Organizational Justice, Perceived Stress and Leader Support as Predictors of Teachers' Job Satisfaction

2021 Abstract: Introduction: Teachers' job satisfaction which has a positive effect on the quality of education, students, teachers and schools is significant for the successful functioning of schools. On the other hand, the increase in the level of dissatisfaction causes disciplinary problems, inefficiency, job dissatisfaction, alienation from the job, or leaving the job. Therefore, research on teachers' job satisfaction can help to understand the general and specific aspects of teachers' job satisfaction, which in turn this information can provide a scientific basis for solving problems. Methods: The study uses quantitative research methodologies based on a correlational research. The research data obtained the convenience sampling method from 396 teachers who work for public schools in the province of Denizli in Turkey. Multiple regression was used for analysis. Results: The results of the study showed that organizational justice, perceived stress and leadership support are all significant predictors of teachers' job satisfaction. The relative importance order of the specified variables in predicting teachers' job satisfaction is organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support, respectively. Predictor variables account for approximately 50.4% of the total variance in teachers' job satisfaction. Discussion: Within the scope of the research, the relationships determined between job satisfaction, organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support are consistent with the results of the research conducted on teachers and other professional groups in the literature. Implications of the study results were discussed in detail. variables, it methods can be considered as another limitation. However, the consistency of the relationships determined between the variables of the study with the existing literature indicates that the bias due to this limitation is relatively low. Conclusion: The results of the study indicated that the order of relative importance in educational policies and practices that will take teachers' job satisfaction into account should be structured as organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support. However, it is thought that holistic approaches that include all variables can be more effective, since variables of organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support are significantly associated with teachers' job satisfaction.


Introduction
Employee job satisfaction has been an intensive study area both for researchers and practitioners since the classic work of Hoppock (1935) was published. Job satisfaction is defined as the degree that employees like their jobs and different aspects of their jobs (Spector, 1997) or a pleasurable emotional state arising from evaluating their work (Locke, 1976). The concept of teachers' job satisfaction is defined as teachers' general attitudes and opinions towards their working conditions and professions (Hongying, 2007). The concepts of job satisfaction, organization justice, perceived stress and leader support are introduced below respectively. 1 Theoretical background

Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction is the result of employees' perception of how well their job delivers what is considered essential by them, and research showed that job satisfaction affects teachers' job enthusiasm (Weiqi, 2007). On an individual level, job satisfaction affects job enthusiasm and mental health of teachers whereas in terms of school administration teachers' job satisfaction is seen as a factor that affects the teaching, school quality and efficiency of school leadership (Hongying, 2007). Since job satisfaction is an attitudinal and dynamic concept, it can vary in the process due to its nature. In other words, since satisfaction level is an attitude formed by the employee's own perception, the effects of various factors may differ due to individual orientations (Toker, 2006). In literature, the factors that focus on the content of the profession (e.g., positive relationships with colleagues and students, diversity in the profession, etc.), generally lead to an increase in experienced job satisfaction. However, according to the extent that they have an effect, employment conditions (e.g., income, working hours, administrative burden, too much work, etc.) generally lead to a decrease in job satisfaction (Van Ham, Verhoeven, Groenier, Groothoff, & De Haan, 2006). In this context, it is stated that teachers are generally delighted with internal factors such as interpersonal relations, self-fulfillment, social recognition and professional input, and not satisfied with other factors such as wage income, promotions, physical environments, student quality, educational social environment and job stress (Hongying, 2007). In addition to this, organizational factors; leader attitudes and behaviors (Karaköse & Kocabaş, 2006), wage (Filiz, 2014;Göktaş, 2007), working conditions and promotion opportunities (Ayan, Kocacık, & Karakuş, 2009;Liu & Ramsey, 2008;Shen, Leslie, Spybrook, & Ma, 2012;Taşdan & Tiryaki, 2008), group factors; manager and colleague relations (Koruklu, Feyzioğlu, Özenoğlu-Kiremit, & Aladağ, 2013;Tunacan & Çetin, 2009), organizational and group factors (Özkalp & Kırel, 1996) are significantly associated with job satisfaction.

