Burnout, in response to intense stress and dissatisfaction, it is explained as the individual's psychological recession from their job (Maslach et al., 2001), etching themselves and being inadequate to meet one's internal resources (Lu & Gursoy, 2016). Professional burnout causes an individual to be emotionally depressed, insensitive in communicative processes and feel unsuccessful in their own profession (Schaufeli et al., 2017). Experiencing professional burnout in certain occupational groups can be quite high compared to other occupational groups. This situation is quite common, especially in professions where there is face-to-face contact with people (Koç & Koç, 2020). In recent researches, many effects are mentioned, which cause teachers' professional burnout. Some of these are; time pressure, low student motivation (Korkmaz et al., 2019), overcrowded classes, poor physical conditions (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2017), professional career difficulties, criticism of society, and other various problems such as not being appreciated (Tetik, 2016). Low organizational justice perception (Bastas, 2016), competition among colleagues (Prilleltensky et al., 2016) and unnecessary & extra roles (Huat et al., 2018) leads to the emergence of stress, tension, anxiety and professional burnout in them. When all these factors are considered in terms of the teachers who teach students who need special education, it can be thought that the effect of these factors increases to a completely new level (William & Dikes, 2015).

The basis of the paternalist leadership is that the leader, who ignores his own interests, acts with a sacrificial, loving and protectionist approach in line with the benefit of the employees (Çalışkan & Özkoç, 2016). In accordance with this behaviour of the leader, employees are expected to accept their workplaces as their own homes, to respect the leader as well as to show loyalty to him (Ünler & Kılıç, 2019). It is believed that these relationships, which extend back to the family life of the employees, bring tight commitment, trust and harmony, and that all employees work more harmoniously for the well-being of the organization (Uçar, 2019). One of the organizations where paternalist leadership is widely influential is the schools where the administrative processes are operated especially by principals and vice principals (Cerit et al., 2011). Considering that the principal, who has paternalist features, thinks of goodness and makes sacrifices for his employees, teachers are expected to develop a positive attitude in return (Akgün et al., 2019). Because teachers expect the school principals to help and guide them in effective teaching activities (Koç & Bastas, 2019). In addition, providing the work-life balance because of the principals' interest in the personal lives of the teachers can help teachers feel more comfortable in the school environment and make their difficult times easier (Yıldırım, 2017).

The quality of teacher-student and teacher-principal relationship in schools is among the main factors affecting the level of professional burnout in teachers. Acute stress situations caused by the difficult nature of the duties of special education teachers (Sarıçam & Sakız, 2014) may create more fatigue and feelings of helplessness in them (Atiyat, 2017). In addition, the oppressive situation caused by management and the inadequate management support in difficult times may affect teachers' burnout (Yellice Yüksel et al., 2011). This situation raises that teachers' professional burnout levels may be related to the leadership style they are subject to. Previous researches show that paternalist leadership positively affects employees' attitudes and behaviours (Köksal, 2011), increases the job satisfaction of employees (Uçar, 2019), helps employees show voluntary behaviours (Gökdeniz et al., 2018) and reduces negative situations such as organizational exclusion (Akgün et al., 2019). All this data points to the existence of a negative relationship between the leader's paternalist characteristics and the professional burnout of the employees.

It is reckoned that an examination of the professional burnout levels of special education teachers and the paternalist leadership perceptions of their principals, and determining the level of the relationship between these two will be an important contribution to the literature. Because in the current literature, it has been revealed that no research has been done to determine the degree of the relationship between these two variables and the underlying causes of this relationship in special education teachers and administrators. In addition, the number of studies on the professional burnout of special education teachers, which is discussed in this study, is very low. It can be anticipated that teachers who work in special education, which is a difficult profession by its nature, may experience more burnout compared to other colleagues. It is also important that the perceptions of paternalist leadership and burnout were examined according to gender, seniority and age variables. This is because paternalist leadership is assumed to be related to masculinity and experience. All these rationales make this research important and it is assumed that it will be a great contribution to the literature. The purpose of this research is to determine the professional burnout levels of the special education teachers and the paternalist leadership perceptions of their principals, and to determine the level of the relationship between these two. In addition, teachers' professional burnout and paternalist leadership perceptions were also examined according to gender, age and working year variables.

