Teachers Perspectives on Headteachers Mistreatment: Exploring the other Side of the Coin
Abstract
Treating teachers appropriately is considered extremely important for promoting a healthy and effective school environment. The present research predominantly focused on headteachers’ professional behaviour towards teachers in an attempt to explore teachers’ unheard voices. A phenomenological approach was employed to uncover teachers’ experiences of how they are treated by the headteachers in schools. Fifteen teachers were purposively selected from public and private schools of an administrative division in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The underlying themes were explored through a thematic analysis of the text. The emergent themes include teacher-head teacher interaction, authoritative in the meetings, favouritism and biases, ignoring staff members, hurting self-respect and frustration and isolation. The study has implications for school improvement and further research on headteachers’ experiences that lead them to a certain type of behaviour towards teachers.
Key Words:
Headteachers, Inappropriate Behavior, Incivility, Pakistan, School Teacher, Teacher Mistreatment, Teacher-Headteacher Relationship.
Introduction
The headteachers are under mounting pressure consecutively by different higher authorities as well as a variety of other sources becoming the reasons for pressure. It includes to increase students’ enrollment annually, to control drop out ratio of the students, to ensure hundred percent attendance of the students and the staff on a daily basis, other infrastructural, financial and managerial issues collaboratively cause a great tension for the headteachers (Schilpzand, De Pater, & Erez, 2016). Resultantly, the tension produced by such internal and external sources passes over indirectly to the subordinate teachers that may cause inappropriate behaviour among teachers and headteachers. The teachers and headteachers should know the incongruous happenings that may disturb the environment of the school and may lead to such a workplace that would be unsuitable and irritating; it further would increase the chances of inappropriate behaviour among whole staff (Meier, Gross, Spector & Semmer, 2013).
It has been observed that most of the workers at the workplace experience inappropriate behaviour (Porath & Pearson, 2010). The teachers have been facing a problem of headteachers’ inappropriate behaviour, incivility and mistreatment that has various aspects yet to be explored. Teachers’ unheard voices of mistreatment are not addressed by the concerned authorities when there is a violation of the fundamental human rights like respect, dignity, unbiased behaviour, equity and justice. Research reveals that both men and women are involved in incivility at the workplace (Gallus, Lugo, Fernandez, Gilmore, Leon, Clancy & Vecchia, 2014). Workplace incivility has been termed as a progressively risky issue and dynamic activity in various literary, academic and theoretical works (Porath & Pearson, 2010).
Inappropriate behaviour includes backbiting the staff member, showing partiality or nepotism in the case of any dispute, taking part in insulting the targeted person, making groups against the heads, making negative comments, censuring a partner for something, criticizing openly, making unjustifiable judgments and spreading bits of discussion and malicious comments about a colleague (Meier, Gross, Spector, & Semmer, 2013). The behaviour of headteachers with their teachers in an inappropriate manner expressed directly or indirectly is dangerous for the whole organization, especially for subordinates and is the cause of increased interpersonal conflicts (Johnson & Indvik, 2001). Also, inappropriate behaviour is a cause of division among all employees, which spoils the collegial relationships (Dutka, 2004). Incivility is the most occurring phenomenon in the world and it occurs in different forms in different departments (Schilpzand, De Pater & Erez, 2016).
Inappropriate behaviour and its destructive effects are easy to understand by considering the goals of the incivility. It is the cause of increasing harmful effects like stress and anxiety and also the cause of decreasing welfare of the employees (Scott, Restubog & Zagenczyk, 2013). Similarly, incivility produces poor effects on the personality and professional life of the employees. Usually, it affects negatively on the working environment and it is an obstacle to developing a better and productive working environment. It also affects mental health (Wong & Laschinger, 2013). Ghosh, Dierkes, and Falletta (2011) have supported that it produces dangerous effects on the working environment and also on organizational behaviour. The inappropriate behaviour of the heads of institution encourages the incivility at the workplace.
