Spiritual Leadership in Primary Schools in Turkey

In an era in which technological facilities and scientific developments dominate every aspect of our daily lives, inevitably affect almost all dimensions of life, it is a reality that although people have financial opportunities and they can access the information needed with ‘a few clicks’, there is a questioning the ‘meaning’ of what in hand and the ‘meaning and purpose’ of organizations – and life in general. Thus, leadership approaches to adapt to changing paradigms and to consider spiritual needs of human beings are ‘a must’ for almost any organization. Spiritual leadership is one of these leadership approaches. This study focuses on the perceptions of spiritual leadership of teachers in public primary schools, and the relationship between their levels of perception and some variables. As for the sample, it was composed of 852 teachers in 25 public primary schools selected randomly using cluster sampling method. This study uses ‘Spiritual Leadership Questionnaire’ developed by Fry. The results and findings of the study indicate that the highest mean is for Meaning/Calling and the lowest mean is for Satisfaction with life. There are significant differences between scores for Membership and Organizational commitment dimensions in terms of gender. Seniority, branch, school type, education level and school size all appear to be a source of significant difference for spiritual leadership.


Introduction
Within communities, there exist different ideas, concerns, values and styles as many as the number of the people.These differences are of paramount importance in life within the process of communication and interaction with others.In this context, leaders have to take their followers' capacity, concerns and how they perceive the outer world into consideration, and to modify and mould their leadership applications.
Leadership phenomenon and its quality stand as mysterious, and exist to be examples of the most widely studied topics in both social sciences (social psychology, sociology, history, and educational sciences) and business administration.The need for 'a pathfinder' and 'a guide' for communities, people who appear -or supposed to play roles -to fulfill such a need and expectations about such people are noteworthy topics.
Traditionally, leadership is defined as a "a process whereby an individual influences another individual or a group to achieve a common goal" (Northouse, 2010; as cited in Crumpton, 2011, p. 1), 'a process of identifying a group goal, and corresponding strategy and influencing others to direct their efforts voluntarily in pursuit of it (Paglis & Green, 2002, p. 216)' and 'the whole body of all qualities, experience, abilities or skills which are necessary to gather people around some goals, to coordinate and mobilize them to meet those goals' (Bayrak, 1997, p. 356;as cited in Canl , 2011, p. 3).As it is a study which deals with human beings, leadership, when considered in this way, has to undergo some metamorphosis depending upon the social change, technological development and changes in paradigms.In parallel, Fairholm (2011) uses 'leadership generations' to address the process of change in leadership literature (Table 1).He presents five generations, each of which has distinct characteristics in terms of leadership styles and approach.Each generation carries a focal point, which can be considered to move towards transcendence.affect the interaction and communication among employees in business environments and reduce the efficiency and productivity of organizations, have resulted in different radical changes in organizations since the Industrial Revolution (Fry, 2003, p. 694) and laid the groundwork for spiritual leadership (Balo lu and Karada , 2009, p. 173).

