**4. Discussion**

Initiative is a concept that helps administrators to perceive the mechanisms in organizational structure and administrative functioning. It also supports administrators to comprehend the nature of democratic decision-making mechanisms [36]. However, research results indicated that school administrators were left alone in the process of initiative-taking processes, and their capacity to take initiative was unable to influence the school as a whole. Thus, initiative taking was unable to support creativity and foresight, but rather it appears to support bureaucratic rationalization and pragmatism.

The findings of the study primarily indicated that school administrators who participated in the study did not use initiative to reach organizational goals, active decision-making to solve organizational problems, and the will to make decisions that were described in the literature [7–10, 13]. Rather, they used initiative in situations that involved limited risks in order to get recognition and avoid supervision and do not require much astuteness and creativity. These initiative behaviors reflected the tendency of being momentary and having pragmatic thinking [7, 8]. School administrators indicated that they had gone through intensive negative feelings such as insecurity, conflict, anxiety, incompetency, fear of being victimized, and worried about going under investigation.

School administrators used initiative to a limited extent in areas like organizational change and daily routines rather than transforming bureaucratic behavior. Akın's [3] findings support the findings of this study. Akın [3] also found that school administrators took small-scale initiatives, initiative taking was more likely to increase with experience, and areas for initiative were improving physical infrastructure and providing resources. Akın's [3] findings also indicated that school administrators were likely to take initiative that are limited to areas such as instructional leadership, and administrators who took initiatives likely feel threats of facing sanctions.

One of the most interesting findings of this study was the negative feelings of school administrators such as insecurity, conflict, anxiety, incompetency, fear of being victimized, and worried about going under investigation when they found themselves in initiative-taking circumstances. Initiative taking can transform schools' hierarchical and bureaucratic functioning into strategic ones and enables the use of the dynamics to take action. However, negative feelings mentioned earlier are likely to prevent the school administrators to take initiative even when they have a potential. From this perspective, it is clear that initiative taking is not only an individual behavior but also an organizational and administrative behavior [37]. Administrative behavior is not limited to structural and institutional components, but it includes cultural and individual components. Therefore, it is important to reveal the individual will to integrate organization in school culture. Values and principles that school administrators consider while taking initiative were the public interest, institutional benefits, fairness, objective thinking, and human orientation. These values and principles are likely to contribute to organizational values and create an ethical frame in schools.

their authority, concerns about the unstable situation between risk taking and accountability, thoughts about dysfunctionality of initiatives on organizational change, and concerns about the risk of being investigated are situations discouraging school administrators to take initiative. Even though proficient and willing in taking initiative, discouraging situations like these may probably cause professional exhaustion and, consequently, lower tendency to take initiative.

Initiative is a concept that helps administrators to perceive the mechanisms in organizational structure and administrative functioning. It also supports administrators to comprehend the nature of democratic decision-making mechanisms [36]. However, research results indicated that school administrators were left alone in the process of initiative-taking processes, and their capacity to take initiative was unable to influence the school as a whole. Thus, initiative taking was unable to support creativity and foresight, but rather it appears to support bureau-

The findings of the study primarily indicated that school administrators who participated in the study did not use initiative to reach organizational goals, active decision-making to solve organizational problems, and the will to make decisions that were described in the literature [7–10, 13]. Rather, they used initiative in situations that involved limited risks in order to get recognition and avoid supervision and do not require much astuteness and creativity. These initiative behaviors reflected the tendency of being momentary and having pragmatic thinking [7, 8]. School administrators indicated that they had gone through intensive negative feelings such as insecurity, conflict, anxiety, incompetency, fear of being victimized, and worried about going under investigation.

School administrators used initiative to a limited extent in areas like organizational change and daily routines rather than transforming bureaucratic behavior. Akın's [3] findings support the findings of this study. Akın [3] also found that school administrators took small-scale initiatives, initiative taking was more likely to increase with experience, and areas for initiative were improving physical infrastructure and providing resources. Akın's [3] findings also indicated that school administrators were likely to take initiative that are limited to areas such as instructional leadership, and administrators who took initiatives likely feel threats of facing sanctions. One of the most interesting findings of this study was the negative feelings of school administrators such as insecurity, conflict, anxiety, incompetency, fear of being victimized, and worried about going under investigation when they found themselves in initiative-taking circumstances. Initiative taking can transform schools' hierarchical and bureaucratic functioning into strategic ones and enables the use of the dynamics to take action. However, negative feelings mentioned earlier are likely to prevent the school administrators to take initiative even when they have a potential. From this perspective, it is clear that initiative taking is not only an individual behavior but also an organizational and administrative behavior [37]. Administrative behavior is not limited to structural and institutional components, but it includes cultural and individual components. Therefore, it is important to reveal the individual will to integrate organization in school culture. Values and principles that school administrators consider while taking initiative were the public interest, institutional benefits, fairness,

**4. Discussion**

cratic rationalization and pragmatism.