Due to the spiral nature of the incivility, it causes diverse effects on the behavior of the employees (Lim, 2008). Once an inappropriate behavior is started, the reaction of this prior inappropriate behaviour is usually countered by more intensity than the initial inappropriate behaviour (Glomb & Liao, 2003). After observing this type of behaviour, the other staff members would try to follow their head of the institution and consequently, they would adopt uncivil and negative behaviour (Estes & Wang, 2008). Workplace inappropriate behaviour can damage the professionalism and develop financial gutter (Fox, & Stallworth, 2005). Laschinger, Leiter, Day, and Gilin (2009) explained that increment in working environment incivility could likewise be related to hierarchical results like decreased work performance and occupation fulfilment. Pearson, Andersson and Porath (2000) have referenced a few signs or attributes of inappropriate behaviour, for example, absence of building up positive relationships in the organization (i.e., not figuring out how to fit in with colleagues), negative impacts (tension, dissatisfaction, violence), and statistic difference (e.g. age, gender).
The previous research has made recommendations to focus on this area of research. Cortina, Magley, Williams, and Langhout (2001) described “inappropriate workplace behaviour requires deep and serious research because of its harmful effects on organizations and individuals alike” (p. 75). The removal of the barriers is necessary to build up the trusting relationships between all the employees of the institution (Marshall, 2004). Meier, Gross, Spector, and Semmer (2013) claimed that incivility includes ignoring a colleague, discouraging the performance of team-member, try to find out faults or mistakes in the work of teammate, sending powerful and dreadful messages through non-verbal communication and disappointing the colleagues. The incivility can be discouraged by developing good relationships with others (Scott, Restubog, & Zagenczyk, 2013). The workplace inappropriate behaviour can be reduced by the change of mind (Ramsey & Jones, 2015). The main reasons for studying this problem were: (1) the researchers have experienced inappropriate behaviour of headteachers in public and private schools of some regions of the province of Punjab. This experience of headteachers’ inappropriate behaviour appealed the researchers to investigate this phenomenon among other teachers. (2) As reviewed above, few investigations addressed the inappropriate of heads of the institution and organizations. Different research work on inappropriate behaviour, system theory and social interactionist theory, supported the idea of exploring how do headteachers treat their subordinate teachers in the context of public and private schools of Pakistan.
Purpose of the Study
It was inferred by Schilpzand, De Pater and Erez (2016) that studies are required to investigate the impact of inappropriate behaviour on the employees with an emphasis on a qualitative approach to explore the phenomenon more deeply. The purpose of this phenomenological-oriented research was to explore school teachers’ unheard voices in the light of their lived experiences while interacting with headteachers and to unveil headteachers’ behaviour towards them in the setting of public and private schools. The study is designed to explore the nature of the behavior of headteachers towards their subordinate teachers to find out similarities and differences among various headteachers’ behaviour towards the teachers and to explore participants’ experiential descriptions that uncover headteachers’ behaviour towards them.
Research Questions
Given the purpose of the research, the present study was designed to address the following questions:
1. How do headteachers and teachers interact with each other within the school premises?
2. What are the teachers’ experiences of headteachers’ professional behaviour towards them?
3. What is the nature of interaction and behaviour of headteachers in the school setting?
4. How does headteachers’ professional behaviour affect teachers’ personal and professional life?
Research Methodology
Exploring headteachers’ professional behaviour is a phenomenological study that was conducted in the setting of public and private schools of Punjab province during the year 2019. The purpose of the phenomenological study was to understand participants’ experiences about a particular phenomenon (Creswell, White, Dumoulin, Arulkumaran, Sengupta & Bharath, 2018). Hatch (2002) described that the primary goal of using a phenomenological approach is to collect in-depth data and to understand the phenomenon through living the situation personally. Laster, Bennett and Geoum (1999) argued that the focus of such studies is the observational experience of the individuals. This approach helps gather data about participants’ perceptions and experiences. As present study is about headteachers’ professional behaviour, it is crucial to describe and understand the phenomenon of being treated or mistrusted in the words of participant teachers that can allow uncovering headteachers professional behaviour with their subordinate teachers. The phenomenon was examined from each participant teacher descriptively.
