The relationship between school principals’ leadership styles, organisational climate and organisational depression

The aim with the study reported on here was to examine the relationship between school principals’ leadership styles, the organisational climate of the school, and the teachers’ perceived organisational depression levels. The sample of the study consisted of 311 teachers from schools located in the central districts of Malatya, Türkiye, selected using the stratified random sampling method. The research was quantitative and was designed using a relational model. The school principal leadership styles scale, school climate scale, and organisational depression scale were used in the research, and the data were analysed using the structural equation model (SEM). The findings show that the leadership styles exhibited by school principals were positively related to school climate and negatively related to organisational depression. A negative relationship was found between teacher perceptions of school climate and organisational depression. In addition, teacher perceptions of school climate had a mediating effect on the relationship between school principals’ leadership styles and teacher perceptions of organisational depression. We recommend maintaining a positive organisational climate to reduce organisational depression. This study highlights the importance of fostering a positive organisational climate as a strategy to mitigate organisational depression in schools. We suggest that future research should apply this framework to different sample groups, comparing results across various related variables, to deepen the understanding of these dynamics and their implications for educational settings.