From leadership research to district action: Leadership styles and quiet quitting in school context: unveiling mobbing as a mediator

AI-assisted editorial implementation guide. Proposed district actions are separate from the original authors’ findings and recommendations. Independent peer review of this guide is not asserted.

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Evidence and transfer

Education-related source: verify which participants, institutions and outcomes were actually studied before district adoption. Source publication type: research-article. License and identity checks do not establish study quality or causality.

Original authors’ abstract, reproduced under the source license:

Introduction Leadership and mobbing can be the prominent antecedents of quiet quitting behaviours of teachers, which is also linked with their well-being. This relational study examines whether mobbing has a mediating role between teachers’ perceived leadership style and quiet quitting. Methods This study employed structural equation modelling to analyse the questionnaire data from 411 teachers working in public schools in Turkey. Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine whether the factor structures of the scales used in the study constituted a valid model, and SEM-based mediation tests were conducted to determine the relationships between the variables. Results Autocratic leadership has a positive association with mobbing and quiet quitting while democratic leadership has a negative correlation with them. The structural equation modelling revealed that the level of mobbing perceived by teachers has a partial mediating role between the leadership style of school administrators and teachers’ quiet quitting behaviours. Discussion These findings have theoretical and practical implications for leadership studies, organizational behaviour and educational management. It contributes to educational leadership theories by demonstrating that autocratic and democratic leadership styles influence teacher engagement not only directly but also through workplace mobbing.

Study methods

This is a relational research conducted to describe and explain the relationships between teachers’ perceived leadership style, mobbing and their quiet quitting behaviors. Relational research examines whether there is a relationship between two or more variables, and the researcher does not intervene in any way while these relationships are being addressed. In structural equation modeling, a causality claim is put forward without manipulation (Pedhazur and Pedhazur-Schmelkin, 1991). Although relational research is not cause-effect research, it provides clues about the cause and effect between the dependent and independent variables (Fraenkel and Wallen, 2011). The causality expressed in structural equation modeling is no more than theoretical causality (Hair et al., 1995; Tuijnman and Keeves, 1997).

Limitations

This study has several limitations in terms of generalizability, methodology and contextual factors. First, it was conducted only in Mersin, Türkiye, limiting the applicability of findings to other cities or countries. Next, the study only focuses on teachers, meaning its conclusions might not apply to other professions, such as healthcare, corporate settings, or public administration, where leadership-mobbing-quiet quitting dynamics may differ. Another limitation is about the design of the study. It is a cross-sectional study (data collected at one point in time), so it cannot establish causality, only associations between leadership, mobbing, and quiet quitting. To improve future research, scholars should;

A 90-day district inquiry

Days 1–15 · Appraise. Read the source methods, recruitment, comparator, outcomes and limitations. Record how the study setting differs from your district and which claim the design can support.
Days 16–30 · Design. Choose one school improvement question with teachers. Protect a short shared planning cycle, agree an instructional change and use a common rubric for examining student work. Agree participation, privacy protections, baseline and stopping rules before starting.
Days 31–60 · Observe. Collect the pre-agreed measures, keep a log of implementation changes and invite confidential voluntary feedback. Preserve existing support for staff and learners.
Days 61–90 · Decide. Review implementation fidelity, teacher time and independently scored student work against a recorded baseline. Examine access differences and competing explanations before attributing changes to leadership. Make a dated decision to stop, revise or extend the inquiry.

Board decision brief

Present the local problem, source setting, evidence limits, intervention, responsible owner, total cost, measured changes and uncertainty. Separate staff perceptions, implementation measures and student learning outcomes.

Attribution and reuse

Hüseyin Ergen; Fahrettin Giliç; Asena Yücedağlar; Yusuf İnandi. Leadership styles and quiet quitting in school context: unveiling mobbing as a mediator. Frontiers in Psychology (2025-04-30). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1538444

Prepared 2026-11-07. Source authorship and DOI are preserved. The abstract and source passages are attributed extracts; this editorial guide is offered under the same CC BY 4.0 license.