Spiritual leadership
When 'spiritual leadership' is typed in search engines on the net, it is obvious that the resources gathered approach this subject from different points of view.Blackaby and Blackaby (2011), Sanders (2007), Willis (1999) and Doohan (2007) consider spiritual leadership as leadership principles based on The Holy Bible, and 'Christian leadership' based on some prominent religious leaders' biographies and Jesus Christ's moral teachings.On the other hand, Al Arkoubi (2008) tries to interpret spiritual leadership from an Islamic view and defines it as 'Islamic leadership'.
However, some authors and researchers such as (Fry, 2003(Fry, , 2005(Fry, , 2008)), Fairholm (1998), Sanders, Geroy and Hopkins (2004), Doherty (2011), Krishnakumar and Neck (2002), Bellingham and Meek (2001), Fernando (2007), Houston, Blankstein and Cole (2008) and Hicks (2003) emphasize universal values, focus on the spirit and spirituality to resolve spiritual emptiness, psychological problems, isolation, depression, alienation, loneliness, meaninglessness, chaos, wild capitalism and ego-centricism employees -human beings in general -face in today's world.They do not provide an explicit reference to any specific religion, but highlight universal values and behaviours accepted as 'virtues' in almost every community.Spiritual leadership is 'an intimate leadership approach' which aims to create a workplace where meaningful and close relationships exist among employees.This approach can be identified as 'secular spiritual leadership' because it is careful about not to use the term 'religion' -except for religious organizations -and it focuses ort moral values.
As this paper deals with employees in educational organizations, and there is a general tendency about not to refer to any specific religion or belief systems in such organizations in my countries today, we focus on the secular perspective of spiritual leadership.Fairholm (1998, p.103), one of the pioneer researchers who use terms 'spiritual' and 'leadership' to form a phrase, believes that modern management and structural models are deficient and incompatible to fulfill needs or types of employees appeared recently as a result of developments and improvements.This is particularly evident in today's workplaces where employees spend most of their time in their lives.Work has become the central piece in our lives and the source of values in our community (Fairholm, 1996, as cited in Karaka , 2010).For approximately a hundred years, management applications are not human-oriented, but mainly product-oriented.However, today, work has turned out to be a 'knowledge work' process which requires active participation of all stakeholders (Fairholm, 1998, p. 103).He defines spirituality and spiritual leadership as "possessing the elements and characteristics of spiritual leadership, such as community, competence, continuous improvement, a higher moral standard, servant leadership, stewardship, visioning, and living out deeply held personal values of honoring forces or a presence greater than self (Fairholm, 1997;as cited in Geaney, 2012, p. 1)." "It is simply not possible to attain success today and to establish and maintain corporate health and vigor without considering both the needs and desires of workers (Fairholm, 1998, p. 94)".Today, employees want not only to be appreciated and respected at work but also to see how they affect or impact workplace culture.Spiritual leadership may be considered as a reflection or result of an 'employee movement' which demands for the opportunity to use and improve more of their skills / abilities and to contribute to organizations, not only to obey some rules and instructions and get paid in return.Fry (2003, p. 694) considers spiritual leadership as an important approach to intrinsically motivate employees in learning organizations, to embrace organizational vision and accept its culture.He defines spiritual leadership as "… comprising the values, attitudes, and behaviors that are necessary to intrinsically motivate one's self and others so that they have a sense of spiritual survival through calling and membership (Fry, 2003, p. 694)."There are two aspects to their work on spiritual leadership.One is the spiritual leadership model (Figure 1), which is composed of nine variables.The other is that within the model is the higher order spiritual leadership construct (hope / faith, vision, and altruistic love).The model operates in four sequential (causal) stages.(Fry, 2008, p. 112) In spiritual leadership, there exist no individual heroes.Work must be based on 'a community', not individual workers.Community supports spiritual leadership.Spiritual leadership will lead to the sense of authorship (Bolman & Deal, 1995, p. 75).They use the term 'authorship' to mean that leaders and followers work together as parts of a community, 'put signatures' after the work done.According to Bolman and Deal (1995) empowered employees will be able to cotton on to what the work is about, and have a sense of accomplishment and success as well.