Organizational justice
Organization justice is a concept that is typically used to define the role of justice in workplaces. This concept is primarily related to whether employees have a fair treatment at work and the ways how these findings can affect the other work-related variables (Moorman, 1991). While organizational justice was initially addressed in terms of the distributive justice dimension (origins from Adams' work;1965) and procedural justice dimension (Thibaut & Walker, 1975) in the literature (e.g., Folger & Greenberg, 1985;Moorman, 1991), then the interactional justice dimension (Bies & Moag, 1986) was introduced. The idea which states interactional justice consists of interpersonal and informational justice sub-dimensions started to be accepted (e.g., Cropanzano, Bowen, & Gilliland, 2007;Greenberg, 1990Greenberg, , 1993. Distributive justice is about the perception of the most significant results (e.g., salary, promotion, shift, assignments and workplace discipline, etc.) by employees as fair in organizations and whether all employees are treated in the same way (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001;Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001;Cropanzano et al., 2007). Procedural justice refers to the perceptions of employees regarding the fairness and accuracy of the procedures and policies used to achieve distributive justice (Colquitt et al., 2001;Greenberg, 1990). Interactional justice in the simplest sense refers to how one person treats another (Cropanzano et al., 2007). Interpersonal fairness generally refers to the degree at which employees are treated with courtesy, dignity and respect in the implementation of procedures or determination of results. Informational justice focuses on explanations given to people who pass on information about why procedures are used in a particular way or why results are being distributed in a particular way (Colquitt et al., 2001). Organizational justice is positively related to job satisfaction (Al-Zu'bi, 2010;DeConinck & Stilwell, 2004;Kılıç, 2016;Eker, 2006;Özen-Kutanis & Mesci, 2010;Netemeyer, Boles, McKee, & McMurrian, 1997;Nojani, Arjmandnia, Afrooz, & Rajabi, 2012;Yıldırım, 2007) and directly affects job satisfaction (Najafi, Noruzy, Azar, Nazari-Shirkouhi, & Dalv, 2011). Besides, the communication and treatment of managers in the implementation of organizational justice also affect employees' perceptions of stress (Swandarujati, Nurfitri, & Anggraeni, 2019). Moreover, organizational justice is associated with increased employee performance (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001), job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Bağcı, 2013;Candan, 2014) and a decrease in turnover tendencies (Demircan-Çakar & Yıldız, 2009). In addition to this, there is a positive and significant relationship between teachers' perceptions of organizational justice and job satisfaction (Altahayneh, Khasawneh, & Abedalhafiz, 2014;Dundar & Tabancali, 2012;Nojani et al., 2012;Zainalipour, Fini, & Mirkamali, 2010).

Perceived stress
The amount of pleasure or job satisfaction any person gets while doing a job is affected by several factors (Cooper, Rout, & Faragher, 1989). One of the factors affecting the job satisfaction of employees is stress (Bolin, 2007;Cooper et al., 1989;Hongying, 2007;Şanlı, 2017;Weiqi, 2007;Toker, 2006;Yüksel, 2003). In general, stress is an unpleasant emotional and physiological condition that is caused by uncertainty or experiences beyond the employee's control and is considered harmful by employees (Swandarujati et al., 2019). Stress, which is a common problem today, has adverse effects on physiological and mental health (Lee, Joo, & Choi, 2013). On the other hand, stress has a positive aspect (Aydın, 2004;Onay-Özkaya, Yakın, & Ekinci, 2008). The concept stated as positive stress is a constructive value that increases the individual's motivation. For the teaching profession which is considered to be one of today's stressful professions, moderate stress helps to increase performance, while experiencing a high-level of stress causes harmful effects (Balaban, 2000). The stress encountered in the teaching profession has been conceptualized as teacher stress in the literature. Teacher stress can be defined as experiencing unpleasant negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, tension, disappointment, or depression that originated from some part of the teachers' work (Kyriacou, 2001). Teachers' stresses are attributable to negative school climate, inappropriate student behavior, maintaining discipline, time pressure and workload, coping with change, being evaluated by others, relationships with colleagues, self-esteem and status, role conflict and uncertainty, inadequate classroom resources, school management, poor working conditions and deficiencies in teachers' recognition of their profession (Boyle, Borg, Falzon, & Baglioni, 1995;Kremer-Hayon & Goldstein, 1990;Kyriacou, 2001).