The research was carried out with a mixed method that combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The mixed method is defined as the research combining quantitative and qualitative methods, approaches and concepts within a study or successive studies (Creswell, 2019). All data were collected simultaneously only once. In the process of collecting, analysing and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data, no priority or postponed status was observed; all processes were carried out simultaneously. For this reason, the research is a type of convergent parallel design that is included in mixed method research designs (Creswell, 2019).

The population of this research consists of special education teachers in Turkey's province of Kahramanmaras and principals of schools with special education classes. Purposive sampling method was used in the research. Purposeful sampling is the creation of the sample with one typical of the many situations in the universe related to the research problem (Büyüköztürk et al., 2019). Ethical permission was obtained for interview and scale forms. After completing the permit procedures from the official authorities, it was put into practice. The sample of the study consists of 192 special education teachers working in schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (MNE). Considering the demographic characteristics of the participants, female teachers (N=92; 48%) and male teachers (N=100; 52%). Their distribution by age is between 20-29 years old (N=73; 38%), 30-39 years old (N=80; 42%), 40-49 years old (N=27; 14%) and over 50 years old (N=12; 6%). Distribution of participants according to their seniority and experience, 1-5 years (N=89; 46%), 6-10 years (N=47; 24%), 11-15 years (N=37; 19%), 16-20 years (N=9; 5%) and above 20 years (N=10; 6%). The study group for the qualitative dimension of the research includes 50 participants in total consisting of 25 principals and 25 teachers. Qualitative working group has been selected among the participants by using maximum diversity method. Twelve of the administrators are principals and 13 of them are assistant principals; it consists of seven female and 18 male participants.

Two of the data collection tools are the scales used in the quantitative section, and the other is the semi-structured interview form used in the qualitative section.

The Maslach Burnout Scale-Educator Form (MBS-EF) developed by Maslach and Jackson (1981) and adapted to Turkish by İnce (2014) was used to determine the levels of professional burnout of the teachers who participated in the research. This scale, which consists of 22 items in total and has a seven-point likert structure, has three sub-factors such as emotional burnout, personal success and depersonalization. Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient for the entire scale .89; for sub-dimensions, respectively was .90, .73, .78. While the highest score that can be obtained from the scale was 132, the lowest score was zero. The high scores from the scale reveal that the teachers' burnout levels are high and low scores indicate that their burnout levels are low.

The first scale used in the study is the Paternalist Leadership Scale (PLS) applied in order to determine the paternalist leadership levels of school principals through the eyes of teachers. The scale was developed by Cheng et al. (2004) and adapted to Turkish by Arslan (2016). PLS, which is a 6-point Likert-type scale consisting of 26 items in total, consists of three sub-factors such as benevolent, moral and authoritarian leader. Cronbach Alpha internal consistency coefficient for the whole scale .93; for sub-dimensions, respectively was .96, .85, .77. The highest score that can be obtained from the scale is 156; the lowest score is 26. The high score indicates that the participant's perception of paternalist leadership is also high.

Qualitative data collection tool was used to determine the sources of the possible relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout. In the semi-structured interview form consisting of four questions, the first two questions were developed to reveal the metaphors that the teachers and principals have regarding the concepts of principal and teacher. The next two questions were developed by the researcher in order to determine the causes of the possible relationship between paternalist leadership and burnout and the sources of this relationship through the eyes of administrators and teachers. In the process of developing the qualitative question set, expert opinion was obtained from two faculty members who are experts in the fields of metaphor, education management and qualitative study in order to ensure the internal validity of this tool. The researcher then conducted preliminary research with 10 different teachers to determine whether the questions in the question set were clear and understandable, whether they mean the same thing to the participants, and how much they would serve the purpose of this research. The researcher, who sent the experts again to check each form with answers, gave the question set its final form and made it ready for implementation in line with the feedback from them.

The results obtained in the quantitative analysis conducted to determine the change of teachers' perceptions of paternalist leadership and professional burnout levels by gender, age and year of experience are presented with the help of tables.

First, a normality test was performed on teachers' PLS and MBS scores. The normality test results are given in Table 1:

Table 1
Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test results

p>.05

According to Table 1, it was determined that the data collected from the study group showed a normal distribution (p> .05). In addition, both scales respectively Skewness: -.371; .353 and Kurtosis: .660; .895. It can be said that scores are in the range of -1.5 <X <+1.5 and accordingly, parametric tests where the data are normally distributed can be applied (Büyüköztürk, 2020).