Spiritual leadership in educational organizations
Human beings have to learn how to access, classify, product and share information owing to social change occur in societies.According to Cerit (2001, p. 21), education should be considered as one of the most substantial institutions to adopt this 'newly arisen society' because of the fact that individuals who can use information technologies to good advantage, who are creative, enterprising, responsible, and refreshing themselves by learning continuously in a dynamic society can attain success.
Students, teachers, administrators and other employees who construct the school organization as a social system carry their individual needs, goals, beliefs and values to the school environment, and develop their individual accordance and roles according to their intellectual understanding they bring into the school environment (Hoy & Miskel, 2010, p. 412).When all these are taken into account, the school means "a quite complex network of relationships."School leaders must be qualified to manage differences, to carry out the objectives of the school and to oversee the public interest at the same time.
Technological advances, opportunities to access information and diversification of instructional technologies affect educational organizations, just as it is in almost every part of society.Students can easily access topics about which they are 'curious to learn', compare and contrast different perspectives on a specific topic, or publish their feeling and thought about lectures and other issues on the virtual network through social networking sites.Teachers can prepare their activities -both for indoor and outdoor activities -by spending relatively less time, plan activities for different learning strategies, carry audio-visual teaching materials into classroom context and follow students' class projects and research assignments, that will contribute to their development, in a virtual environment.In order to improve the quality of education or to attain success at school in general, educational managers strive to provide the students and teaching staff with these facilities and make actively use of these technologies.
Depending on the changes and developments, 'loneliness' of individuals, 'purpose of life' and 'meaning of the work' are also of paramount important in educational organizations.Questions such as "If we can access all the information on the internet at home, why do we have to go to school?", "How are the lessons we have at school useful for us?", "Do we have to be in crowded classrooms?", "Is teaching an important profession?" and "Why would I be a teacher?" can be concluded that meaning, purpose, needs, spiritual satisfaction and spirituality are phenomena need consideration , beyond the financial possibilities and resources that can be accessed, in educational organizations.
When we consider the great social changes of recent years, today's society appears to be more and more 'technology-dependent'.Personal computers, mobile phones in almost every bag and pocket, and virtual identities created on the internet divided people as a result of automated communication process.Virtual communication replaced interpersonal communication and interaction, this process has led to a new generation of students and teachers with different needs and values.While some people blame schools for social deterioration, teachers and administrators have begun to be disturbed in this sense.All these experiences, as it is in business world, pushed people into a quest for deeper meanings in school life as well (Akar, 2010, p. 24).Owing to the reasons different from those of the earlier generations -technology in almost every part of life, virtual and 'secret' relationships and friendship cycles instead reality, changes -which go beyond any control -in digital world, diversification of instructional technologies, easy access to information resources, educational leadership has begun to be questioned.
Transition to a human-centered workplace instead of a capital-based one has led to a new situation in leadership.Spiritual dimensions of leadership are focused; ethics of care and servanthood are emerged as prominent today (Fairholm, 1997, as cited in Riaz andNormore, 2008).This shift is closely related to the employees' need to find meaning at work.According to Fairholm (1997), changing in this sense and focusing on spiritual dimensions seem to be vital for leaders to adapt to dynamic changes in today's workforce.He states, "People are hungry for meaning in their lives.They feel they have lost something and they don't remember what it is they've lost… it has left a gaping hole in their lives" (p.60).Fairholm believes individuals are integrating spirituality within their everyday work lives to fill the void (Riaz and Normore, 2008, p. 1).
Many strategies have been tried out -and still being tried -to make schools more effective and efficient and overcome problems or hurdles.However, as Jenlink (1995) stated, to change schools has been a highly difficult work owing to the fact that there are few examples to be followed, wrong approaches to manage change, complexity and the dynamic nature of change (as cited in Perkins, Wellman and Wellman, 2009).Yet, as educational leaders, Perkins et al. (2009) shows 'spiritual leadership' as a solution: Yet, as educational leaders we have the "feeling as though something is missing in leadership studies and practice" (Howe, 1995, 78).We must ask the larger questions, "What is our meaning and purpose?and, How can we fulfill it?"(Kessler, 1998, p. 51).Ultimately, we must look to our philosophy and understanding of what guides us in our day-today lives, "our spirituality" (Stokley, 2002, p. 48).First, we must ask-what is spiritual leadership? Fullan (2002) answered, "Spiritual leadership in education is an alluring but complex phenomenon " (p. 14).Solomon and Hunter (2002) suggested that pairing spirituality and educational leadership might seem incongruous and even dissonant.They resolved the incongruity by explaining that spiritually is one's "meaning system" (p.38).Wheatley (2002) stated that educational leaders should be equipped with a theoretical background and implied that leaders who follow servant leadership philosophy, which is strengthened by faith, can find the courage to face the challenges of life (as cited in Perkins et al. 2009).She obviously supports 'spiritual leadership'.As organizations are at the very center of life they are inevitably affected by newly arisen situations and social change.The fact that things 'unpredictable' can't be guessed and chaos can't be controlled reminds us that meaning and 'relationship/tie-up' are of great importance.

Aim
The aim of the present paper is to study the perceptions of spiritual leadership of teachers in public primary schools, and the relationship between their levels of perception and some variables.Research questions are as follows: 1.At what level is the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership in institutions they work?2. Is there any meaningful difference among the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership with respect to dimensions of spiritual leadership, vision, hope / faith, altruistic love, meaning / calling, membership, spiritual well-being, organizational commitment, productivity and satisfaction with life? 3. Is there any meaningful difference among the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership with respect to gender, seniority, institution graduated, branch and education level?