Leader support
Leadership in education is crucial as it has the potential to affect both learning outcomes and relationships between teacher and student. This contributes to the creation and maintenance of an effective learning climate, the development and improvement of teamwork during educational process (Daučianskaitė & Žydžiūnaitė, 2020). An essential indicator of leadership in education can be a leader support perceived by teachers in schools. Teachers develop some opinions on the leader's efforts for the welfare of the school. As suggested by Eisenberger, Stinglhamber, Vandenberghe, Sucharski and Rhoades (2002), teachers as employees perceive the leader's positive and negative behaviors towards them as an indicator of organizational support. In this context, leader support can be defined as the degree of support and interest that a person perceives from their immediate supervisor (Netemeyer et al., 1997). In the educational leadership literature, there are leadership types created with different perspectives. It can be said that the common point of these concepts, which are dealt with theoretically and empirically, is to increase student learning, to create a positive school climate based on open and honesty for student, teacher and leader learning and to include teachers in decision-making processes (Kılınç, 2016;Sancar, 2009). Leadership behaviors of school principals are significantly correlated with teachers' job satisfaction (Bogler, 2001;Hulpia et al., 2009;Sancar, 2009). A leader's support of employees is related to job satisfaction (Asgari, Mezginejad, & Taherpour, 2020;Kale, 2015;Tsai, 2011) and has a determinant feature in increasing the employee's job satisfaction within the framework of the work process (Fernandez, 2008;Karadağ, Başaran, & Korkmaz, 2009;Tanrıverdi & Paşaoğlu, 2014;Tengilimoğlu & Yiğit, 2005) and shows a strong relationship with leadership styles and organizational justice concepts (Çoğaltay, Karadağ, & Bektas, 2014). In line with this, it is stated that such factors as giving opportunity teachers to explain their work to their colleagues, encourage them for quick and easy communication, praise teachers' work, empower teachers and include them in decision-making processes can increase teachers' job satisfaction (Lunenburg & Ornstein, 2000). It is seen that teachers' job satisfaction which has a positive effect on the quality of education, students, teachers and schools is significant for the successful functioning of schools (Michaelowa & Wittmann, 2007). On the other hand, the increase in the level of dissatisfaction causes disciplinary problems, inefficiency, job dissatisfaction, alienation from the job, or leaving the job (Akıncı, 2002;Chen, 2010). Therefore, effective school principals pay attention to teachers' job satisfaction for the long-term efficiency (Güçlü, 2001). Research on teachers' job satisfaction can help to understand the general and specific aspects of teachers' job satisfaction which in turn can provide a scientific basis for solving problems (Hongying, 2007). The existing literature reveals that the relationship between organizational justice, perceived stress, and leader support variables and job satisfaction is not evaluated together. In addition to revealing the relationships between the specified variables and determining the predicting levels of these variables on teachers' job satisfaction has the potential to contribute to the relevant literature. In this context, the purpose of the present study is to determine the levels of organizational justice, stress and leader support variables in predicting teachers' job satisfaction. Thus, it is aimed to provide empirical evidence in light of the information obtained in this research for education policymakers, practitioners and researchers.

Research design
This study was mainly designed as a correlational research. Correlational research, which can also be described as a descriptive research type, is used to clarify our understanding of essential phenomena by determining the relationship between two or more variables. If there is a sufficiently high relationship between these variables, the score of one variable can be estimated by using the scores of other variables. Therefore, it can be evaluated as a predictive type of correlational research in terms of the current research objective (Fraenkel, Wallen, & Hyun, 2011).

Participants
The population of the study consists of 14 135 teachers in Denizli, Turkey in the academic year of 2018-2019. The sample of the study consists of 396 teachers working in 31 different branches in 231 state schools. 58.6% of the participants are female (n=232) and 41.4% of the participants were male (n=164) in the sample. The working time of the participants varies between 1-44 years. Within the scope of the present study, a convenience sampling method was preferred among non-random sampling methods. In much educational research, it is difficult, sometimes impossible, to select a completely random sample. In this case, researchers can choose the appropriate sampling method. However, this preferred sampling method may be biased (Fraenkel et al., 2011). The sample size adequacy for a completely random sample in population of 20 000 people (with a 95% confidence interval) is 377 (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2018). However, since a completely random sampling is not possible within the scope of the research, data collection tools were delivered to 23 different schools from 5 different districts in order to reduce the bias caused by the sampling method. In addition to this, efforts were made to reach as many participants as possible rather than the adequate sample size. Nevertheless, only 396 participants turned voluntarily back to data collection tools.

