| Three out of 4 people are dissatisfied with their jobs, and this dissatisfaction costs employers $350 billion a year in lost productivity (Lencioni, 2007). Job satisfaction and dissatisfaction have been shown to affect recruiting, hiring, and employee retention positively and negatively, respectively. Leadership of the organization has been shown to be critical to employee satisfaction and is directly linked to job satisfaction (Haid & Sims, 2009). This quantitative study examined the relationship between school principals' perception of their leadership style and teachers' perception of their job satisfaction in an early education setting. The study analyzed 3 leadership styles---transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire and the degree to which teachers were satisfied with their jobs. These leadership styles have been extensively measured in the research literature (Avolio, Bass, Jung, 1999; Balster, 2000; Bass, 1999) through application and analysis of responses to the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, (MLQ). Teacher job satisfaction was measured by the Abridged Job Descriptive Index (AJDI). The Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to analyze the responses from the MLQ and AJDI instruments to ascertain whether there was/was not a relationship between the principals' perception of their leadership style and the early education teachers' perception of their job satisfaction. The study's sample consisted of early childhood teachers working in early education centers in a school district in the western United States. The study results indicated that there was not a statistically significant relationship between the principal's perceived leadership style and the teachers' perceived job satisfaction. However, the findings suggest that teachers were satisfied with the supervision they received from their principals. |