Design
This paper which aims to study the perceptions of spiritual leadership of teachers in public primary schools in central districts in Diyarbak r metropolitan city is a descriptive study based on a survey model.Because the perception of spiritual leadership of teachers in public primary schools is focused, and current situation is analyzed, we use descriptive survey model.Survey models are appropriate models for research to describe and analyze current situation, or one in the past (Karasar, 2009:77).

Population and sample
Teachers (4968 in total) currently working in 99 public primary schools in Diyarbak r city center in 2011 -2012 school year compose the population of this study.As for the sample, cluster sampling method was used.The sample for this paper is composed of 879 teachers, but 852 questionnaires, leaving 27 questionnaires out because of several reasons, were analyzed and evaluated.

Data Instrument and Scale
The scale used and applied for teachers here is composed of two parts.In the first part, there exist five variables (gender, seniority, institution graduated, branch, and education level).In the second part, 'Spiritual Leadership Questionnaire, developed by Fry (2007) and Turkish linguistic equivalence, validity and reliability study made by Kurtar (2009), is located.The scale has nine dimensions, and consists of items that measure the dimensions of vision, hope / faith, altruistic love, meaning/calling, membership, inner life, organizational commitment, productivity, satisfaction with life.Cronbach Alpha for the entire instrument of Spiritual Leadership Questionnaire including 40 items to measure different dimensions as a whole is found to be .960.In addition, items for each dimension were grouped and Cronbach Alpha was measured for each dimension.

Data analysis
Standard deviation, frequency, percentage and the arithmetic average of responses, which participants have ranked from 1 through 5, with respect to each item have been taken into consideration.On the other hand, when the responses were analyzed with respect to independent variables and subdimensions, the arithmetic means out of five-point rating were adopted as the basis for interpretation.When the arithmetic means are interpreted, the gaps have been valued as:1.00 -1.79 "Strongly disagree", 1.80 -2.59 "Disagree ", 2, 60 -3, 39 "Neither Agree nor Disagree ", 3.40-4.19"Agree", 4.20-5.00"Strongly Agree ".Nonetheless, for the dimensions of Spiritual Leadership Questionnaire, in order to assess whether the means of groups are statistically different, t-test and ANOVA were used.In case there is a significant difference in multiple comparisons, Bonferroni test was used to find out the source of the difference among groups.Data gathered through the scale were statistically analyzed by SPSS for Windows 19.0.The significance level in analyses was taken as 0.05, and if found a significant difference this is also indicated by an asterisk (*).

At what level is the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership in institutions they work?
When the teachers' perception of spiritual leadership was evaluated as a whole, without a discrimination of dimensions, arithmetic mean of their perception of spiritual leadership is seen as =3,477.According to this result, the perception of the spiritual leadership of the teachers working at their institutions was found at 'Agree' level.For teachers, their job is 'meaningful' and 'important'.In general teachers find teaching 'meaningful' and think that what they do has something to do in real life, within the context of life outside the school, and it also makes difference in the society.The fact that the 'meaning level of the job' is high and it is seen as 'important' can be commented "as a positive and pleasing situation" for Turkish education system.In addition, while the teachers in 'meaningless' school environment don't care about job, schools / educational institutions where spirituality is cared aren't places 'without spirit'; in these places, students X experience enthusiasm for learning and sense of curiosity.Teachers have a sense / belief of real teaching and being helpful to their students.As teachers are one of the most important parts of learning -teaching process, when they find the job 'meaningful' we can expect that it can enhance the work quality, increase level of commitment to their school organizations, devotion to their job.Teachers will be internally motivated, make difference through indoor and outdoor activities and thus be more productive for the organization.So, spirituality can be called as 'an important step' to be taken for educational organizations on the way of reaching their targets.
Additionally, as Guillory and Brandt (1996) agreed "Spirituality's goal is greater personal awareness of universal values, helping an individual live and work better and more joyfully" (as cited in Litzsey, 2006, p.9), spirituality will help universal rules be more internalized and identified by individuals.It can be said that teachers, having high spirituality which is related to the characteristics of human spirit -such as love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, sense of responsibility and compliance -which bring happiness to both the individual and people around (Balo lu and Karada , 2009), will devote themselves to teaching, work more efficiently, spend more time in school, take care of their students more closely and work with the school administrators and other teachers in harmony.

