Metaphoric Perceptions of Teachers and Administrators towards Uplifting Leadership

This study aimed to determine the perceptions of teachers and administrators about the concept of uplifting leadership in depth through metaphors. In this study, phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used. The study group of the research consists of 30 people, 15 administrators and 15 teachers who work in primary, secondary and high schools affiliated to Antalya Directorate of National Education and selected through snowball sampling, which is purposeful sampling methods. A structured questionary form was used as a data collection tool. Metaphors were used as a data collection method and the participants were asked to explain what they think uplifting leadership resembled with reasons. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the data. The responses of the participants were classified and analyzed; the analysis was supported by direct quotations from the participants. NVivo package program was used to encode and classify the data. As a result of the study, it has been found that the metaphors produced by the participants contain features of the uplifting leadership by the changing management perception, such as being contemporary, constantly improving itself by following the innovations, trying to save organizations from the static structure, exciting employees for their improvement or institutional improvement, teaching them to dream, supporting different ideas, working in cooperation.