Principals' servant leadership, workplace spirituality, and job satisfaction of teachers

Abstract

This quantitative study examined the relationship between servant leadership, workplace spirituality and job satisfaction, reported by Seventh-day Adventist teachers and principals in Bangladesh. Although many existing theories on job satisfaction are found in the literature, mechanisms to ensure teachers’ job satisfaction are still questionable. This study addressed how principals’ servant leadership, workplace spirituality, and motivation influenced teachers’ job satisfaction. It has 2 main purposes: to determine and investigate the relationships among principals’ servant leadership, workplace spirituality, motivation and job satisfaction of the teachers in the Bangladesh Adventist Union Mission; and to improve the theoretical understanding of teachers’ job satisfaction. The subjects were 302 respondents (teachers and principals) of the 9 Adventist International Mission schools and 7 boarding schools in Bangladesh. They responded to a 5-part questionnaire—demographic variables, the Job Satisfaction Survey, Servant Leadership Survey, Workplace Spirituality Questionnaire, and Motivational Inventory. The results showed moderately high levels of teachers job satisfaction, principals servant leadership, workplace spirituality, and motivation. Teachers’ demographic factors: gender, age, educational degree, and years of experience revealed a significant difference in the relationship between teachers job satisfaction, and motivation, teachers perception servant leadership, workplace spirituality. The tenured teachers perceived low principals’ servant leadership, workplace spirituality, job satisfaction, and motivation compared to young teachers. The path analysis confirmed that principals’ servant leadership and workplace spirituality form a fit model to predict teachers’ job satisfaction. The greatest predictor on teachers’ job satisfaction was principals’ servant leadership (β = 0.431, p = 0.000, r2 = .22), followed by workplace spirituality (β = 0.152, p = 0.001, r2 = .13). However, the combination of these two variables had explained 25% (r2 = 25) variance of job satisfaction. Based on the results the following recommendations are made. Principals need to give careful attention to individual needs of the tenured teachers. They should practice servant leadership and involve tenured teachers in decision making to exercise teachers’ expertise in school leadership. They should occasionally review teachers’ motivation and satisfaction levels through interviews, group discussions, and formal and informal evaluation. Both teachers and principals should use the Servant Leadership Survey for a personal checklist of their attitude toward students and toward parents to pursue quality Christian education for the community.