The Correlation between Leadership Styles and Organizational Cynicism: Which Leadership Style is Best for Schools?

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between school administrators’ multi-factor leadership styles and organizational cynicism perceptions. In this research, correlational research method being one of the quantitative research methods was used. The population of this research consists of school principals and vice principals working in public schools in the districts of Avcilar, Basaksehir, Bahcelievler, Bakirkoy, Beylikduzu and Esenyurt. The sample consists of 184 school principals and vice principals who were reached through convenience sample method. Multi-Factor Leadership Scale (MFLS), Organizational Cynicism Scale (OCS) and demographic information form were used in process of gathering data. In the process of data collection, online forms of the scales were applied to participants. The SPSS program was preferred to analyze the data of this research and descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal Wallis Test and Spearman Correlation Coefficient Test were conducted. Findings demonstrated in this study that there was a moderate negative correlation between transformational leadership and organizational cynicism; a moderate positive correlation between laissez faire leadership and organizational cynicism. To prevent or reduce the negative beliefs and effects of school administrators on the educational organization, it can be ensured that the transformational leadership style is understood with both conceptual and exemplary behavior models and human resources policies can be produced in the administration. Instead of persisting traditional school administrator, transformational leadership style should embrace in schools.


INTRODUCTION
The world on which has turned into business life, is changing rapidly.Therefore, there is the lack of leaders and administrators who have adequacy and new knowledge in this field to strengthen potential human resources with communication, encouragement, and teamwork (Bayrak, 2001;Cadwell, 2004;Holcombe et al., 2023;Hunt et al., 2000;Plešnik & Bukovec, 2019).It is important to know that no one is a born leader.Instead of managing people, leaders have to guide people (Drucker, 2001, p. 31).The leadership style determines the quality of an organization (Mahzan & Nordin, 2021;Van der Mescht & Tyala, 2008).Transformational, transactional, charismatic, and virtual leadership styles appear as current leadership theories that are frequently searched (Kamaran, 2012, p.83).On the other hand, the common point of research in the field of leadership is that there is no single ideal leadership style, it shows situationally variable while differing leadership styles and theories (Denmark, 1993;Plešnik & Bukovec, 2019).

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IJELS 11(4):343-352 5. Social cynicism defines citizens' distrust of their governments and then their institutions (Delken, 2004).Organizational cynicism is an important issue for many fields of science such as psychology, sociology, philosophy, political science, organizational behavior, and administration (Mousa, 2018;Yasin & Khalid, 2015).It can be said that the high level of organizational cynicism perception of the employees creates a destructive, wearing, and toxic effect for the organizations.This research, which was developed based on the question of which leadership style can reduce or increase the perception of organizational cynicism, can reveal importance of leadership style in order to create a shared vision in the direction of the goals of education and achieve this vision, instead of the feelings of insecurity, loneliness and doubt rooted in the perception of high level of cynicism.

LITERATURE REVIEW
In this section, transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership and organizational cynicism are explained.To figure out which leadership styles reduce or increase the perception of organizational cynicism, research in this area is discussed.

Organizational Cynicism
Organizational cynicism can be defined as an attitude consisting of the components of perceived reactions, beliefs, and behavioral tendencies towards an organization (Dean et al., 1998).Organizational cynicism is defined as a situation that is believed in lack of integrative effect of the organization and values such as inclusiveness, integrity and intimacy are ignored for the sake of personal interests (Atwater et al., 2000).Cynicism appears as a type of self-defense to cope with the dissatisfied thoughts and feelings towards the actions of organization and administration (Abraham, 2000;Reichers, 1997).Dean et al. (1998) comprehensively clarified and categorized organizational cynicism.According to them, an employee's aversion to the organization includes in three dimensions: the belief that organization is destitute of honesty, humiliating, and critical tendencies towards organization (Dean et al., 1998).Andersson (1996) defines organizational cynicism as repugnance and suspect towards a person, a group, an ideology, social contract, or institution, as well as disappointment and hopelessness (Andersson, 1996).The concept of cynicism which may arise from individual or organizational characteristics, is comprises of cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions in the organizational context.Organizational cynicism based on Expectancy Theory, Attribution Theory, Attitude Theory, Social Change Theories, Emotional Events Theory and Social Motivation Theories, is divided into personality approaches, social/ corporate cynicism, employee cynicism, professional cynicism, and organizational change cynicism (Dean et al., 1998;Kalagan & Guzeller, 2010).In the work of Atwater et al. (2000), they aimed to model organizational cynicism which includes a lack of organizational integration, a negative attitude towards the organization and is a tendency to engage in critical and humiliating behavior.Some basic characteristics of cynics are as follows (Atwater et al., 2000): 1. Cynics see lying, pretending, and exploiting others as essential features of human beings.2. Cynics think that people act selfishly while making their choices, that human behavior is inconsistent, and that human is unreliable.3. Cynics generally assume that there are unseen motives behind the motion.4. Cynics may have a feeling of bothering, disgusting and shaming when they are of the opinion on something in relation to the psychological object (person, organization, group, society, etc.). 5. Cynics can criticize with understandable statements on the subject of destitute of integrity and intimacy in the psychological object.6.When cynics communicate with psychological object, they usually describe the events with their own interpretations and use a cynical humor.