After it was determined that the data showed normal distribution, paternalist leadership perceptions and occupational burnout levels of special education teachers for school principals were calculated with an arithmetic mean. The points that teachers gave to PLS and MBS scales are given in Table 2:

Table 2
The points given by teachers to PLS and MBS scales

According to the values ​​given in Table 2, the mean scores of the paternalist leadership perceptions of the participants were determined as = 99.60. This finding revealed that teachers' paternalist leadership evaluations were higher than the average value of 91.00. It was determined that the teachers' professional burnout average scores were = 33.93. This finding revealed that the teachers' professional burnout was below the average value of 66.00. According to these results, it was determined that teachers' perceptions of paternalist leadership are above average, and professional burnout levels are below average.

The t-test results to determine the significance of the change of the mean scores of PLS ​​and MBS according to the gender of the teachers are given in Table 3.

Table 3
Teachers' Perceptions of PLS ​​and MBS by Gender Variable

P< .05

According to the analysis results given in Table 3, teachers' paternalist leadership perceptions [t (190) = 1.593, p> .05] do not show a significant difference according to gender variable. However, professional burnout levels [t (190) = 2.693, p <.05] differ significantly in favour of male teachers according to gender variable. The professional burnout level of female teachers is ( = 38.52) while the professional burnout level of male teachers is ( = 29.70). This result shows that the professional burnout levels of female teachers are significantly higher than that of men. According to these results, it can be said that the gender variable does not affect teachers' perception of paternalist leadership, but it significantly affects their level of professional burnout.

The results of the One Way Anova test results applied to determine the significance of the change of the mean scores of PLS ​​and MBS according to the age of the teachers are given in Table 4.

Table 4
Teachers' Perceptions of PLS ​​and MBS by Age Variable

P< .01

Analysis results given in Table 4 [F (3,192) = 1.018, p> .05] show that teachers' paternalist leadership perceptions do not change significantly according to age. According to this result, the paternalist leadership perceptions of teachers do not differ significantly according to the age variable.

The results of the analysis given in Table 6 [F (3,192) = 7.892, p <.01] show that teachers' professional burnout levels differ significantly according to the age variable. According to the results of the Scheffe test applied to determine which groups the difference is between, the professional burnout of teachers between the ages of 20-29 (= 39.81) were determined to be higher than the professional burnout of teachers between the ages 40-49 (= 22.19) and 50 and over (= 13.75). In addition, it was determined that the professional burnout (= 35.55) of the teachers between the ages of 30-39 was higher than the professional burnout of the teachers aged 50 and over (= 13.75). According to these results, it is observed that the age variable sign

One Way Anova test results applied to determine the significance of the change of the mean scores of PLS ​​and MBS according to the working years of the teachers are given in Table 5.

Table 5
Teachers' Perceptions of PLS ​​and MBS According to Working Year Variable

P< .05

The analysis results given in Table 5 [F (4,192) = 1.267, p> .05] show that teachers' paternalist leadership perception does not change significantly according to the year of study. Accordingly, it can be said that the paternalist leadership perceptions of teachers do not differ significantly according to the variable of the working year.The results of the analysis given in Table 7 [F (4,192) = 2.33, p <.05] reveal that professional burnout has changed significantly according to the working year. Scheffe test was carried out in order to determine between which groups the difference is. According to the test results the professional burnout of teachers with 1-5 years (=35.54) and 6-10 years (=38.09) of experience is higher than the professional burnout of teachers with 16-20 years (=25.22) and 20 years and over (=17.00). According to these results, it is observed that the variable of working year significantly affects the professional burnout of teachers and the burnout level decreases as the working time in the profession increases.

The results of the correlation analysis, which was conducted in order to determine the existence and degree of the relationship between the teachers’ perceptions of school principals’ paternalist leadership and their professional burnout levels, are presented in Table 6.

Table 6
Correlation results of the relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout

P< .05

When the findings given in Table 6 are examined [r = -. 438, p <.05], it is seen that there is a moderately significant negative relationship between the teachers' perception of paternalist leadership and their professional burnout (Büyüköztürk, 2020). According to this result, it can be said that as the paternalist leadership perceptions of teachers increase, the level of professional burnout decreases. Considering the determination coefficient for this finding (r² = .192), it can be said that 19% of the total variance in professional burnout is caused by paternalist leadership.