Is there any meaningful difference among the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership with respect to dimensions of spiritual leadership?
To answer this sub-problem, arithmetic mean and standard deviation of the public primary school teachers' perception with respect to dimensions of spiritual leadership (Table 3) are analyzed and interpreted.As Table 3 displays, the highest mean score is for the 'Meaning / Calling' dimension, and mean scores for 'Hope / Faith' and 'Inner life' dimensions are found to be at the level of 'Agree'.This can be interpreted that teachers have high spirituality.Teachers find their occupation important and life has a meaning.They believe in 'a power' or 'some principles', and feel hopeful about life.The fact that they believe they make a difference in exchange for the energy and time they spend supports their commitment to the vision and overall objectives of educational organizations.However, arithmetic mean score of the subdimension 'Satisfaction with life' is the lowest of all.Arithmetic means of teachers' responses for the items about pay, socio-economic conditions, work conditions and their psychological / spiritual well-being (Items 6 and 35) were found the lowest of all items in the scale.This finding indicates that teachers have a lower level of perception about their working conditions, their wages, the distribution of courses and responsibilities, and the relationships between school administrators and teachers.Even if the teachers are generally satisfied with the overall working conditions, social relations and organizational climate, the fact that they think their salary is 'unjust and inadequate' seems dominant.

Is there any meaningful difference among the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership with respect to gender, seniority, institution graduated, branch, and education level?
The public primary school teachers' perception of sub-dimensions of spiritual leadership in institutions they work was analyzed with respect to gender by a t-test and results are shown in Table 4.As it is seen in Table 4, the arithmetic mean of the female is lower than that of men's in all dimensions excluding the dimension of 'Meaning / Calling'.Only when it is looked from the dimension of 'Meaning / Calling', the female teachers' mean score ( = 4, 12; SD = 0, 64) is higher than men's score ( = 4, 07; SD = 0, 70).From the point of gender, the subdimension with the highest mean score is 'Meaning / Calling' ( = 4, 10) and the one with the lowest mean was found as 'Organizational Commitment' ( = 3, 19).When these results are evaluated, they don't correspond with the results of a nationwide survey carried by HERI (Higher Education Research Institute, University of California, 2007, p.4).In that survey, women have higher mean scores in all items about the spirituality.Generally speaking, according to HERI (2007, p.4), women are more likely than men to consider themselves as spiritual people and to prioritize spiritual aspects of life.

