Studying the Relationship between Educational Managers’ Thinking Style and Transformational Leadership Style Sari Islamic Azad University as Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between educational managers’ thinking style and transformational leadership style in Sari branch of Islamic Azad University. The present study is a descriptive-correlational research. The statistical population of this study includes all educational managers (both assistantsand heads of departments) in Sari branch of Islamic Azad University. The statistical population consists of 59 members (including 3 faculty chairs, 9 assistants, and 49 educational managers). In order to collect the research data, questionnaire of thinking styles and questionnaire of transformation leadership were used. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used for analyzing the research data and testing the hypotheses. T-test is the main statistical method which was used for this purpose. The findings revealed that educational managers’ thinking style is judicial style from functional view, is holistic one from level perspective, is an outward-oriented one from scope view, and is a liberal one from tendency view. The findings also revealed that measure of transformational leadership style of the educational managers is an ideal-influence model. Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that educational managers of this university have a hierarchy-based thinking style and oligarchy style and mental motivation measure in their style.

Keywords: style, thinking, manager, training, leadership