Eureka! Institutional Repository

The rapid changes occurring in our day and age affected greatly the educational field. The leadership of the school unit, as well as the empowerment of the teaching stuff are arising as two factors of great significance for improving the quality of the educational system. Discussions around the subject often lead to the role of the leader-Principal, his management style and his interaction with the members of the school unit. This is because the progressive leader is the one to promote the empowerment of the teachers, form the vision and the working environment, and will seek for the professional development of the stuff. The present thesis aims to investigate the views of Primary School teachers on the leadership style of their Principal as well as his role in their professional development. It is a quantitative, Internet-based research, that took place in Primary Schools of the third district of Athens and had a total of 122 participant teachers. To them it was given an anonymous questionnaire, which was sent via e-mail and Google forms to their schools. The analysis of the results showed that, indeed, the majority of the teachers believe that the Principals adopt progressive leadership strategies to promote their empowerment. Moreover, they consider that empowerment contributes to the configuration of a positive working environment, to the establishment of cooperative and supportive relationships between the teaching stuff and to professional satisfaction overall. Regarding the difficulties arising during their empowerment by the school leadership, teachers believe that these are only significant when the Principal tries to implement his own ideas or when they feel excessive stress and are involved in disagreements. Concluding, a future investigation on the views of the Principals regarding their role in empowering their teaching stuff, as well as their need of other members taking initiative towards this goal, is highly suggested