Participants
The purpose of qualitative research is to collect in-depth data from the participants (Seidman, 2006) and they should have experienced the phenomenon under investigation (Rubin, 2005). The participant teachers in the study were selected purposively. The number of participants in purposive sampling is not fixed (Seidman, 2006) and they are selected according to pre-determined criteria of participation. The eligibility criteria for the selection of the participants in this study was a purposive selection of male and female school teachers teaching students of different grades in government and private schools of rural and urban areas of a division in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. The selected participants were assumed to reflect the incidents and events, personal experiences, values, beliefs, perceptions, opinions and the experiences of living through the phenomenon of interacting with the school heads and resultantly their behaviour towards them. The sample of the participants included four females and eleven male teachers.
Data Collection
From the data collection perspective, a qualitative study focuses on the individual participants’ experiences and their description of the phenomenon (Laster, Bennett, & Geoum 1999). Such data includes recordable actions, fluctuation of voices, body language and attitude. The data, in this study, were collected from the identified and selected sample of participants through semi-structured interview questions. The semi-structured interview questions were posed in a set of open-ended questions to be asked from the interviewees. Merriam (1998) described that in order to understand a phenomenon, the background circumstances behind a phenomenon should be understood. Therefore, the participants' teachers were selected, allowing maximal variation based on certain demographic characteristics such as gender, education, school level, age and experience of teachers and locale of the school. A short demographic questionnaire consisting of 13 questions regarding relevant salient characteristics of the participants was responded by the interviewees that helped to interpret their experiences. The participants voluntarily answered the questions.
Analysis of Interview Data
The data gathered through semi-structured interviews were thematically analyzed and a narrative was built and presented in the form of themes. The emergent themes addressed the research questions and they were used to structure research findings and led the discussions. The emerging themes were combined collectively to conclude how culture in an educational institution evolves and works (Creswell, 2009). Phenomenological writing was used to describe the whole situation in its originality. Van Manan (1990) suggested that the use of the phenomenological technique is useful to describe a situation in its originality and it reflects the experiences in its original form.
Results
The emerging themes explored through analyzing transcripts of semi-structured interviews are described below.
Teacher-head Teacher Interaction
Some of the participants described that tense and uncomfortable environment of the school, created by the headteachers, is increasing dissatisfaction level from job point of view and the teachers have started to feel uncomfortable in the teaching profession. The school environment becomes uncomfortable when a headteacher interacts with the teachers within the school premises and the headteacher insults and humiliates the teachers in the name of monitoring, inspection or surprise visits. Headteachers visit the entire school with negative intentions like; to discourage, to insult or to demotivate the sub-ordinates instead of appreciation or encouragement. Headteachers never tried to inquire about the ground realities behind a visible scenario. Headteachers respond immediately in a furious way over any undesirable situation without knowing the reality.
Referring to such situations, a newly recruited, young, energetic, dedicated and hardworking teacher “Y” described his experience of being insulted by the headteacher:
One day the headteacher of my school found me sitting on a chair in a relaxed position; he did not bother to know the reason why I was sitting in such a position at that time. Despite, he insulted and humiliated a lot.
The teacher explained that in general, it is a human nature that requires a little bit relaxation from the routine work and it is also necessary to be refreshed for the remaining work to be done. The headteacher should inquire politely about the reason why he was sitting there in the classroom instead of teaching the students. The headteacher may also meet him separately in his office. Insulting in front of the students is a threat to the teacher’s respect, as well as for the head teacher’s respect. The headteacher humiliates intentionally and there are chances of starting incivility.
