The Relationship between Empowering Leadership and Teachers' Job Performance: Organizational Commitment as a Mediator

This study investigates the mediating role of organizational commitment on the relationship between principals' empowering leadership and teachers' job performance. To this end, it employed a cross-sectional design, one of the quantitative methods. Data were collected through the "Empowering Leadership Behaviors Scale", "Organizational Commitment Scale" and "Job Performance Scale". The sample consisted of 324 teachers working in different cities in Turkey. They were employed through convenience sampling and responded to the scales online. Predictive relationships between variables were revealed using a structural equation model. Before testing the structural model, the validity of the scales and measurement model was investigated. The findings indicated that validity and reliability of scales were ensured. On the other hand, the fit indices regarding the measurement model satisfied the cutoff values in the literature. Since the data did not satisfy the multivariate normal distribution assumption, bootstrapping was used. The findings indicated that empowering leadership is positively associated with teachers' job performance and organizational commitment. On the other hand, organizational commitment boosts job performance. Lastly, empowering school leadership enhances organizational commitment, which in turn teachers' job performance. The findings were discussed based on the literature and some suggestions were made based on the findings. [Paper presented at the XI. Educational Administration Forum (Online, Nov 17-21, 2020).]