Abstract

• The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship among principals' ethical leadership, organizational justice and teachers' organizational cynicism at selected high schools in Indaw Township. In this study, a mixed methods approach was used. Quantitative data were collected through three instruments; (i) "Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS)" developed by Yilmaz (2006, as cited in Karaköse, 2007) to find out teachers' perception of principals' ethical leadership, (ii) "Organizational Justice Scale," developed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993, as cited in Polat 2007) and adapted by Polat (2007) to measure teachers' perception of principals' organizational justice and (iii) "Organizational Cynicism Scale" developed by Brandes, Dharwadkar and Dean (2000, as cited in Gerald, 2002) to explore teachers' organizational cynicism. The sample involved 233 teachers from seven selected high schools identified through a purposive sampling process. In order to gather qualitative data, structured interviews were conducted with 24 teachers from four selected high schools. The findings of this study revealed that teachers' perception of principals' "ethical leadership" was positively and highly correlated to teachers' perception of principals' "organizational justice" (r=0.934, p<0.01) while it was negatively and highly correlated to teachers' "organizational cynicism" (r=-0.669, p<0.01). Similarly, there was also a negatively and highly correlation between teachers' perception of principals' "organizational justice" and their "organizational cynicism" (r=-0.658, p<0.01). The qualitative data provided by interviews with teachers were consistent with the findings of quantitative findings. In line with the results, the more principals perform ethical leadership practices in schools, the more their organizational justice increases, and the fewer teachers' organizational cynicism decreases. Therefore, principals should manage and lead the schools ethically. Moreover, a replication of this study should be conducted in other townships.