Χ Table 4. T-test results and comparison of sub-dimensions of spiritual leadership perceptions of primary school teachers and the variable of gender
According to t-test results, there are significant differences between means scores in 'Membership' and 'Organizational Commitment'.Gender factor doesn't affect and change the mean score significantly in all other dimensions.In 'Membership' dimension, there is a difference between the mean score of the female ( = 3,23) and that of the male ( = 3, 41) and this is statistically significant(t(850)= -2,681; p<0,05).Additionally, in 'Organizational Commitment' dimension, there is a difference between the mean score of the female ( = 3, 13) and that of the male ( = 3, 26) and this is also statistically significant (t(850)= -2,025; p<0,05).In other words, the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership differs significantly with respect to the gender factor.The difference is on the side of male teachers.It can be inferred that male teachers, when compared to the women, have a higher sense of membership in organizations they work.This can be interpreted as a result of the fact there most of the school administrators are men and they have more possibility to work collaboratively with their fellows.Because they can interact and communicate better, their relationship may have positively influenced teachers' perception of membership and organizational commitment.
The public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership with respect to subdimensions of spiritual leadership was analyzed by means of One-Way variance analysis (ANOVA) according to the variable of seniority.In case there exists a significant difference, Bonferroni test was used to find out the source of difference and the results are shown in Table 5.According to the findings, seniority at work is effective on teachers' perception in all dimensions of spiritual leadership.When a Bonferroni test applied, there exist significant differences between the mean scores of teachers with 6 -10 years of experience and 16 -20 years of experience in Vision, Hope / Faith, Altruistic love, Membership, Organizational commitment, Productivity and Satisfaction with life subdimensions.Journal of Educational and Social Research MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy associated with the following implications: Teachers experienced over 21 years can see the products of their efforts as they watch their students' success and improvement.So, they can be proud of themselves and have spiritual satisfaction in what did.In this way, they consider teaching profession as a "life -gaining" source.Another significant difference is also found between the mean scores of teachers with 1 -5 years of experience and teachers with 6 -10 years of experience in Membership dimension.This can be interpreted as a result of their experience at work.Teachers with 6 -10 years of experience at work have shaken off the nerves and are able to evaluate their job more reasonably and realistically when compared to novice teachers with less experience.Novice teachers feel nervous because they are new and excited when they start working.Friends, colleagues they have made and achievements or experience through those years are also effective for Membership.Intimate relationships between employees within the organization and managers' attitudes and behavior can be said to affect Membership.
The public primary school teachers' perception of sub-dimensions of spiritual leadership in institutions they work was analyzed with respect to the variable of institutions they graduated by a t-test and results are shown in Table 6.
When Table 6 is examined, in all dimensions -except Hope / Faith -the arithmetic mean of teachers, who graduated from a faculty of education, is lower than that of graduates' of other faculties.In terms of Hope / Faith dimension, though, education faculty graduates' mean ( =3,60; SD = 0,85) is higher than that of the graduates' of other faculties ( = 3,57, SD = 0,84).According to the variable of institutions they graduated, subdimension 'Satisfaction with Life' has the highest mean ( = 4,11) for both institutions and Productivity has the lowest mean ( = 3,21).According to ttest results, there is no significant difference between the institutions teachers graduated and any subdimension of Spiritual leadership.In other words, according to the variable of institutions they graduated, teachers' perception doesn't change significantly.Perceptions of primary school teachers with respect to the sub-dimensions of Spiritual leadership are analyzed by One-Way variance analysis (ANOVA) test according to the branches of teachers, and results are shown in Table 7.
As it is clear in Table 7, there exist significant differences between Membership, Inner Life, Productivity and Satisfaction with Life with respect to the independent variable of branch groups.This finding indicates that their branch is effective upon the teachers' perception of inner life, productivity, satisfaction with life, and their internalizing the institution they work.Bonferroni Test as a post hoc was applied to find out the source of difference among branch groups.
According to the results, there is a significant difference between Primary teaching and Maths and Sciences groups in four subdimensions.This can be inferred as a result of the fact that primary teachers, who have to take care of the same students for five years -from Class 1 to Class 5 -and who have a tendency to approach to teaching and learning process sympathetically, think what they strive is not 'appreciated' and they are not 'fully understood'; so that they can't have 'a sense of connection' and 'unity' among other colleagues and teachers.When we think overall, it can be said that there exist some problems between primary teachers and the school organization, although they can have 'an integrity' and 'identification' only with students in their classes.Lack of communication among the teachers, other school employees and managers prevents developing good relations and decreases 'desire to work' over time.This can result in material and moral costs as it may trigger inadequate work performance, coming late, discomfort at the workplace or some other negative factors (Somuncu, 2008, p.59).However, the fact that Maths and Science teachers have higher means can be explained and understandable when we bear in mind that they have courses only in secondary classes.They are only -and most probably -responsible for their Perceptions of primary school teachers with respect to the sub-dimensions of Spiritual leadership are analyzed by One-Way variance analysis (ANOVA) test according to the education level of teachers, and Bonferroni test was used to find out the source of difference in case any significant difference is found.The results are shown in Table 8.There exist significant differences between the arithmetic means for the subdimensions 'Meaning / Calling', 'Inner Life' and 'Satisfaction with Life' with respect to the independent variable of education level.For other dimensions, there is no statistically significant difference even if there exist minor differences.After Bonferroni test was used, the difference is found between the mean scores of Bacheor's Degree level and Master's Degree level.Mean score of the teachers holding a Master's Degree is higher than the arithmetic mean of teachers holding a Bachelor's Degree in all three dimensions.This finding may be a result of the fact that teachers, who hold a Master's Degree, understand teachinglearning processes better and evaluate the processes in school organizations more holistically.In terms of the difference in 'Inner life' dimension, we can interpret that level of education affects how people perceive the world and the universe.