Transformational Leadership
Transformational leadership pioneered by Avolio and Bass (2004) is composed of four components called as charisma, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.It is believed that these components help leaders in the process of making organizations more effective in developing school vision with the cooperation of everyone in the organizations (Kim, 2012;Liu, 2018;Mahzan & Nordin, 2021).It is emphasized that leader who is an excellent role model for his followers in the dimension of charisma, makes the right organizational decisions and gains trust and confidence of his followers (Bass, 1990;Van Dierendonck, 2011).Leadership in individualized consideration dimension is defined identifying challenges for employees, supporting them by empathizing with them, and maintaining communication.Employees need self-development and internal motivation regarding their duties.Followers are encouraged to think independently in the dimension of intellectual stimulation which means that leaders encourage creativity and risk-taking while revealing followers' suggestions and ideas.Inspirational motivation embodies optimism with leader's attractive and inspiring vision for followers.Optimistic and courageous followers conceive of the future and their proficiency, putting more effort into their field of study (Bass et al., 2003).
The transformational leadership process focuses on intrinsic motivation and establishing a link for the development of followers.Consequently, via this link, followers' capabilities, their motivation levels, and attitudes can be advanced to their goals that reach performance levels beyond their usual expectations, their values and beliefs can also be transformed (Li, 2022).A transformational leader will achieve a shared vision by involving everyone while regularly shaping strategic or other plans, providing a broad range of input, and encouraging everyone to think about a new and better future (Mlinarevic et al., 2022).A strong leader identity encourages employees to pursue their leader with respect to enthusiastic and taking a plunge, internally motivates those with high dialectical The Correlation between Leadership Styles and Organizational Cynicism: Which Leadership Style is Best for Schools?345 thinking capacity to voice their opinions and act.In summary, transformational leaders lead or contribute to employees with intrinsic task motivation at work to move away from "knowing" to "doing", thereby reinforce impact of dialectical thinking with creative performance (Chua et al., 2022).
Transactional Leadership Bass (1985) conducted studies on transactional leadership, but his studies revealed that leadership styles did not meet needs.As result of this, he developed transactional leadership style.The focal point of transactional leadership style ground in the leader-follower relationship (Khan, 2017).This leadership style is divided in dimensions of contingent reward, management-by-exception active, management-by-exception passive and laissez faire leadership (Avolio et al., 1999).Transactional leaders target to contingent rewards by discovering perceptible requirements, goals and rewarding employees who achieve them.In management-by-exception active, leader manages his followers at a micro level and closely monitors followers' performance and follows their mistakes, whereas leader is unaware of the problem and irresolute to mobilize until a serious problem come into existence or is voiced by others in management-by-exception passive (Bass, 1985;Judge & Piccolo, 2004).

Laissez Faire Leadership
In laissez faire leadership model which consists of dimensions of management based on passive expectancy and passive avoidant, leaders passively control working standards, avoid taking responsibility or making decisions, and do not use authority (Luo et al., 2013;Van der Vyver et al., 2020).Laissez faire leaders give the impression that administrative activities aren't needed and leave their followers alone as single-handed.Leaders can fail to remember that have to solve a problem by reason of maintaining laissez faire leadership behaviors.This situation can give a rise of followers' dissatisfaction.In this style of leadership, leaders are indifferent to work and do not exhibit effective leadership behavior (Baloğlu et al., 2009).