Data collection tools
Within the scope of the research, Minnessota Job Satisfaction Scale, Organizational Justice Scale, Perceived Stress Scale, Leader Support Scale and demographic information form prepared by the researchers were used as data collection tools.
Minnessota Job Satisfaction Scale. The scale developed by Weiss, Dawis, England, and Lofquist (1967) was adapted to Turkish language by Oran (1989). The scale consists of 20 items that can be graded in 5-point Likert type. Cronbach's Alpha (Cr α) reliability coefficient of the scale, in which internal satisfaction, external satisfaction and general satisfaction scores can be obtained, was reported as Cr α = .83. Yıldırım (1996) reported the test-retest reliability coefficient of the scale as .76 and the internal consistency coefficient as .90. Within the scope of the present study, the reliability coefficient of the scale was determined as Cr α = .96.
Organizational Justice Scale. The scale developed by Niehoff and Moorman (1993) was adapted to Turkish language by Yıldırım (2002). The scale consists of 20 items that can be graded in 5-point Likert type. The Turkish form of the scale consists of three sub-dimensions: distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice. In the original form of the scale, Cr α = .74 for distributive justice sub-dimension, Cr α = .85 for procedural justice subdimension and Cr α = .92 for interactional justice sub-dimension were reported (Niehoff & Moorman, 1993). The Turkish form of the scale has Cr α coefficients, distributive justice .81, procedural justice .89, and interactional justice .95. The reliability coefficients obtained for the sub-dimensions of the scale with the test-retest reliability determination method are .44, .65 and .73 for distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice, respectively (Yıldırım, 2002(Yıldırım, , 2007. Within the scope of the present study, Cr α reliability coefficients for the sub-dimensions of the scale were determined as .85 for distributive justice, .92 for procedural justice and .97 for interactional justice. Perceived Stress Scale. In the scale developed by Cohen, Kamarck and Mermelstein (1983), there are 14 items that can be graded in 5-Likert type. This scale also has two separate forms with 10 and 4 items. In the present study, the 10-item form of the scale was preferred. The reliability coefficient of the scale, which was adapted into Turkish language by Örücü and Demir (2008), was reported as Cr α = .82 and test-retest reliability as .88. The scale has a two-factor structure: perception of stress/discomfort and insufficient self-efficacy. The reliability coefficient of the scale was determined as Cr α = .84, in the current study.
Leader Support Scale. The scale developed by Netemeyer, Boles, McKee, and McMurrian (1997) consists of 5 items that can be graded in a 5-point Likert type. The reliability coefficient of the scale was reported as Cr α = .87. Later, the reliability coefficient of the scale used by Ackfeld and Coote (2005) was reported as Cr α = .89. The reliability coefficient of the scale, adapted to Turkish language by Çelik and Turunç (2010), is Cr α = .95. Within the scope of the present study, the reliability coefficient of the scale was determined as Cr α = .97.

Data analysis
Mean (M), median (MED), mode (MOD), skewness coefficient (SC) and kurtosis coefficient (KC) were used in reporting the descriptive statistics for scale scores. The Pearson correlation was used to determine the relationship between variables. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the degree that organizational justice, perceived stress and leadership support variables predict teachers' job satisfaction.

Results
Descriptive statistics on teachers' job satisfaction, organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support variables are presented in Table 1.  Table 1 shows that the SC and KC of teachers' job satisfaction, organizational justice, perceived stress, and leader support scale scores are within ± 1 limits. These values which are within ± 1 limits indicate that the scale total scores do not show an extreme deviation from the normal distribution (Cohen et al., 2011;Muthén & Kaplan, 1985). After the variables in the data set provided the assumption of normality, Mahalanobis distances were calculated for the multivariate outlier analysis and the obtained values were compared with the critical value of chi-square χ 2 16.266 for α=.001 and degrees of freedom (df) 3.
All the values obtained from the scales are below this critical value. This indicates that there are no multivariate outliers in the data set (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). The linearity and normality assumptions of the relationship between the predictor variables and the dependent variable (job satisfaction) were examined through graphics. The scatter plot obtained for standardized residual values and standardized predicted values defines a linear relationship and the points are collected around the axis. The histogram and normal distribution curves obtained for the standardized predicted values have approximately normal distribution (Interested readers can contact the corresponding author for more detailed information on the test of assumptions).
In the multiple regression analysis, the correlation values between the predictor variables were examined in order to determine whether there was a multicollinearity problem between the predictor variables (see Table 2). For this purpose, variance ratio related to a predictor variable that unexplained by other predictor variables (Tolerance), variance inflation factor (VIF) and condition index (CI) values were examined (see Table 3). When the bivariate correlations between the predictor variables and the dependent variable were examined, a positive and high level of relationship (r=.70) was found between organizational justice and job satisfaction, while controlling for other variables, this relationship was calculated as r=.60. While there was a negative and moderate relationship (r=-.34) between perceived stress and job satisfaction, this relationship was calculated as r=-.16 when other variables were controlled. While there was a positive and moderate relationship (r=.40) between leader support and job satisfaction, this relationship was calculated as r=.12 when other variables were controlled. Table 2 showed that the correlation values between organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support variables are below .90. These values show that there is no multicollinearity problem between the predictor variables (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). Tolerance, VIF and CI values for the predictor variables are presented in Table 3.  Table 3 shows that among the multicollinearity statistics related to organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support variables, Tolerance values are greater than .20, VIF values are lower than 10 and CI values are lower than 30. These values show that there is no multicollinearity problem among predictor variables (Büyüköztürk, 2011). After examining the normality assumption of the data set, multivariate outliers, and multicollinearity problems, a multiple regression analysis was performed to determine the predictive levels of the variables on teachers' job satisfaction and the results are presented in Table 4. R 2 = .504 F(3, 392) = 132.88 p = .0000 *** * p < .05, ** p < .01, ***p < .001 Table 4 showed that the variables of organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support together give a high and significant relationship with teachers' job satisfaction scores, R = .71, R 2 = .504, p < .01. The specified three variables explained approximately 50.4% of the total variance in teachers' job satisfaction. Based on the standardized regression coefficients ( ), the relative order of importance of predictor variables on teachers' job satisfaction is organizational justice, perceived stress and leadership support, respectively. In addition to this, t test results for the significance of regression coefficients showed that organizational justice, perceived stress and leadership support are all significant predictors on teachers' job satisfaction.