The first thing conducted on the data obtained in the qualitative dimension of the research, firstly, the analysis of the metaphors suggested by the participants regarding the concepts of school principal and teacher was carried out. The concepts reached because of metaphor analysis are given in Table 7 in detail.

Table 7
Administrator and teacher metaphors

In Table 7, the usage frequency of the metaphors the participants used about the concepts of a school principal and teacher are expressed numerically. Because of the analysis of the metaphors created by 50 participants in total; 36 valid metaphors were reached for the concept of school principal and 37 for the concept of teacher. It was determined that both participant groups (administrators and teachers) in the study group likened the principal to the concepts of 'father' and 'boss' and the teacher to the concepts of 'mother' and 'parent'. Administrators and teachers give quotations from participant responses in Table 8 in order to more clearly conceptualize metaphors. These quotations are named with the names of A1, A2, and T1 and T2 for teacher responses, independent of the research, to ensure confidentiality of identity information.

Table 8
Inferences from metaphor rationale

As seen in Table 8, administrators and teachers who compare the principal to the father figure; they suggested that the principal was a compassionate personality, giving confidence in solving administrative and educational problems and applying rules. On the other hand, the participants who compared the school principal to the boss figure stated that the school principal showed an authoritative personality in administrative and education-related issues. Another of the findings in Table 8 is the conceptualization of the teacher through the mother and parent figures. Participants who compared the teacher to the mother figure stated that the teacher, like the participants who conceptualized the principal over the father figure, had a compassionate personality especially during the education and training process. When looking at the metaphor and reasons obtained from the responses of the participants, reference is made to the authoritarian personality of the school principal, which is seen as a negative aspect along with the paternal aspect. On the other hand, it is seen that the teacher has a loving personality through the facts of trust, kindliness and compassion.

Questions were asked to both groups of participants in order to determine the current conceptualization of teachers about the possible relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout. At this stage, first, the administrators who were included in the qualitative part of the research asked, "What should be done in order to reduce the professional burnout of a teacher?" The answers they gave to the question were analysed and the results of the analysis are given in Table 9.

Table 9
Administrators’ responses related to job burnout

As can be seen in Table 9, it was seen that most of the administrators who answered this question under the theme of school management referred to the fact that the teacher should be more motivated by the principal in order to reduce the professional burnout of the teacher. Sample quotations for this situation are given below.

A10: The teacher should be motivated. Unmotivated teacher starts to disgust from his profession day by day and gradually gets exhausted.

A21: The morale and motivation of the teacher should be increased. If the teacher is not motivated, his insensitivity and failure increase. This causes burnout.

It was observed that the administrators who evaluated this question in the context of school management theme also referred to moral leadership, which is one of the sub-dimensions of paternalist leadership in order to reduce teachers' professional burnout.

A13: In order to reduce the professional burnout of the teacher, we must first facilitate the working environment. It should be shown that the teacher is valued and his ideas are valued.

Another important point emphasized by the administrators who answered this question in the context of school management theme is authoritarian leadership, which is another sub-dimension of paternalist leadership. Administrators mentioned that authoritarian leadership, which represents discipline-oriented management, should be reduced to reduce professional burnout.

A1: A comfortable, orderly and reliable environment should be created, principals' speech style should not seem to give orders, and administrators should be away from the form of expression as I said.

Another important concept emphasized by the administrators under the theme of school management is the charitable leadership, which is also a sub-dimension of paternalist leadership.

A14: The working environment of the teacher should be comfortable. Principals should not give teachers too much paperwork.

Some of the administrators who answered this question however, abstracted themselves from the process of reducing teacher burnout and tried to put more responsibility on external factors and teachers.

A4: The teacher should improve himself and renew constantly. It must be open to the outside world. He should learn new methods and approach his student accordingly.

In the light of the responses of the participants to this question in the qualitative question set, it was determined that teachers' professional burnout can be overcome with the paternalist leadership to be realized by the administrators. This finding can be seen as an important reference point in the context of evaluating the degree of relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout.

In the qualitative part of the research, "How does a school principal's paternalist (fatherly) leadership style affect the teacher?" the themes created according to the answers given by the teachers to the last question and the concepts characterizing these themes are given in Table 10.