Χ
As the level increases, it is expected that people live in peace, work in harmony with others in an organization and tolerate the differences.Level of education is also expected to increase the level of comprehension and understanding of one's place in universe.

Conclusion
The main finding of this paper is that perceptions of primary school teachers with respect to the subdimensions of spiritual leadership in their schools is higher in 'Meaning / Calling', 'Inner life' and 'Hope / Faith' dimensions.Teachers think their occupation is important and meaningful, and feel hopeful about life.They care their spiritual well-being.However, their overall scores in 'Satisfaction with life', 'Vision', 'Membership' and 'Organizational commitment' dimensions are relatively lower than other dimensions.It can be proposed that it is very crucial and necessary to improve vision, productivity, organizational commitment and membership, which are vital and essential elements for an organization to survive.For this purpose, the vision of the institution may be supported by means of in-service training sessions held at regular intervals for teachers.To improve the sense of membership and institutional commitment, social and cultural activities (picnics, excursions, workshops, etc.) in which teachers can participate and parent-teacher associations which operate more actively can be suggested.In terms of 'Hope / Faith' dimension, owing to the fact that the distinction between the concepts of spirituality and religion cannot be expressed clearly, in public primary schools, everyone's belief should be respected, and political polemics which are likely to create conflicts, or undermine the efficiency of the organization should be avoided.In decision-making processes, and the distribution of resources administrators should be unbiased, teachers should be allowed to participate as well.These may be helpful to improve teachers' membership, sharing responsibilities and adaptation skills.
When compared to male teachers' scores, the arithmetic mean scores of female teachers are lower in all dimensions, except 'Meaning / Calling' dimension.Women may easily affected by problems they have and give up 'trying to overcome'.Therefore, a sense of connectedness and unity should be created especially among female teachers.It can be suggested that senior female teachers should be encouraged to support newcomers, guide and share experience and expertise in teaching.It is essential to distribute course schedules and extra-curricular tasks as equal and fair, to plan and organize additional courses, rewards and promotions in accordance with the principle of equity, and to ask teachers opinion about the program draft if they are concerned.Thus, the organization will be affected spiritually, which leads positive outcomes in return.
Activities (competitions, visiting teachers' families, be there when lamenting over a relative, celebrating birthdays, exchanging presents, be together on happy days, support those who are sick etc.) should be organized to include all school personnel and to create 'a spirit of connectedness' in organizations to improve and increase the perception of membership, altruistic love, hope / faith, and productivity which tends to decrease as seniority increases.Employees, who share spirituality in the workplace, can work better with all their heart and soul to ensure that organizations survive healthily.It can also be expected that employees, who are mentally and internally motivated, may increase the level of organizational efficiency.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Revised casual model of Spiritual leadership(Fry, 2008, p. 112) The results of One-Way variance analysis (ANOVA) and comparison of subdimensions of spiritual leadership perceptions of primary school teachers and the variable of seniority is a significant difference between the means of teachers who have experience between 1 -5 years and over 21 years, 6 -10 years and over 21 years, and 11 -15 years and over 21 years in Calling dimension.These results may be Χ ISSN 2239-978X ISSN 2240-0524

Table 2 .
Table 2 presents reliability analysis for dimensions of Spiritual Leadership Questionnaire.Reliability analysis with respect to the subdimensions of Spiritual Leadership Questionnaire

Table 3 .
Arithmetic means and standard deviation of the public primary school teachers' perception of spiritual leadership with respect to dimensions of spiritual leadership

Table 6 .
T-test results and comparison of sub-dimensions of spiritual leadership perceptions of primary school teachers and the variable of institutions they graduated

Table 7 .
The results of One-Way variance analysis (ANOVA) and comparison of subdimensions of spiritual leadership perceptions of primary school teachers and the variable of branch *:p<0,05 Italysubjects, they don't have much to do with students' personal problems.In case students need some guidance and help with such problems, they just call for counselors.They may have a higher sense of membership because of the facts that the number of Maths and Science group teachers is less, they teach different classes -not a single class -, and the scores their students will have in the exams are of great importance.Test scores may be subtle factors to strengthen membership.

Table 8 .
The results of One-Way variance analysis (ANOVA) and comparison of perceptions of primary school teachers with respect to the sub-dimensions of spiritual leadership and the variable of education level