Discussion and conclusion
The present study evaluated the roles of organizational justice, perceived stress, and leader support variables in predicting teachers' job satisfaction. The results of the study showed that organizational justice, perceived stress, and leader support were significant predictors of teachers' job satisfaction. The relative importance of the variables in predicting job satisfaction was organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support respectively, and the predictive variables explain about 50.4% of the total variance in teachers' job satisfaction. Within the scope of the study, the most crucial variable in predicting teachers' job satisfaction is organizational justice. In addition, there is a significant positive and high level relationship between teachers' job satisfaction and organizational justice. The results of this study show consistency with the findings of other studies on teacher samples (Altahayneh et al., 2014;Dundar & Tabancali, 2012;Kılıç, 2016;Nojani et al., 2012;Tanrıverdi & Paşaoğlu, 2014;Zainalipour et al., 2010) and with the findings of studies on other profession samples (Al-Zu'bi, 2010;DeConinck & Stilwell, 2004;Kılıç, 2016;Eker, 2006;Özen-Kutanis & Mesci, 2010;Netemeyer et al., 1997;Yıldırım, 2007). Organizational justice generally refers to the perceptions of employees on whether they are treated fairly in the workplace (Moorman, 1991), the distribution of the organization results (e.g. salary, promotion, workplace discipline, etc.) fairly (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001;Colquitt et al., 2001;Cropanzano et al., 2007), the fairness and accuracy of the procedures and policies used for achieving these results, and the degree of courtesy, dignity and respect shown to them during these practices (Colquitt et al., 2001;Greenberg, 1990). In this sense, teachers care about the fairness of the decisions taken at school, the fairness of the procedures and policies, and the behaviors of the administrators towards them and other employees. It is reported that teacher job satisfaction has a positive effect on the quality of education, students, teachers and schools (Michaelowa & Wittmann, 2007), increases employee performance and organizational commitment (Bağcı, 2013;Candan, 2014;Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001), and reduces turnover tendencies (Demircan-Çakar & Yıldız, 2009). Considering these positive effects as well as the current research results, it may be suggested to the administrators and policymakers that they should prioritize practices aimed at ensuring and improving organizational justice (e.g., being fair in syllabus, shifts, rewarding and disciplinary procedures, ensuring active participation of teachers in decision-making processes, providing trainings to develop effective communication skills, positive feedback etc.). Within the scope of the research, the second priority variable in predicting job satisfaction is perceived stress. Teachers attached more importance to organizational justice than a personal variable such as perceived stress. This result is consistent with some research results in the literature (Adera & Bullock, 2010;Turunç et al., 2010) and can be addressed from two different points of view. First, employees spend most of their lives in the workplace. Employees who have a positive perception of organizational justice have positive perceptions of the organization, high levels of success, and high performance indicators (İyigün, 2012). Therefore, positive perception of organizational justice can alleviate the adverse effects of personal variables such as stress on individuals. The second is the relationship between job satisfaction and life satisfaction. Life satisfaction generally refers to the whole of individuals' perceptions of their own lives (Avşaroğlu, Deniz, & Kahraman, 2005). Considering that employees with high job satisfaction may also have high life satisfaction, it can be stated that they cope with the adverse effects of stress. Ünal, Karlıdağ, and Yoloğlu (2001) stated that job satisfaction is the variable that has the most significant effect on life satisfaction. On the other hand, low job satisfaction in the teaching profession results in absenteeism or job change.