Table 10
Teachers’ responses related to paternalistic leadership

When the themes and concepts given in Table 10 are evaluated, the teachers' responses revealed that the school principal's paternalist leadership style increases the motivation and personal achievement of teachers, and reduces their emotional burnout and desensitization. The teachers, who evaluated this question under the theme of being motivated for work, stated that thanks to the paternalist leadership style of their principals, they worked more selflessly and enthusiastically and their motivation increased. Citations to this finding are given below.

T4: The fact that the principal is fatherly affects me positively. It allows me to do my job more voluntarily. I act more carefully and meticulously in my work.

T22: Positive effects. It increases my motivation and determination, reduces my burnout.

Because of the analysis on teachers' answers to this question, another remarkable finding was reached. The teachers said that the school principal's paternalist leadership style would decrease their emotional burnout and insensitivity and increase personal success. The emotional burnout, depersonalization and personal success themes seen in Table 10 represent the sub-dimensions of the Maslach Burnout Scale applied to the participants in the quantitative part of the research. Below are quotes from teacher responses representing each theme and sub-dimensions:

Emotional Burnout

T13: The paternal attitudes of the principal increase the teacher's sense of trust. It allows him to do his job lovingly. When principals treat teachers with more warm and fatherly attitudes, they find themselves in a peaceful working environment and work better. If the teachers are treated coldly and commandingly, the teacher feels excluded and the desire to do work is lost.

Personal Success

T8: The paternal attitude of the school principal not only makes teachers feel safe, but also positively affects their education quality and increases their success. In a problem experienced in the school, teachers feel the support of the school principal and thus, education becomes a better quality.

T5: The paternal attitude positive effects. It helps the teacher feel safe and comfortable at school. I think it will affect discipline and performance positively. However, I also think that this leadership style will also be abused at some point. An authoritarian principal who applies the regulation one-to-one wants a robotic staff and this inevitably reflects on the student perspective.

When the themes and concepts in the qualitative section and the quotations for each theme are evaluated together, teachers were found to associate the paternalist leadership style of the principal with the concept of burnout. Three sub-dimensions of professional burnout scale; emotional burnout, personal success and depersonalization factors showed themselves in teacher responses. This also supports the quantitative findings on the relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout.

The first finding in this study is that teachers' paternalist leadership perceptions are above average. According to this finding, it can be said that teachers generally evaluate their principals with fatherly leadership qualities. This result reveals the idea that principals have a helpful profile towards teachers, they tend to deal with almost every problem and care about loyalty, as stated in similar studies (Dağli & Ağalday, 2018; Köksal, 2011). Another finding in this study is that the effect of gender on paternalist leadership assessments is not significant. This finding is consistent with the findings of some research conducted for teachers (Cerit et al., 2011; Koç & Alpullu, 2019). However, in other studies, it is stated that the gender variable significantly affects the perception of paternalist leadership and that men have a higher perception (Dağli & Ağalday, 2018). In the study, it was determined that the variables of age and working year did not significantly differentiate teachers' paternalist leadership perceptions. This result seems to be consistent with past research. In various studies conducted with teachers to determine paternalist leadership perceptions, it was determined that the age variable (Koç & Alpullu, 2019), and it was determined that the variable of working year (Çetin et al., 2017) did not cause a significant difference.

According to the results, it was found that the teachers' professional burnout is not high. It can be said that the positive feedback that teachers received from students, administrators or parents had an effect on this result. Because, in a study conducted with special education teachers, it was stated that the reason for teachers' moderate level burnout is lack of personal accomplishment (Atiyat, 2017). In the research, it was determined that the professional burnout of teachers showed a significant difference according to gender. The results show that the professional burnout levels of female teachers are significantly higher than that of men. The reason for this may be the fact that female special education teachers are both more emotionally frayed and that there is a whole other level of responsibility in their families in addition to their professions. In the literature, the results obtained in some of the studies that included analyses on the effect of gender on professional burnout support the findings of this study (William & Dikes, 2015); while the results of some studies are not consistent with the findings of this study (Atiyat, 2017; Korkmaz et al., 2019). Because of the research, it was determined that both the age variable and the working year variable significantly affect professional burnout. The results reveal that as the age gets older and the year of work in the profession increases, the professional burnout of special education teachers decreases. This finding brought along a claim that individuals become insensitive over time as the age progresses. Because it is seen that the teachers who continue to work in a limited context get used to this situation as the working year passes. Because of this situation, it turns out that over the years, professional burnout is lower than teachers who work less time in the profession. The results of various studies conducted with teachers in the literature are also in line with the findings in this study (Atiyat, 2017).

