Relationship between Organizational Commitment and perception of Isfahan High Schools’ physical educators, of their principals’ leadership styles

Background: The main purpose of this study was to determine the relation between the level of organizational commitment and physical educators’ perception of leadership styles of high school principals in 2010 Materials and Methods: The statistical population of this research involved all physical educators of Esfahan, consisted of 219 participants. The sample size was selected equal to the number of the statistical population. The correlation survey method was used in this study. In order to measure the level of organizational commitment, the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ) Allen & Mayer (1990) was used; its reliability was estimated 93% based on Cronbach’s Alpha. To determine the principal’s leadership styles, the standard Bass and Aovlio questionnaire with reliability of 94% was used. Results and Discussions: There appeared to be a significant positive difference between the perception of leadership style and organizational commitment (r=0.35, p < 0.01) and emotional sub scales (r=0.3, p < 0.01) and normal sub scales (r=0.36, p < 0.01); this relation was not significant for the continuous sub scale. There was a significant positive difference between transformational leadership style and organizational commitment (r=0.51, p < 0.01) and emotional sub scales (r=0.54, p < 0.01) and normal (r=0.45, p < 0.01) and continuous sub scales (r=0.28, p < 0.01); Only the relation between the normal sub scales and the pragmatism leadership style was significant (r=0.28, p < 0.01) between the pragmatism leadership style with the organizational commitment and its sub scales. There appeared to be a significant negative difference between ineffective leadership style with organizational commitment (r= -0.25, p < 0.01) and normal sub scales (r= -0.35, p < 0.01) and continuous sub scales (r= -0.28, p < 0.01); this relation was not significant with the emotional sub scales. Conclusion: It can be inducted that in order to increase physical educators’ organizational commitment, their principals require to utilize the modern revolutionary styles; Also, we should adopt solutions to enable us to increase the desire of the principals for utilizing this style and to increase the subordinates’ organizational commitment, as well. Encouraging the principals and the physical educators to continue their education and improve their educational level can be one of these solutions.