Another participant teacher named “W” who is a very keen observer of the matters of the school, shared his personal experience of another type of interaction with the headteacher, i.e. “morning assembly”, describes:
Once the headteacher addressed in the morning assembly and threatened that no one is allowed to move out of the school without prior permission and no leave will be recommended for guilty teachers. He further ordered that it is prohibited to sit on the chairs and no one can take tea or any edible during school hours.
The teacher argued that inappropriate behaviour by the headteacher is not acceptable in any form, especially in the school premises and cannot be ignored. Morning assembly is a place where teachers are present along with their students. Teachers are the symbol of respect in every society and children consider their teachers as spiritual father and mother. Their humiliation in the school by the headteachers is an alarming situation. Such interaction with the headteachers in the school is spoiling the teaching-learning process and cooperative environment. It is more difficult to handle such interaction for the newly inducted teachers in the schools.
Another type of interaction was described by the teachers working in private schools, which is the installment of cameras in the classrooms. Headteachers monitor their staff though these cameras all the time, which affects teachers’ mental health a lot. A similar story was stated by the teacher “M” having 15 years teaching experience:
It made him rude, isolated and created a communication gap as the headteacher installed cameras to keep an eye on us through cameras. We “the teachers” are human, not “robots” whom all the time supposed to behave correctly. It is against human nature and disturbed us a lot.
Most of the headteachers do not have any formal or informal interaction and discussions with their staff members on various school issues regarding the teaching-learning process. There is a common gap in communication that exists between headteacher and teachers, which causes a conflict between the headteacher and teachers. In such a situation, the headteacher avoids interacting with teachers directly and vice versa.
Authoritative in Meetings
Meetings with headteachers and staff members is a platform in the schools for discussing various problems regarding students, teachers and the school environment. This platform is relatively useful for a healthy discussion about how to improve the school environment by addressing different problems. This platform requires an equal status in terms of sharing the views and valuing others’ opinions amicably and democratically. On the contrary, most of the teachers do not experience such kind of atmosphere in school meetings
The teacher “W” a hardworking science teacher, teaching in a private school has 12 years’ experience verbalized his personal experience of attending the meeting in school premises headed by the headteacher as:
The headteacher criticized and taunted us by taking our names in a meeting, which is very insulting. Whenever we pointed out various difficulties in terms of students’ strengths, subject load and students’ attitude, headteacher did not hear these problems and blamed us for not handling these issues properly. Due to this, all of the staff members got disappointed and they thought of disobedience.
Negative criticism spoils the working relationships between the head and staff teachers, their performance and severely affect their feelings. Similarly, the use of dummy names instead of real names was a practice to degrade in front of colleagues. This kind of behavior is simply unbearable. The humiliation of teachers during staff meeting was a common thing which demolishes the personality, creativity and novelty among the teachers. No one can question any of the head initiatives during the meeting time that, in turn, kills the purpose of the meeting.
The teacher “I” shared his experience of a meeting in which the headteacher described his observations regarding his surprise visit of almost ten classes on someday to analyze the teaching methodologies used by the concerned teachers. Whatever the teacher “I” listened in the meeting, he recounted it and described:
Headteacher pointed out by names that these teachers were not teaching appropriately according to the subject demand. Those teachers demanded the headteacher to deliver a model lesson for them so that they would follow the given model lesson in their teaching. At this demand, the headteacher became furious and behaved rudely with the whole staff.
Undoubtedly, classroom observation by the headteachers is an essential factor that is carried out to assess the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process. In this type of situation, the headteacher must deliver a model lesson or arrange training sessions for lesson planning. After it, the headteacher should give feedback about the teacher’s performance. The most critical factor in this regard is to ensure the respect and dignity of the teachers and, if possible, guide them separately.
Favoritism and Biasness
Most of the teachers also complain of showing favoritism to some of the colleagues in meetings, which produces jealousy among the rest of the teachers. Three of the twenty participants claimed that their headteachers were men of such kind. Teacher “F” with 19 years of teaching experience, was very disappointed while describing that, “I think if the biasness continues, then most of the sincere teachers will leave this profession or school and will adopt the other profession or join the other school”.
