Principals’ Learning Leadership: Integrating Spiritual and Moral Values in Educational Settings

Abstract

Cultivating spiritual-moral values in the school environment is very important. Principals need to encourage teachers to model good spiritual and moral behavior for students. This research aims to describe the role of school principals' learning leadership to empower and develop teacher-teaching competencies in increasing students' achievement motivation based on spiritual-moral values. This study used a qualitative approach with a case study design. The research subjects were three principals and three senior teachers from three Catholic Middle School, Christian Middle School, and Muhammadiyah Islamic Middle School in Malang City, East Java, Indonesia The data were collected through in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation studies. Data analysis is interactive and continuous until completion. Activities in data analysis are data reduction, power display, and conclusion drawing/verification. The validity of data must be determined through the implementation of inspection techniques. The implementation of the inspection technique in question is based on several specific criteria. These criteria encompass credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The research findings show that principals' learning leadership based on the moral values of spirituality has a practical impact on using teachers' learning competencies to influence students' achievement motivation. In conclusion, the leadership role of school principals based on spiritual-moral values has an impact on improving teacher teaching competence so that learning activities are of higher quality and increase student learning motivation. This research recommendation is a reference for school principals in Indonesia to implement an influential learning leadership role based on spiritual-moral values to remedy the low quality of learning.