34 Open and Equal Access for Learning in School Management

Circumstances where school administrators used initiative resulted in upsetting the balance of authority and responsibility by increasing responsibility and administrative skills, but it was not taken positively and threatened for sanctions and use of power, transforming from legal authority to leadership. However, this is limited by the higher level of bureaucracy, since hierarchical and bureaucratic supervision was implemented. As Hakanen et al. [21], Binnewies et al. [20], and Bracci [14] argued, the use of initiative appears and may be effective in organizational models and administrative approaches when power distance is diminished. School administrators in this study experienced centralized structure and functioning. Thus, they felt limitations imposed on them such as the requirement to cope with difficult situations, systematic and methodical thinking, generating solutions and suggestions, finding alternatives, references to a rich and in depth thinking, and being proactive.

When all results are taken into account, in order to improve school administrators' initiativetaking behaviors and expanding the areas for initiative taking, local ministry of education directorates could collaborate with universities to organize workshops and seminars. Encouraging school administrators to pursue graduate degrees such as masters and doctorate degrees might help them develop leadership behavior and likely to improve areas of influence rather than areas of authority. This could help them to improve their competencies in initiative-taking behavior. Further studies are required to increase school administrators' authority and responsibility at the ministry level. Decentralization and school-based management efforts might also help improve the structure for widening school administrator's perspective to take initiative. Mentoring might help at the school level by matching more experienced school administrators with inexperienced school administrators. Finally, the best practices of initiative-taking behavior might be archived and shared with school administrators in digital resources and blogs.

The best practices for organizations to structure their internal dynamics and capacities, active information management, organizational confidence, and collaborative work culture could be empowered by the ability of taking initiative [49]. Initiative could also be considered as a factor that paves the way for an administrative paradigm that transforms conventional hierarchy, disrupts the authority, and moves centralization toward localism.

Taking initiative is a significant element of leadership when approached from the perspectives of cognitive structure, beliefs, values, affective traits [19], and dynamic relations, providing autonomy, balancing power, empowering self-control [24], self-sufficiency, organizational social behavior, and positive relationship approach [38]. Initiative is an expression of an influence, "a real and recognized authority," rather than a legally described authority. In other words, it is an area of impact and power that is reflected from the area of skills and abilities, instead of an authority resulting from a hierarchical position. It is the transfer of formal authority to organizational structure in order to empower authority in the administrative sense. Distribution of formal authority and delegation could support organizations in taking initiative. Initiative is the capacity to make a decision and spring into action at a moment and situation where the area of control is expanded. It facilitates horizontal communications and coordination in organizational structure. Initiative is the creator of a real and recognizable area of power outside the formal authority. The ability to create projects, willingness to take control, risk and crisis management, priorities, knowledge, communication, psychological organizational contract, performance evaluation, and supporting multiple managements are among the outcomes of taking initiative. Initiative taking includes the factors of entrepreneurship, active personality, self-motivation, internal motivation, active goal setting, planning and time management skills, overcoming obstacles and emotion management, persuasive and credible communications, creativity and innovation in personal competence, and quality dimension in addition to the administrative and organizational dimensions [39]. Initiative is a concept related to authentic responsibility, proactive personality, changing needs and roles, transformative leadership, distributive leadership, organizational change, organizational behavior, social dynamism, cultural integration, professionalization, and social and cultural capital [40, 41].

the abilities of school administrators in the management of initiative-taking situations and their results. It is important to engage in planning that would reinforce the coping strategies of school administrators with the situations that were not explained in legal manuscripts in addition to the decisions taken by the administrators in the higher hierarchy and to determine the references in the academic dimension. For the researchers, it could be recommended to design studies that aim to develop school-based administrative models, analyze initiative and leadership variables comparatively, and determine the perceptions of central and local orga-

The First Step to Leadership in School Management: Taking Initiative

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.70789

37

Department of Educational Sciences, Faculty of Education, Eskişehir Osmangazi University,

[1] Şişman M, Turan S. Eğitimde yerelleşme ve demokratikleşme çabaları. Teorik bir çözüm-

[2] Oxford Dictionaries. [Internet]. Initiative. Available from: https://en.oxforddictionaries.

