The relationship of principals' leadership styles and special and regular education teachers' attitudes, behaviors, and stress levels

This study investigated special and regular education teachers' perceptions of leadership styles as they relate to their stress indicators. Specifically, this study examined the perceptions of randomly selected regular education teachers (n = 165) and special education teachers ( n = 100) in the states of Georgia and South Carolina regarding the leadership style of their principals and their own levels of stress. The leadership style was determined by the Leadership Effectiveness and Adaptability Description (LEAD-Other); the level of stress was determined by the Matthews Burnout Scale for Employees (MBSE).;Using factorial analysis of variance, significance was found in the two teacher groups on the dependent variables: job dissatisfaction and workplace stress. Regular education teachers had higher job dissatisfaction and workplace stress scores, on average, than special education teachers.;Using independent t tests, significant differences between regular and special education teachers' overall stress levels were found for the S1 ("Telling") leadership style. Regular education teachers reported higher overall stress levels than special education teachers. No significant differences were found between regular education and special education teachers' overall stress levels for the other three leadership styles---S2 ("Selling"), S3 ("Participating"), and S4 ("Delegating").;Significant differences were found between regular education and special education teachers' job dissatisfaction behavior for the S1 ("Telling") leadership style. No differences were found between regular and special education teachers' job dissatisfaction behavior for the S2 ("Selling"), S3 ("Participating"), or S4 ("Delegating") leadership styles. No significant differences were found between regular and special education teachers' workplace stress level for either leadership style.;The results also showed that the majority of teachers identified Style 2/Selling (high task/high relationship) as their principal's predominate leadership style. The leadership styles of "telling" (S1) and "delegating" (S4), both low relationship styles, led to higher stress levels than "selling" (S2) and "participating" (S3).