Context-based leadership and organizational culture in schools: the mediating roles of organizational commitment and job satisfaction

BACKGROUND: Recently, schools have been expected to increasingly respond to complex contextual, cultural, and organizational demands, which has mounted the importance of context-sensitive approaches to leadership. While context-based leadership has been indicated as a mechanism that might shape teachers’ attitudes and behaviors, empirical evidence explicating how context-based leadership influences organizational culture, in particular via mediating mechanisms, remains limited, especially within the context of Türkiye. METHODS: This study developed and tested a theoretical mediation model linking teachers’ perceptions of the context-based leadership approach to organizational culture through organizational commitment and job satisfaction. In a cross-sectional research design, data were collected from 783 teachers working in 50 middle and high schools across three provinces in Türkiye between January and February 2025. Structural equation modeling was used to test both direct and indirect relationships among the variables. RESULTS: Results showed that there was a positive association between perceptions of context-based leadership and organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and organizational culture. Moreover, there were significant positive relationships between organizational commitment and job satisfaction and organizational culture. Organizational commitment and job satisfaction were identified to be significant mediators in the relationship between context-based leadership and organizational culture. CONCLUSIONS: The findings underscore the important function that context-contingent leadership plays in creating a positive organizational culture in promoting teachers’ commitment and organizational satisfaction. The study theoretically contributes to the body of literature on the topic of leadership in that it describes the intervening processes through which influences of the context-contingent leadership impact organizational culture.