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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1456685
This article is part of the Research Topic Leadership, Learning, Well-being, and Justice in Educational Organizations View all 4 articles

The relationship between ethical leadership, teacher motivation and commitment in Portuguese public schools

Provisionally accepted
Lurdes G. Neves Lurdes G. Neves *
  • Bussiness & Economics School, Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In the current educational context, transformations are continuous, and the ethical dimension of leadership has become one of the main concerns of school cluster directors, given its direct influence on teachers' motivation. This study, conducted with a sample of 204 teachers from Portuguese public schools, aimed to investigate the relationship between ethical leadership, motivation, and commitment.The results revealed that ethical leadership is positively correlated with intrinsic motivation and organizational commitment. On the other hand, despotic leadership exhibits a negative correlation with organizational commitment and intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, it was found that commitment plays a mediating role in the effect of ethical leadership on teachers' intrinsic motivation.These findings underscore the importance of promoting ethical leadership in schools, not only to foster teachers' motivation but also to strengthen their commitment to the institution. Conversely, the need to avoid despotic practices is emphasized, as they can adversely affect not only teachers' motivation but also their commitment to the educational organization. These conclusions further highlight, as future research avenues, the importance of promoting ethical leadership in educational institutions to ensure a healthy and productive work environment for teachers.

    Keywords: (Min.5) leadership1, commitment2, motivation3, teachers4, ethical5

    Received: 29 Jun 2024; Accepted: 18 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Neves. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Lurdes G. Neves, Bussiness & Economics School, Lusófona University, Lisbon, Portugal

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