The Mediating Effect of Work Ethics on the Relationship Between Authentic Leadership of School Heads and Task Performance of Public School Teachers

The utmost objective of this study was to investigate the mediating effect of work ethics on authentic leadership of school heads and task performance of teachers among the 310 public elementary school teacher-respondents in Magsaysay South and North districts, Division of Davao del Sur. This study used a descriptive correlation technique in a non-experimental design. The statistical tools used were mean, Person r, and path analysis using AMOS. Research instruments on work ethics, authentic leadership and task performance which underwent content validation were used as sources of data. Numerical data revealed that the level of authentic leadership of school heads was rated high. Similarly, the level of task performance of teachers was rated high. Likewise, the level of work ethics of teachers was rated high. Moreover, utilizing Pearson r, results revealed that there are significant relationships between authentic leadership and task performance, work ethics and task performance and authentic leadership and task performance. Utilizing path analysis, the results of the study revealed that there is partial mediation on effect of work ethics on the relationship between authentic leadership and task performance. Subsequently, it is significantly pointed out that about 36.9 percent of the total effect of work ethics on the task performance and about 63.1 percent of the total effect is either direct or mediated by other variables not included in the model. This implies that authentic leadership influences work ethics which in turn influences task performance.