The teachers reflected that favoritism and biasness prevail in the school and the headteacher is mainly responsible for this. The headteacher assigns easy tasks subjects and duties to their closed ones and rest is assigned to other teachers. As a result of such treatment, the victims have to suffer a lot in the form of very low results of board classes, mental depression and final inquiry by higher authorities.
The teacher, “Y” a very hardworking teacher in a government school, was one of the victims of this kind of behavior. He shared his bitter experience that once he got hardly three minutes late from the class due to attending one sick colleague. However, the headteacher insulted him without knowing the reason, whereas the headteacher did not even ask one of his blue-eyed teacher who rarely took his classes. Upon pointing out that colleague, headteacher infuriated and he accused me of lying. This favoritism caused huge damage to most of the teachers mentally and professionally.
Ignoring Staff Members
Most of the teachers’ interviews highlighted that ignoring them by the headteacher is very degrading, especially in front of other teachers. Mostly, the headteachers show no interest in the teacher’s issues and arrogantly interrupt the teachers. Endorsing this fact, a teacher “I” shared his personal experience of being ignored and degraded by his headteacher in a meeting as he was the in-charge of the class comprised of slow-learners. During the meeting, he suggested that “slow learners and brilliant students must be combined in the same class so that brilliant students might inspire slow learners. However, my suggestion was not only ignored but also I was insulted as well”. After that degrading incident, I left that school and joined another school in the same city.
The greeting is a basic source to start a conversation, to remove the hesitations and to develop good relationships with others in any social setting. A school is also a social place where different people of different families and localities interact with one another formally or informally. Most of the teachers also keep depriving of this opportunity by their headteachers. Two of the participants “G” and “J” reiterated that:
The headteacher did not like to have greetings with us. He often passed by us quietly and kept ignoring us. In return, we also did not offer him any greetings. Thus, they failed to develop a healthy relationship with each other.
One of the participants, “K”, a female teacher of English in a well-known private school with five years of teaching experience in that school, explained ignoring behavior in an interesting way. She verbalized that this type of behavior was based on the “Tit for Tat” approach. If the headteacher does not like to talk to teachers, the same is done by the teachers.
Se further accepted that this kind of practice is not appreciable. Since the teachers and headteachers are the pillars of school, if there are no greetings between the teachers and headteachers, there will be no friendly working relationship, which may result in a decline in the working performance of both.
Another interesting factor was found that as a response to such behavior by the headteacher, subordinate teachers started behaving with the headteachers rudely. They gave justification on the basis of the “Tit for Tat” policy. Referring to the said situation, a teacher “X” explained that “the headteacher did not deserve respect. No one dared to express one’s feelings before him. As a result of his ignorant behavior, the teachers had stopped to sit and talk to him in his office”.
The teachers remarked that such an ignorant attitude hurts the self-respect of teachers, which is an essential element while dealing with others. However, unfortunately, this practice is not being observed in the school premises, which creates chaos and anarchy in the school.
Hurting Self-Respect
Most of the participants supported that self-respect is a valuable characteristic of personality over which no one can compromise. It ensures one’s value of oneself and lives a life with dignity. Nevertheless, the results of the present study reflected that in school settings, caring one’s self-respect is ignored by headteachers. Teachers undertake different duties along with teaching, such as preparation of official mail and taking care of laboratories, non-salary budget records, maintenance of various fund registers and official examination duty. The teacher “W” who was performing different duties along with his core responsibility of teaching in high school and charge of a computer lab, shared an unpleasant incident that how his self-respect was damaged, he described that:
I was on my official examination duty assigned by the divisional board but my head was not happy with that. He behaved rudely and rebuked me. It aroused a quarrel between us and the matter went to an official inquiry. It hurt my self-respect badly and haunted me for a long time.