The Relationship between Leadership Styles of School Administrators and Perceptions of Organizational Cynicism
The leadership style is known as causes of negative behavior such as low productivity, low education quality and high turnover intention, lack of motivation, job satisfaction (Maheshwari, 2022) in educational environments (Rathakrishnan, Imm & Kok, 2016).Even if educators are more likely to achieve organizational goals when they have positive attitudes concerning the school, they cannot achieve to them if they have developed negative attitudes including perception of cynicism (İnandı & Gılıç, 2021).The perception of high level of organizational cynicism in educational organizations negatively affects productivity, development, organizational justice, self-efficacy, and participation in decisions.The basic structures that shape the attitudes and beliefs of teachers towards the educational institutions are needed to study to be analyzed by explaining the reasons for tendency causing cynical behavior in terms of administrative, professional, organizational, and personal.
In accordance with the literature, there are many papers in the scope of employee cynicism which is a dimension of organizational cynicism (Gkorezis et al., 2014;Kaysi & Gurol, 2016;Pathak et al., 2023;Thomas & Gupta, 2018).There has not been any in-depth research in the literature regarding tendency of teachers displaying cynical behavior in educational organizations or between perceptions of their organizational cynicism and job satisfaction, organizational justice, burnout, dedication and alienation.In addition to all of these reasons, there is no in-depth research in the literature on what the factors that constitute the perception of organizational cynicism is.The aim of this research is to reveal relationship between MFLS of school administrators and their perceptions of OC.The importance of this research is that it reveals result that there is no or low level of perception of organizational cynicism in a school environment where successful leadership is strong.To this end, the following questions are answered: 1) Is there a significant difference according to school administrators' perceptions of MFLS and demographic variables?2) Is there a significant difference according to school administrators' perceptions of OC and demographic variables?3) Is there a significant correlation between MFLS and OC according to perceptions of school administrators?

METHOD
In this section, research design, population and sample, data collection tools, data collection and data analysis are clarified in the following subheadings.

Research Design
Quantitative studies reveal an objective meaning through collected data.Quantitative research starts with a problematic situation, including, hypothesis determination, literature knowledge, and analysis of quantitative data.The results revealed are predictive, explanatory, and confirming (Creswell, 2003, p. 153;Williams, 2007, p. 66).Survey research's purpose is to collect data to reveal particular feature of a certain group (Büyüköztürk et al., 2012, p. 14).In this study, correlational research design which is one of quantitative research methods was used.The correlational research design is used to determine the extent to which two factors are related (Privitera, 2019, p.240).This research is a correlational survey model which aims to investigate the perceptions of school principals and vice principals working in public schools, in the scope of the MFLS and OC.

Study Group
The study group is determined as districts of Avcilar, Bahcelievler, Bakirkoy, Basaksehir, Beylikduzu and IJELS 11(4): [343][344][345][346][347][348][349][350][351][352] Esenyurt in Istanbul European Side.There are totally 1024 administrators in these districts.There are many approaches, and certain number of different formulas, for calculating the sample size for categorical data (Taherdoost, 2017).In this study the sample size formula was used as below.As a result of sample calculation of this population, the sample of this research consists of 184 school administrators (principals and vice principals) working in Istanbul in 2021-2022 academic year and selected by convenience sample method.This method helps to collect data quickly and easily.
Convenience sampling provides opportunities in many aspects such as time, financial situation, location, accessibility to participants (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016, p.98).The following formula was used to determine the sample size: where = Sample size = The percentage of sample having characteristic z= Level of confidence E= Margin of error According to Table 1, 65% of the school administrators were female, and 35% were male.43% of the participating school administrators were between the ages of 21-40, 57% were 41 and over.59% of school administrators had graduate, and 41% had master' degree education.As the features of study group are checked, according to the length of service; it is noted that 22% of participants had 1-10 years of service, 39% had 11-20 years of service, and 40% had 21 and more years of service.

Data Collection Tools
Demographic information form, Multi Factor Leadership Styles Scale and Organizational Cynicism Scale scaled in 5-point Likert-type were used to reveal the relationship between MFLS of school administrators and their perceptions of OC in this paper.

Demographic information form
Demographic questions including participant's age, gender, education level and year of service were asked to participants.The main purpose of asking these questions is to obtain the relevance of demographic variables in the scope of MFLS and OC.

MFLS
MFLS developed by Avalio and Bass (2004) was adapted into Turkish by Aksu (2015) and its validity and reliability analyzes were performed.The scale consists of three dimensions and 34 items, namely transformational leadership (20 items), transactional leadership (7 items) and laissez faire leadership (7 items).Cronbach Alpha coefficients in the transformational leadership dimension.96; in the transactional leadership dimension.80and in the laissez faire leadership dimension.84was calculated by Aksu (2015).The Cronbach Alpha coefficient for MFLS, and its dimensions (transformational, transactional, laissez faire leadership) was respectively calculated as.84.,94.,71.,78 in this research.The items of the scale, which consists of 34 items in total, were scaled in five categories (5-Completely Agree, 4-Partly Agree, 3-Agree, 2-Disagree, 1-Strongly Disagree).

