Exploring the effects of authentic leadership on academic optimism and teacher engagement in Thailand

Abstract

Purpose In the context of Thailand’s progress towards education reform, scholars have identified a lack of effective school-level leadership as an impeding factor. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a theoretical model of authentic leadership effects on teacher academic optimism and work engagement. Authentic leadership was considered a suitable model of school leadership in light of Thailand’s explicit recognition of the importance of developing the moral capacity of students and emphasis on ethical leadership. Design/methodology/approach The study employed a quantitative cross-sectional survey design. Survey data were obtained from 605 teachers in a nationally representative sample of 182 primary schools. The data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Findings The results indicated that the model of authentic leadership effects on teachers’ academic optimism and work engagement was validated. A moderate relationship was observed between authentic leadership and the dependent measures of teacher attitudes. Practical implications The study identified a potentially important lack of alignment between the espoused values and actions/decisions of school principals in Thailand. When combined with prior research conducted on leadership for educational reform in Thailand, our findings highlight the systemic nature of the problem faced in changing traditional patterns of behavior in Thai schools. More specifically, despite change in the nation’s educational goals, human resource management of the nation’s school leaders continues to produce administrators and managers rather than leaders, either instructional or moral. Originality/value The study extends prior studies of school leadership in the context of Thailand’s education reform that focused more specifically on principal instructional leadership in Thailand. In addition, this study of authentic school leadership is one of only a few conducted outside of Western societies.

The Relationship between Authentic Leadership and Work Engagement

“…According to the teachers, school administrators exhibit the mostly balanced processing behavior, then relational transparency, internalized morality, and lastly self-awareness behaviors and their general authentic leadership behaviors were high. Similarly to the results of this research, there are researches with authentic leadership levels of "high" (Çelik, 2015;Keser, 2013;Kıral, 2018a;Örs, 2015;Ünal, 2015) and there are also researches that have different results with authentic leadership levels of "low" (Kulophas, Hallinger, Ruengtrakul & Wongwanich, 2018); medium (Fox, Gong & Attoh, 2015;Gök, 2015;Secove Lopes, 2013;Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014;Srivastava & Dhar, 2017) and "very high" (Akıncı, 2016;Özden, 2015). It can be said that school administrators exhibit high level of authentic leadership behaviors and this is perceived by teachers in the same way.…”

“…However, teachers' work engagement can lead school administrators to move towards authentic leadership. In the studies that examine the concepts associated with authentic leadership in educational organizations, the relationship of authentic leadership; is medium with psychological capital and work engagement, Adil & Kamal (2016); is medium with psychological capital Feng-I (2016); is medium with organizational commitment and high with trusting the administrator Fox et al (2015); is medium with academic optimism and work engagement, Kulophas et al (2018); is medium with work engagement, Seco & Lopes (2013); is low with organizational citizenship and medium with psychological empowerment, Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach (2014); is high with academic optimism and extra role behavior, Srivastava & Dhar (2017); is medium with emotional intelligence, Akıncı (2016); is medium with life satisfaction and low with the support that perceived from the family, Gök (2015); is medium with psychological capital, Kevser (2013), is medium with organizational conflict management strategy, Örs (2015); is medium with organizational citizenship, Özden (2015); is low with teachers ' voice, Ünal (2015). In the studies that examine the concepts associated with work engagement in educational organizations, the relationship of work engagement; is medium with transformational leadership and organizational culture, Arifin, Troena, & Djumahir (2014); is positive medium with organizational commitment and negative medium with burnout, Hakanen et al (2006); is positive medium with job satisfaction, is negative medium with burnout and intention of leaving the job Høigaard et al (2012); is high with the job satisfaction, is negative medium with the intention of leaving the job, Klassen et al (2012); is medium with effectiveness of the school, Atçıoğlu (2018); is medium with emotional intelligence, Kabar (2017); is medium with school climate, Karakaya (2015); is medium with selfrecovery power, self-efficacy, self-esteem, autonomy, leader-member interaction and trust in manager Kavgacı (2014); is low between the organizational climate and the perception of organizational support, Köse (2015); is medium between school principal supervision styles, institutional support and parent support, Oymak (2015); is low with servant leadership, Sönmez (2014); is positive medium with spiritual leadership, Tan (2015); is low negative with loneliness in business life, Sezen (201...…”

“…This is very important for the school climate. In schools where authentic leadership behaviors are exhibited, there are findings that it will increase teachers' extra role behavior (Srivastava & Dhar, 2017), work engagement (Adil & Kamal, 2016;Kulophas et al, 2018;Seco & Lopes, 2013), organizational commitment (Fox et al, 2015), organizational citizenship behaviors (Özden, 2015;Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach, 2014) and life satisfaction (Gök, 2015). The exhibition of authentic leadership behaviors in the school increases the school's performance by supporting teachers' belief that their school's success will increase (Lester, Meglino & Korsgaard, 2002;Rego, Vitória, Magalhães, Ribeiro & Cunha, 2013).…”

Authentic leadership and teachers’ voice behaviour: The mediating role of psychological empowerment and moderating role of interpersonal trust

“…A growing body of research has identified principals' authentic leadership as being related to a series of desirable outcomes of teachers' multiple attitudes towards their job and multiple behaviours, for example, organizational citizenship and withdrawal behaviour (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Tsemach, 2014), psychological capital (Feng, 2016), work engagement (Kulophas et al, 2018;Wang and Bird, 2011), academic optimism (Kulophas et al, 2018), teacher trust (Fox et al, 2015), teachers' intentions to return (Bird et al, 2012) and emotional intelligence (Shapira-Lishchinsky and Levy-Gazenfrantz, 2016).…”

Authentic Leadership: A Value-Laden Leader

“…A growing body of evidences has identified principals' authentic leadership as being related to a series of school desirable outcomes such as teachers' attitude towards their profession and behaviour, more specifically, organizational citizenship and withdrawal behaviour (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Tsemach, 2014), teacher trust (Fox et al, 2015), emotional intelligence (Shapira-Lishchinsky & Levy-Gazenfrantz, 2016), psychological capital (Feng, 2016), academic optimism (Kulophas et al, 2018), teachers' intentions to return (Bird et al, 2012) and work engagement (Kulophas et al, 2018;Wang & Bird, 2011). However, the body of knowledge is still relatively limited.…”