[3] Akın U. Örgüt ve Yönetimde İnisiyatif Alma. Ankara: Pegem Akademi Yayıncılık; 2012 [4] Belschak FD, Hartog DD. Personal initiative, commitment and affect at work. Journal of

[5] Bledow R, Frese M. A situational judgment test of personal initiative and its relationship

[6] Dreu D, Carsten KW, Aukje N. Self-interest and other-orientation in organizational behavior: Implications for job performance, prosocial behavior, and personal initiative. Journal

[7] Frese M, Fay D. Personal initiative: An active performance concept for work in the 21st

[8] Frese M, Fay D. The concept of personal initiative: An overview of validity studies. Human

[9] Frese M, Fay D, Hilburger T, Leng K, Tag A. The concept of personal initiative operationalization reliability and validity in two German samples. Journal of Occupational Psychology.

leme. Kuram ve Uygulamada Eğitim Yönetimi. 2003;**34**:300-315

Occupational and Organizational Psychology. 2007;**80**:601-622

century. Research in Organizational Behavior. 2001;**23**:133-187

to performance. Personnel Psychology. 2009;**62**:229-258

of Applied Psychology. 2009;**94**(4):913-926

Performance. 2001;**14**(1):97-124

1997;**70**:139-161

nization administrators on school administrators and initiative taking.

Address all correspondence to: ilknurkokcu@gmail.com

com/definition/initiative [Accessed: Jan 3, 2016]

**Author details**

İlknur Şentürk

Eskişehir, Turkey

**References**

Workers go about their daily lives with high expectations. Active entrepreneurship and initiative-taking traits are significant qualities for organizational change beyond personal benefits and psychological satisfaction they promote. It is reinforcement of active behavior. It is improvement of creative thinking and problem-solving competencies and an effort to behave work oriented [38]. Today, initiative is a theoretical and application framework for the efforts to develop important administrative reform and strategies, specific goals, and school plans that are significant for schools in developing school-based and internal dynamics of the school that are specific to that particular school and the potential of the school [42]. Autonomy could be considered as an outcome of initiative taking and developing behavior as well [43]. Initiative-taking school administrators could facilitate teacher participation, loyalty in the school, school productivity, and academic success and focus more on teaching and learning. Administrators could perceive initiative-taking skills as an action that realizes school development plans [44]. Initiative is a factor that supports organizational learning, frees an area of action, enforces organizational operations and increases the capacity, renders school administrator more powerful than central administrators, and supports and functionalizes decisionmaking mechanisms of school administrator with respect to change management [45–50].

Based on the above discussion, it could be inferred that the efforts of participating school administrators on school-based decision-making and acting, which could be considered as leadership characteristics beyond their formal authority, were insufficient. Participating school administrators in the current study were able to use their initiative-taking actions under limited conditions and situations. Thus the phenomena such as organizational change, organizational learning, designing an autonomous administrative area by transforming institutional internal dynamics into a unique strategy, and enforcing organizational capacity could not be realized. The fact that school administrators were concerned about the consequences of the situations where they decide by initiative taking and act accordingly results in preventing the improvement of their proactive personality traits and obscures their psychological contract variables with the organization and creative and innovative thinking skills. The related circumstances could diminish internal motivation of school administrators in taking action even in necessary and predictable conditions. It could lower self-efficacy perception. It could force them to fall behind their leadership role. And the most important, it could neutralize their efforts to refer to references that could expand their area of initiative. Based on the results of the present study, it could be beneficial to design and implement studies that would structure professional cooperation and university-specialist-school collaboration to support the abilities of school administrators in the management of initiative-taking situations and their results. It is important to engage in planning that would reinforce the coping strategies of school administrators with the situations that were not explained in legal manuscripts in addition to the decisions taken by the administrators in the higher hierarchy and to determine the references in the academic dimension. For the researchers, it could be recommended to design studies that aim to develop school-based administrative models, analyze initiative and leadership variables comparatively, and determine the perceptions of central and local organization administrators on school administrators and initiative taking.