OCS
OCS developed by Brandes et al. (1999) was adapted into Turkish and analyzed its validity and reliability by Karacaoğlu and İnce (2012).The scale consists of three dimensions and 13 items: cognitive (5 items), behavioral (4 items), and emotional (4 items).Cronbach's Alpha coefficients calculated by Karacaoğlu and İnce (2012) in the context of internal consistency to reveal the reliability of the scale were 0.91 for the whole scale and 0.94 (emotional), 0.87 (cognitive) and 0.82 (behavioral) for the sub-dimensions.In this study, the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for OCS, and its dimensions (cognitive, emotional, behavioral cynicism) was respectively calculated as.93.,89.,96.,75.OCS, which consists of 13 items in total, were scaled in five categories (5-Strongly Agree, 4-Agree, 3-Undecided, 2-Disagree, 1-Strongly Disagree).

Data Collection
In this process, the application permission of the Demographic Information Form, MFLS Scale and OC Scale used in the research was obtained with the approval of the Governor's Office from the Istanbul Provincial Directorate of National Education and approved by the Educational Sciences Ethics Committee of Istanbul Medeniyet University, dated 06/12/2021 and collected based on document numbered 2021/12-02.
The data within research were collected by sending online data collection tools to 184 school administrators working in public primary, secondary and high schools in Istanbul in the 2021-2022 academic year.

RESULTS
The demographic results are shown in Table 1.The results are presented following the order of the research questions.

Is there a significant difference between school administrators' MFLS/perceptions of OC and demographic variables?
As can be seen in Table 2, there was no significant difference in the results of the Mann-Whitney U Test on the difference of School Administrators' MFLS and OC Scores according to gender (p>.05).
As can be seen in As can be seen in Table 4, there was no significant difference in the results of the Mann-Whitney U Test on the difference of School Administrators' MFLS and OCS Scores according to education level (p>.05).
As seen in Table 5, according to findings of the Kruskal Wallis Test regarding the differentiation of school administrators' MFLS and OCS scores according to the variable of years of service, it is noticed that there is a significant difference between the cognitive dimension of the OCS and the variable of years of service (χ² = 6.333, p<.05).Mann-Whitney U Test used in cases of non-normally distribution was applied to find out which groups cause this difference.According to the results of the test, there was significant difference among the groups between 1-10 and 21+ years of service (p<.05).

