The Leadership Styles of School Principals in Secondary Schools in East Jerusalem

Abstract

The article is investigating the leadership style of Arab school principals of the secondary school in East Jerusalem. It discusses the educational situation of East Jerusalem in the complex and very particular context of the city of Jerusalem. Based on a survey of a representative sample of 375 teachers in secondary schools, the researcher identified the leadership styles practiced by their school principal: autocratic, democratic and permissive. The research found that democratic leadership style is the most practiced leadership style with a high degree of approval (3.76), given the score for characteristics and features of this style and with the greatest relative weight (75.27%). The "autocratic leadership style" ranked second, with 2.84 (medium) degree of approval and relative weight of (56.82%) and the permissive leadership style ranked third, with 2.54 (low- to medium) degree of approval and relative weight of (50.85%). These results indicate that a change is happening in the leadership styles used by school principals in East Jerusalem, towards a more democratic leadership style, however still heavily influenced by the traditional Arab culture.

Keywords

• leadership style
• school principals
• secondary school
• east jerusalem