Interview: Dimitrios Belias

PsychED recently reviewed an article on "transformational leadership" and its effects on teacher self-efficacy. Today, we dive deeper into this question thanks to an interview with author Dr. D. Belias.

Dr. D. Belias is a Human Resource Management scientist. Holder of  
BSc, MSc, MEd, PhD, University of Thessaly... 

He has published more than  140 papers in internationals and Greek refereed journals and  conference presentations in the areas of Organization Behavior, Human  Resource Management, TQM, Educational Management and Tourism  
Management. He has also been a regular reviewer for 20 scientific  
journals and is currently a member in many scientific and professional  
bodies.

PsychED: What is the source of interest in educational psychology?
Dr. D. Belias: As the environment is becoming more complex, educators need to  better understand how those changes affect the students’ psychology.  
Hence the importance of educational psychology.

PsychED: Your research shows that transformational leadership can have a positive influence on teachers' self-efficacy. Could you give us a brief explanation of these two concepts?
Dr. D. Belias: Transformational leaders are described to hold positive expectations  for followers, believing that they can do their best. As a result,  
they inspire, empower, and stimulate followers to exceed normal levels  
of performance. Transformational leaders also focus on and care about  
followers and their personal needs and development. The outcome is  
that the subject of leadership, in our case the teachers, have a high  
level of self-efficacy since transformational leadership allows them  
to discover their qualities and invest into those qualities, which  
results that the teacher feels that his or her performance is above  
the average.

PsychED: The Greek educational system, is highly centralized. Do you expect transformational leadership to be even more influential in independent schools?
Dr. D. Belias: Tranformational leadership can bring lot of benefits. However, it is not enough. The key issue is to have a change on the structure of the  
Greek educational system which will allow the leadership in school  
level to be more flexible and effective.

PsychED: Are you aware of particular methods or techniques that would help school leaders develop their transformational leadership skills?
Dr. D. Belias: This can be done through personal development. One effective technique  is mentoring. The leader will be close to a well-established  
transformational leader where he or she will follow the mentor. 

PsychED: What other areas of educational psychology are you currently
interested in?
Dr. D. Belias: I am interested on the case of job burnout, since the current social and economic climate has led into high levels of burnout among teachers.

PsychED: Thank you so much for your time!