Similarly, there is a common practice of self-esteem traumatizing in the school by the headteachers that whenever results and roadmap indicators are low, headteachers react very offensively. They threaten the teachers by issuing a warning of sending inquiry recommendations against them and enforcement of Punjab Employ Efficiency and Disciplinary Act (PEEDA) against them. If there is a pressure from higher authorities, they transfer it to the lower level in the form of more aggressiveness and more severe behavior. And all this often happens in the school environment as the teacher “N” who feels an intense threat from his Self-respect is the policy of give and take. No one is perfect and free of mistakes. Some times after striving very hard and doing one’s level best, one may fail in achieving targets or indicators due to some bad luck or strikes of destiny. The teacher “I” explained very briefly the incident of dishonor by the headteacher and its adverse effects on his life as reported by a teacher “F”, who is honest and having teaching experience of 19 years in different government schools. He described his feelings of humiliation in these words:
Once headteacher rebuked me in front of all the teachers upon a little mistake. That had a negative impact on me and my dealing with my pupils was not good that day and I was mentally upset all day. I was so low on self-esteem that I could not face my colleague for many days.
He further added that when a teacher’s self-respect is damaged, he is not able to deliver lectures efficiently due to stress, anger or depression. Consequently, its negative effects are passed by teachers indirectly to his students. It has been experienced by the teachers who participated in the research that there is a lack of honor and support from the headteacher in schools. They are of the view that education is not the name of school buildings; it is the name of well-equipped teachers with knowledge. If sincere teachers leave school, then the standard of education will decrease and not only will students suffer, the whole school will also suffer.
Frustration and Isolation
Headteachers’ inappropriate behavior creates permanent frustration in developing good relationships between headteachers and teachers in the schools. Participants expressed that frustration arose from different sources like pressure from students, head teacher’s inappropriate behavior and increased workloads. Usually, a teacher remains present at school for 5 to 6 hours daily. When he/she faces inappropriate behavior consecutively, its harmful reflection can be seen in his/her personal and professional life. One of the participant teacher “X” doing a job as an English teacher in government school claimed that “inappropriate behavior of headteacher had badly affected on his personal life like headache, depression and restlessness”. When a teacher is mentally disturbed, he/she gets distracted from his/her teaching work, he/she will not be able to work for the prestige of the school. As the teacher “W” one of the isolated and frustrated teachers described that:
Due to the inappropriate behavior of headteacher, frustration and isolation were at large among the teachers causing extreme dejection and disappointment. I was one of the targeted teachers. Head assigned different tasks to me more than others but was frequently aggressive over trivial issues. Since written explanations are considered valid documentary proof that may damage the self-confidence of teachers, it may cause permanent mental torture (permanent in the sense that it becomes the personal record of teacher) for the teacher. Headteachers always use this documentary proof to threaten. As a result of this, teachers always feel being degraded and frustrated. One of the respondents expressed his incident of headteachers’ inappropriate behavior that “once there was a meeting on some school issues. There was an exchange of words between the headteacher and me. He suddenly made a written explanation and taking further actions in enmity. This incident made me frustrated and isolated”.
A very zealous young teacher “T” about teaching profession described his experience of negative impact in the form of frustration produced by haughty and rough dealing of head:
I left no stone unturned for the welfare of my school but I was a victim of continuous backstabbing by the headteacher just because I just did my teaching tasks and did not interfere with other issues. That thing frustrated me a lot and deeply discouraged my teaching spirit and performance.
The teachers feel that antisocial behavior is present among teachers due to the stress that arose from the way headteachers behave with the teachers. Teachers have an unbelievable workload and stress coming down from administration, parents, even coworkers: making a very hostile environment and sometimes it is more than one can handle.
Isolation can increase the risks of negativity in behavior and can severely affect mental health. It can increase the depression level and anxiety, which may cause low self-esteem. As one of the respondents, the teacher “D” performing his job very well in private sector school described that “frustration has increased among the teachers due to decreasing communication and resultantly, isolation occurred.
