EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP: RELATIONSHIPS WITH CREATIVE SCHOOL CLIMATE AND TEACHER JOB SATISFACTION

Abstract

This quantitative study investigates the relationship between primary school principals’ emotional intelligence, creative school climate, and teachers’ job satisfaction. The research was conducted in ten of the twelve primary schools in the city of Corinth, Greece, between September and November of the 2017–2018 school year. Participants comprised 10 school principals and 72 teachers. Data were collected through two questionnaires incorporating scales adapted from the Wong Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Overall Job Satisfaction scale, the Maslach Burnout Inventory, and a creative school climate questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using SPSS and included descriptive statistics, Cronbach’s alpha internal-consistency coefficients, and Pearson correlations, with statistical significance set at 0.05. Teachers rated principals’ emotional intelligence as satisfactory (M=36.23, SD=5.79, α=0.777), while job satisfaction was relatively high (M=56.74, SD=8.14, α=0.830). Principals’ emotional intelligence was positively associated with creative school climate (r=0.533, p<0.001), and creative climate was positively associated with teachers’ job satisfaction (r=0.422, p<0.001). In contrast, no statistically significant direct relationship was found between principals’ emotional intelligence and teachers’ job satisfaction. The findings highlight the importance of emotional and interpersonal competencies in school leadership, particularly for fostering a supportive and creative organizational climate. They also suggest that teacher job satisfaction is a multifactorial phenomenon and that school climate may represent an important intermediate domain of influence.