According to the perceptions of school administrators is there a significant correlation between MFLS and OC?
As seen in Table 6, when the correlation between school administrators' MFLS and OCS scores is calculated as a moderate negative correlation (r=-.40,p<.000); the correlation (r=-.51,p<.000) between transformational leadership and OC is a moderate negative; a weak negative correlation between transactional leadership and OC (r=-.28,p<.000); a moderate positive (r=.49, p<.000) correlation between laissez faire leadership and OC.On the other hand, when correlation between the dimensions of MFLS and OC is examined; there has a moderate negative correlation between cognitive dimension (r=-.46,p<.000); emotional dimension (r=-.45,p<.000) and behavioral dimension (r=-.43,p<.000) and transformational leadership styles; a weak negative correlation between cognitive dimension (r=-.29,p<.000); emotional dimension (r=-.18,p<.000); behavioral dimension (r=-.27,p<.000) and transactional leadership styles.There has also a moderate positive correlation between cognitive dimension (r=.43, p<.000); emotional dimension (r=.41, p<.000); behavioral dimension (r=-.43,p<.000) and laissez faire leadership style.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
According to the findings of this research, no significant difference was observed between MFLS or OC and aforementioned demographic variables of school administrators.There are studies supporting this finding in the literature (Abu-Tineh et al., 2009;Kilic & Toker, 2020).It can be concluded that the finding which demographic variables do not make a significant difference in school administrators' perceptions of organizational cynicism and multifactorial leadership styles suggests that the relationship between leadership styles and organizational cynicism of the participants is based on a phenomenological and cultural basis.Also in this study, when the correlation between school administrators' MFLS and OCS scores was examined, there was a moderate negative correlation.In their study of Qian and Jian (2020), it was revealed that leaders should pay attention to their own behavior instead of blaming, questioning and changing the employees' attitudes in order to reduce organizational cynicism (Quian & Jian, 2020).The leader's clear, direct and justifiable communicational style can also reduce the level of educators' perception of organizational cynicism.Mousa (2018) states that the organizational communication performed on active as a paradigm to discover and recruit the optimistic staff member, will reduce the negative effects of cynicism in the workplace and also promote a more productive work environment (Mousa, 2018).It can be said that a school where an effective leadership style dominates the school culture, management and decision-making processes creates a solid bridge between internal and external stakeholders, all stakeholders show regard to their education policies and the purpose of the school's existence is realized.Otherwise, a moderate negative correlation between transformational leadership and OC was found out.In their paper, Pathak et al. (2023) note that transformational leadership is a significant moderator effect on the relationship between organizational learning ability and job satisfaction (Pathak et al., 2023).Transformational leadership style provides a positive school atmosphere, high motivation and self-confidence (Güçlü et al., 2017).The reason why the transformational leadership style reduces the perception of organizational cynicism, it can be shown that the leader creates an inspiring motivation environment for employees, creates a perception of trust, interest and consistency by making the right decisions.Transformational leaders imagine that the future inevitably changes in line with unnumerous needs, multi-dimensionally decide that how it should be.On the contrary, it can be seen that in an organization where the level of organizational cynicism is high, as strategic decisions for school development are not taken, there is no ideal of planning for the future.As stated by the findings of this research, there is a moderate positive correlation between laissez faire leadership and OC.It has been found that the laissez faire style increases the perception of organizational cynicism.Bommer et al. (2005) revealed that leadership style is associated with the perception of organizational cynicism  (Leary & Miller, 2021).These dimensions for employees may be inevitable to see negative situations such as stress, bullying, conflict etc.It is not difficult for an educational organization, in which information is produced and produced information constantly affects and shapes the environment and society as output, to transform the social structure in an undesired way in line with unconsistent with the goals of development, scientificness, innovation and creativity.It may not be sufficient to take advantage of authority of the political power to appoint laissez faire leaders as school administrator and to cause continuation their duties with the intent of transforming the schools into the transmission center of the aforementioned desired goals.
As a result of this research, the transformational leadership style moderates the participating in this study school administrators' perception of cognitive cynicism, emotional cynicism and behavioral cynicism.According to Güçlü et al. (2017), principals exhibiting transformational leadership style in schools can create a more positive communication environment by reducing teachers' negative emotions (Güçlü et al., 2017).School administrators' perceptions of emotional cynicism are associated with various negative emotions experienced by employees about their organizations.In organizational cynicism, it is seen that employees are not only limited to some negative thoughts about their organization, but also experience a set of negative feelings against the organization (Işık, 2014).According to cynics, the most distinctive features of the organization are perceived as insecurity, inconsistency, subjectiveness, incompetence and self-interest (Kilic & Toker, 2020).
In order to prevent or reduce the negative beliefs and attitudes of school administrators on the educational organization, it can be ensured that the conceptual frameworks and exemplary behavior models in the topic of transformational leadership style is understood by them and human resources policies are actualized to make suggesstions to replace the traditional school administration with the transformational leadership style in the administration.The professional development of school administrators can be transformed according to the win-win principle in terms of school-manager-teacher-student, with executive education which includes an in-dept understanding related to dimensions of charisma, individual interest, intellectual courage and inspiring motivation.It should be discussed in the fact that this transformation may take place within the school, but may not be sustainable in cases where it is not adopted by the elements that generate upper and intermediate system.
This research can highlight to next studies in terms of revealing and analyzing factors which affect where organizational cynicism prevents effective leadership styles, also researchers can examine in deeply by using qualitative research methods.The leadership styles except of transformational, transactional and laissez faire leadership (e.g.autenthic, toxic, instructional, ethic leadership) can be studied by researchers in order to reveal the degree of organizational cynicism and the features of negative school in schools.

Table 1 .
Frequency and percentage values of the variables in research

Table 2 .
Mann-whitney U test results of school administrators' MFLS and OCS scores according to gender variable

Table 3 .
Mann-whitney U test results of school administrators' MFLS and OCS scores according to age variable

Table 4 .
Mann-whitney U test results of school administrators' MFLS and OCS scores according to education level variable

Table 5 .
Kruskal wallis test results of school administrators' MFLS and OCS scores according to years of service variable Table 3, there was no significant difference in the results of the Mann-Whitney U Test on the The Correlation between Leadership Styles and Organizational Cynicism: Which Leadership Style is Best for Schools?349 difference of School Administrators' MFLS and OC Scale Scores according to age (p>.05).

Table 6 .
Spearman correlation coefficient results between MFLS and OCS scores