Discussion
In review of the literature, most of the research on inappropriate behavior, incivility and mistreatment revealed that inappropriate behavioral interaction occurs from head of the institutes often and seldom from employees’ side and sometimes it occurred from both sides without any discriminating the effect of sources (Cortina, Chen, & Dunlap, 2001). Inappropriate behavior conveys dishonoring comments and accusing of others (Andersson, & Pearson, 1999). The authoritative behavior increases the ferocity, panic and anxiety (Barling, 1996).
Due to the inappropriate behavior of the headteachers while interacting the teachers excessively prevailing in the school environment and is one of the biggest sources of degradation of the worthy teachers causing them to feel ill at ease. Through the results of the study, the researchers came to know as most of the teachers communicated that inappropriate behavior of the headteachers with the teachers while interacting with them produced negative environment in the school, which divided the teachers into different groups on the basis of nepotism and personal biases of the headteachers mostly practiced by them in the school premises. Unwanted targets and power is playing on teachers produced by policies, the district office, and mostly by the head of the schools to ensure 100% teachers’ attendance, 100% students’ attendance which created frustration, isolation, conflict among teachers and negative school culture and headteachers’ unpleasant interaction with teaching faculty. Senge (2006) found that the immoral interaction of the head of an institution damages the interrelationships.
Participants communicated that the actions of headteachers in the school when interacting with the teachers in the form of inappropriate behavior produced an adverse climate that fragmented teachers into groups or cliques. Researchers discovered in his research that the hierarchical structure of schools increased the probability of inappropriate behavior between headteachers and the teachers. While discussing the inappropriate behavior of the heads of the schools in the form of interaction with teachers, there is another severe form of behavior that is authoritative and humiliating behavioral treatment.
The work of many researchers revealed that during staff meetings, following the uncivil behavior of headteachers has been observed with interruptions, authority and wrong attitude. For example, Streibel and Formisano (2003) shed light on the main problems in the staff meeting as getting late, self-supremacy and too much gossip. Inappropriate behavior produces a treacherous impact for school operational and creative environment. Most tasks like decision making, problem-solving required much attention from all participants for a final decision but sometimes incivility can cause work loss and reduces development (Reio & Reio, 2011). Sugar, Crawley, and Fine (2004) argues that staff meetings by heads are arranged to find out the solution of a problem but there is the habit of showing off supremacy, authority by the heads and also a deviation has been observed from the main problem (Allen, Beck, Scott & Rogelberg, 2014). The meeting is the platform of sharing and discussing a common problem and to find out the ways to achieve the predefined targets. One-way communication is not the proper practice of dealing with the staff members and it creates hurdles in the smooth working of the school. The democratic style is the best way of listening and convincing others about any issue. For the welfare of the students and achieving educational targets, headteachers should follow democratic values and realize the teachers that their valuable experiences are more beneficial for the development of the school and especially for the students.
