritus which means breath. Spirit which is defined as the abstract power keeping people alive and invigorated means a person's deep connection with self and awareness of realities in human nature (Fairholm, 1997). In religion and philosophy, spirit is delimited as the non-material existence of human beings which keeps its vitality even after death (Baloglu, & Karadag, 2009). Unlike classic organizational, administrative and leadership theories; spiritual leadership deals with people's spiritual aspects at work (Fairholm, 1997). …