It has been observed that there is a moderately negative relationship between teachers' paternalist leadership perceptions and their professional burnout. Because of the analysis, it was found that there was a moderately negative relationship between the two variables. Accordingly, it can be said that the principals' paternal attitude towards the teacher reduces the professional burnout of the teacher. In the literature, although there is no study to determine the relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout, some results are indirectly similar to the findings obtained in this research. Various researches have revealed that the burnout status of the teachers decreases as they receive support from their principals (Yellice Yüksel et al., 2011), that the paternalist leadership positively affects the attitudes and behaviours of the employees (Köksal, 2011) and increases the job satisfaction of the employees (Uçar, 2019; Koç & Koç, 2020). Similarly, it has been shown that it helps employees to show voluntary behaviours (Gökdeniz et al., 2018) and reduces negative situations such as organizational exclusion (Akgün et al., 2019). All these data point to the existence of a negative relationship between the leader's paternalist characteristics and the professional burnout of the employees. Teachers compared their principals to the figure of "father" and "boss", while they likened themselves to the figure of "mother" and "parent". These findings support the quantitative findings about teachers' paternalist leadership perceptions. It is stated that the establishment of a reassuring school environment based on consistent bilateral relations has a positive effect on teachers (Koç, 2019).

Findings obtained because of the analysis of qualitative data collected from 25 administrators; revealed that administrators emphasized three main points to reduce teachers' professional burnout. The first of these; they are related to school management, which may be considered to be related to their duties. Administrators referred to the three sub-dimensions (moral, authoritarian and benevolent leadership) of the paternalist leadership scale (Cheng et al., 2004). This finding confirmed the quantitative findings of administrators to make paternal leadership towards them to reduce teachers' professional burnout. Another finding reached in this context is the idea that administrators can prevent their professional burnout by motivating teachers. This idea coincides with the idea that "helpful and moral leadership increases the motivation of employees and reduces professional burnout" belonging to Niu et al. (2009). Because benevolence will increase the sense of gratitude in the employees (Çetin et al., 2017) and cause passion for work (Gökdeniz et al., 2018). Another finding reached in this context is that teachers should develop themselves more personally. This finding; one of the sub-dimensions of MBS used in this study is related to the concept of 'personal success/failure' (Maslach & Jackson, 1981) and corresponds with the finding in the literature that the sense of personal success in the literature reduces burnout (Atiyat, 2017).

Because of the analysis of the qualitative data collected from 25 teachers, it was determined that the findings reached were supportive of quantitative findings. Accordingly, it was observed that teachers emphasized four basic points. The first of these was that the finding that teachers are more motivated towards work as the paternalist leadership style of the administrator increases. This finding confirms both the paternalist leadership-motivation relationship evaluated based on the literature in the previous subtitle and similar results in the literature (Çetin et al., 2017). Another important finding is that the paternalist leadership style that the principal reflects against teachers will decrease the emotional burnout of teachers. This finding; corresponds to the results in the literature. The other two findings obtained in this section are the findings that, thanks to the paternalist leadership style of the principal, the depersonalization of teachers will decrease and the sense of personal success will increase. These findings are related to the concepts of 'depersonalization, personal success', which are the sub-dimensions of MBS used in this research (Maslach & Jackson, 1981). In their responses to qualitative questions about the paternalist leadership styles, the teachers referred to all three sub-dimensions of the MBS used in the research. This result enabled the relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout to appear not only quantitatively but also qualitatively.

In line with the results obtained in this study, the following recommendations are presented. To reduce teachers' professional burnout, more emphasis can be placed on the paternalist leadership style by principals. Principals can act with more paternalistic leadership features to ensure that teachers embrace their work more tightly and increase their motivation. Similar studies to determine the degree of relationship between paternalist leadership and professional burnout can be repeated on different samples. Similar studies can be carried out in contexts other than the special education context. With the participation of all staff working in schools, researches can be conducted in which paternalist leadership perception and demographic variables that affect this perception are examined.

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