Supervisor: Sotiria Triandari

Title: Effective leadership in decision making and mediation in the teacher – parent relationship. Case study of the primary schools of Western Macedonia.

Three-member advisory comitee:

1) Sotiria Triandari
2) Georgios Tzartzas
3) Evagelia Kalerante

Abstract

Since ancient times man was organized into groups to achieve common goals. The natural evolution of a co-operation, when interests are in conflict, is dispute, a normal social phenomenon. Conflicts are a feature of human life at all levels of social life and sometimes occur in the form of a simple disagreement, sometimes in the form of aggression and often take the form of passive resistance. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how school principals spend enough time resolving many forms of conflict, starting with the individual conflict they experience in making a decision, and then, dealing with conflicts among the colleagues, the students and between teachers and parents. The decisions taken by the school administration will have a direct impact on the school climate and will affect the productivity of teachers, students and the balance of school-parent relationships. The main goal of this dissertation will not be to prove that conflict reduction will be the solution to normalize the school climate, but that the school principal as a Leader and Mediator will highlight through the organizational form of mediation, as a communication tool, positive elements such as common goals and objectives, and to make any conflict to be resolved effectively. The dissertation deals with the communication behavior, skills and strategies of the modern school principal, who also plays the role of mediator, whose characteristics are impartiality, reciprocity, balance, justice, respect, help, seriousness, empathy and humor.The present research is required to supplement the findings related to the communication behaviors, skills and strategies of the school principal with the current data of the Mediator. The need for the institution of Mediation, as a communication tool, will be mentioned through research, which hopes to mobilize the state in the training of school principals, and in the difficult times we live in, due to economic and social crisis, to highlight the importance of effective communication for optimizing the results of counseling procedures, as a tool for smoothing out projects in the school community.