The Relationship Between School Principals' Servant Leadership Behaviors and Conflict Management Styles

The aim of this research is to examine the relationship between school principals' servant leadership behaviors and conflict management styles in line with teachers' opinions. Relational survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the research. The study population consists of 1627 teachers who were reached by simple random sampling method working in public and private schools in Istanbul in the 2021-2022 academic year. “Servant Leadership Scale” adapted to Turkish by Kılıç and Aydın (2016) and “Conflict Management Styles Scale” developed by Rahim (1983) and adapted into Turkish by Gümüşeli (1994) were used as data collection tools in the research. “T-test, ANOVA, correlation and regression analysis” were performed for the findings. As a result of the research, the servant leadership levels of school principals were found as "very high". It was concluded that the School Principals mostly preferred the "Integration" style and respectively "Negotiation, Compromise, Avoidance and Domination" styles in conflict management. It was concluded that there was a high level of positive relationship between the servant leadership style and the integration style of the school principals, a mid-level relationship between the compromise and compromise styles, and a low level of positive relationship with the avoidance style. It was found that there was a low negative correlation with the domination style. It was found that the school principals' servant leadership style positively affected the integration, negotiation, compromise and avoidance styles in conflict management. It was found that the domination style had a negative effect.