Absenteeism in the teaching profession such as getting permission and medical report, not being able to conduct educational activities results in cuts in wages. In addition to this, changing jobs is seen as changing schools or changing professions. However, changing a profession is related to the economic and employment level of the country, individuals may not consider to change their jobs even if their job satisfaction is low (Özkalp & Kırel, 1996). If teachers do not change jobs, this may cause them to encounter frequent mid-career crisis (Kyriacou, 2001). The stress seen in the individual as a result of job dissatisfaction can affect the relationships with the leader and colleagues and the perceptions towards the organization. In addition, the communication and treatment of managers in the implementation of organizational justice also affects employees' perceptions about stress (Swandarujati et al., 2019). The current study revealed that a significant negative and moderate relationship was found between the teachers' perceived stress and job satisfaction. Similar results have been reported in studies conducted with teachers (Hassard et al., 2017) and other samples (Sert et al., 2014). The negative relationship between teachers' perceived stress and job satisfaction indicates that practices aimed at reducing teachers' perceived stress can have positive effects on job satisfaction. In addition, ensuring and developing organizational justice in schools can make positive contributions to decrease the stress perceived by teachers and increase their job satisfaction. Considering that teaching is among professions that experience the highest level of work stress (Stoeber & Rennert, 2008), school administrators should prefer approaches based on courtesy and respect in their communication with teachers, consider stress, job satisfaction and organizational justice relations, and in this sense, practices that will reduce the stress of employees may be suggested to turn. According to the relative importance level, leader support comes after organizational justice and perceived stress variables in predicting teachers' job satisfaction. Since the multidimensional structure of organizational justice (i.e. distributive, transactional and interactional justice) evaluates all transactions and processes within the organization, this result can be explained by evaluating the attitudes and behaviors of leaders towards the organization by employees through the scope of organizational justice. Çoğaltay et al. (2014) reported that educational leadership has a moderate positive effect on organizational justice. Additionally, it was found that there was a significant positive and moderate relationship between leader support and job satisfaction. As suggested by the results of the studies focusing on various occupational groups the leader support has a positive impact on professional development, empowerment and job satisfaction (Ackfeldt & Coote, 2005;Fernandez, 2008;Kale, 2015;Tengilimoğlu & Yiğit, 2005). Within the scope of the research, a significant negative and moderate relationship was determined between leader support and perceived stress. Similarly, Osunka and Unachukwu (2020) reported a negative relationship between leadership support and teachers' perceptions of work-related stress. In general, the inability of the principals to establish a positive and constructive colleague relationship with the staff creates an atmosphere of insecurity and anxiety that can expose teachers to high stress (Lambersky, 2016). School principals' attention to the needs of teachers and providing them support may help to increase the job satisfaction (Ackfeldt & Coote, 2005). Therefore, school administrators' providing teachers with a working environment in which they feel safe and can express themselves comfortably, taking into account the needs of teachers will help teachers to make positive contributions to their job satisfaction levels. In addition to its contributions to the literature, the research also has some limitations. Basically, correlational research results can be useful to reveal the existing relationships between variables, but it should be emphasized that these relationships are not causal ones. Furthermore, the use of convenience sampling method among non-random sampling methods can be considered as another limitation. However, the consistency of the relationships determined between the variables considered within the scope of the study with the existing literature indicates that the bias due to this limitation is relatively low. As a result, it can be suggested that the order of relative importance in educational policies and practices that will take teachers' job satisfaction into account should be structured as organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support. However, it is thought that holistic approaches that include all variables can be more effective, since variables of organizational justice, perceived stress and leader support are significantly associated with teachers' job satisfaction. On the other hand, the specified variables explain 50% of the variability in teachers' job satisfaction and there is still a 50% part that cannot be explained. Therefore, it can be suggested to future researchers to conduct research by choosing variables for this unexplained part of teachers' job satisfaction. In addition, since the current research has been carried out with teachers working in the public sector, different results can be obtained with a study involving teachers working in the private sector.