Aggressive behavior only creates misunderstanding and discourages the working performance of people in any institute to a large scale. Headteachers are supposed to be role models for the teachers and the students and authority is not the name of showing the power; it is the name of managing the things in the accordance with their nature and to increase the productivity. Immoral treatment by the headteachers most frequently practiced in the schools is very shocking. Disgraceful and arrogant practices of the headteacher is also another usual routine by the heads of the schools. Hall and Murphy (2003) provide further understanding of arrogant behavior that arrogant heads of the institutes often forcefully demonstrate the information to reflect their views. He explained that arrogance is a behavior that can eliminate a head from his or her position. Fahie (2013) suggested that the kind of arrogance shown by the head of the institution involved unprincipled and prohibited actions. The teachers who participated in this study demonstrated that arrogance produced a severe negative effect on the behavior of the teachers but it also produced adverse effects on teaching-learning process in the classroom. The victimized teachers of arrogant behavior also exhibit arrogance with their students. A key to eradicating arrogance from executive behavior is to have such a headteacher who values teachers by showing respect to everyone. In the present research, it came to light that most frequently, this is the routine practice of the head of the schools and for the welfare of the school environment, this thing must be eliminated. Interruptions in the classrooms are also a worse form of behavior of school heads. Such behavior provides evidence that an uncivil head of the institute is in the habit of interrupting faculty while performing tasks just for the sake of showing authority and this self-satisfaction influences the overall performance of the institute (Vardi, & Wiener, 1996). The study highlights behavior by the head of the schools in the form of reasonless and illogical interruptions for the sake of self-pride and dominance. The bitter fact is revealed to show the bitterness of this nasty habit by the head of the schools and rarely it is done for some definite purpose but the self-esteem of the worthy teachers is not taken into account and this is not the right way for a leader to lead an institute. Lim, Cortina, and Magley (2008) found in his study that inappropriate behavior by the heads make negative feelings having an adverse personality disorder in subordinates, for example, displeasure, stress and conflicts by traumatizing their self-respect by their heads.
Authority is not a structure with un-limited boundaries, nor it has a specific quality of its exercise and measurement; it can be used in the critical situation in a culture. Another emerging dispute in the schools is not granting causal leave, which is the right of teachers at the time of necessity but this thing is ignored, taking in the view to maintain the targets of 100% attendance. Along with official leaves, there is frustration and isolation as a result of this behavior by the head of the schools. Porath and Pearson (2010) affirmed that the teachers who either experienced this behavior from the headteachers, a coarse incident, suffered from lower work performance in a control situation. They explained the same results as that of participants who witnessed an authority figure behaving in an inappropriate behavior had decreased efficiency on routine and artistic duties. Adverse feelings bring forth nervousness and depression.
Workplace inappropriate behavior as in the schools breakdowns and harms social values, the results of which are the workers' disobedience, so it is untrustworthy (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). Pearson, Andersson, and Wegner (2001) described that appropriate behavior should help on need bases with high consideration; the outcomes of inappropriate behavior influence the credibility and advantages of an institute. Pomson (2005) established that teachers were reluctant to form close relationships and often isolated themselves from each other, which created mistrust and isolation. Being on teams, teachers indicated that they did not communicate or work closely with colleagues on other teams or grade levels, which encouraged isolation and competition. According to Senge (2006), organizations forced workers to focus on their positions and not their ability to share responsibility for the results of the organization. Teachers became instruments to produce high test scores and competition emerged that increases antisocial behavior. Headteachers’ inappropriate interactions, abusive behavior while staff meeting, biased behavior, traumatized self-respect, arrogant behavior, frustration and isolation as a fruit of inappropriate behavior are similar to previous researches whereas classroom interruptions; official leaves disputes are the forms of headteachers’ inappropriate behavior prevailing in the school premises are different from the previous researches done in this area of field. To reduce inappropriate behavior and encourage positive professional behavior,
Conclusion
The study aimed to understand the personal observations and experiences of the sub-ordinate teachers about the nature of behavior and interaction with their headteachers. It focused on exploring the experiences that existed in teachers’ hearts and minds but they did not reveal publicly. In the light of participants’ experiences, it may be concluded that most of the headteachers’ behavior was found inappropriate, uncivil, authoritative, non-cooperative, insulting and they seem to mistreat teachers. As a whole such type of behavior caused a disturbance in the school, in the form of mistrust, less or no inter-dependence, injustice, a gap of communication and misunderstanding among the academic staff members and headteachers retaliating based on personal biases and other challenges within the school premises. The results have implications for improving the code of conduct of teachers and headteachers that can help improve the school environment. A workable system should be developed by encouraging teamwork, building trust among teachers and headteachers, promoting the culture of dialogue among teachers and the headteachers in every matter, and reducing hierarchical structures by increasing the participation of the teachers and headteachers together in decision making regarding the policy matters and to build relationships and reduce cliques between them.