Teacher response to internal communication implementation done by school principal and its effect on teacher spirit

In order to educate the life of the nation as stated in the opening of the four-fourth 1945 Constitution, one of the efforts for apply it is through the implementation of education-teaching in schools, starting from the level of primary education, intermediate education, to tertiary education.

Schools as formal education institutions in conducting teaching education require a number of components involved in achieving educational goals. Besides that, in the implementation of school teaching education, it strives to shape development humans who have knowledge, skills and character in accordance with the values of Pancasila.

In the implementation of education, teachers as educators have a number of tasks to carry out education. In this case, the teacher needs active participation and earnest effort from their leaders to guide, direct towards the achievement of educational goals. Therefore, one of the efforts that needs to be carried out by a leader in school is to carry out communication as the most basic factor in establishing a harmonious relationship with the teacher.

The principal as a leader in school must be able to show attitudes of professionalism and attitude that can attract teachers’ sympathy in communication so that the teacher will feel more happy. Therefore, the principal is also expected to influence and direct teachers to achieve educational goals.

According to Ruben & Gigliotti (2016) communication is a topic frequently linked to leadership; however, the linkage often is limited to a view of communication as a strategic mechanism or technique to be employed by leaders in efforts to achieve particular purposes. We know that basically communication is a process. A communication process is static. Communication here is not just an exchange of ideas or thoughts but is an activity carried out to change the opinions or behavior of others. Therefore, the principal needs to influence and change the behavior of teachers in a better direction. It can be done if between the principal and the teacher have established communication.

The leadership of the principal greatly influences the back and forth of education in addition to the method of teaching, the teacher, and the completeness of facilities and infrastructure. The development of science and technology and the appearance of new policies related to education encourage principals to pay attention and to inform the teachers. In addition, the school principal needs to create a harmonious relationship with the teacher, so that the teacher is motivated in carrying out his duties with full loyalty and responsibility.

In this case, the principal can do the internal communication. Internal communication here is the communication that occurs between the principal and the teacher in the school to achieve educational goals. Through communication, the school principal needs to know the various obstacles faced by the teacher, both obstacles related to his profession as a teacher and personal obstacles experienced by the teacher, so that it can hinder the implementation of education and teaching activities. According to Effendi (2001), a leader must be involved in communication activities especially if the leader is active in democratic leadership, then he will conduct communication activities. Communication is essential for extensions in a school. Without good communication that will be carried out by the principal against the teacher, all their efforts will not be coordinated.

A school principal who he is concerned with his authority by keeping his distance from the teacher and not communicating well to deal with all the problems that arise in school can give effect in decreasing the teacher’s work motivation.

Definition of Communication

According to Ig Wursanto (1999), the term communication comes from the Latin language that is from the word communicate which means the same. So when communicating with other parties, we must set goals so that we will get the same understanding. A. W. Widjaya (2000) argues communication is the exchange of information and understanding from someone to others. Communication will succeed if there is understanding that if both parties, the sender and the recipient of the information understand it. Moh. Rifai believes that communication will usually be more effective if used in various ways, not in the form of words, both oral and written, but also supported by actions and behavior.

Mayfield and Mayfield (2017) state that leadership communication is perceived articulation of such talk or actions. Note the emphasis is on perceived, and articulation includes many channels, ranging from listening to social media and other electronic formats. In addition, their definition does not differentiate between leaders and managers. In short, anyone recognized by others as a leader and engaged in message sending that is linked to this role performs leadership communication.

Definition of internal communication

Asmara (1998) describes internal communication as follows:

• Vertical, that is communication that goes from boss or leader to subordinates. for example in the form of orders, instructions and vice versa from subordinates to the leadership in the form of suggestions, information, or reports,
• Horizontal, that is communication that goes parallel from subordinates to subordinates or from leaders to other leaders
• Diagonal, which is the communication that takes place crossing that occurs not directly or directly from the subordinate
• Unidirectional, i. e. communication that takes place without feedback from communication,
• Two directions, namely communication that takes place in the presence of feedback from being communicated, there are activities of giving and receiving,
• Free, that is communication that occurs without knowing the existence of a formal connection and takes place naturally,
• Bound, that is communication that takes place according to the procedure that is valid and is usually reflected in an organizational structure.

Scholars have acknowledged the value of building long-term relationships with employees based on mutual satisfaction and effective internal communication because it will strengthen employees’ identification with their organizations, facilitate engagement and building trust among the employees. The affective internal communication has positive impact for the employees, workplace environment, productivity and the company bottom-line.

Communication process

Communication is a way that is carried out by a leader to subordinates or between fellow subordinates in an organization to be able to provide information to each other, exchange ideas for the achievement of goals. Communication will take place if there is interaction and in the interaction will be found various types of communication processes. Leadership–communication process is not a matter of unidirectional influence; rather, building from the systems model, the ways that people — functioning in the somewhat arbitrarily designated roles of “ leader” and “ follower”— create, convey, select, and attach meaning to the messages that inform and shape their lives are much more complex, dynamic, and unpredictable. According to Lee (2015) leadership communication is an important element of study in organizations as this form of communication affects organizational members-employees-which in turn will affect the organizations’ performance. While, Jamal and Bakar (2015) leadership communication will be examined from an interpersonal aspect including the demonstration of communication behaviors a charismatic leader exhibits. The communications behaviors such as expressing appropriate emotions by leaders show the degree of their involvement with the subject matters.

Understanding Work Spirit

Alex Natisemito (1997) expressed his opinion that work motivation and enthusiasm for work are difficult to separate because the excitement of work has a great influence on spirit. The spirit of work is to do work more actively so that the work will be expected faster and better. While the excitement of work is a deep sense of pleasure in the work.

Research Methods

This research was conducted at Amir Hamzah Private High School, Medan. The population in this study were all teachers at Amir Hamzah Private High School, Medan. The number of samples in this study was 62 people. To obtain this research data questionnaire is used as data collection in the form of closed questions based on a modified Likert scale with four alternative answers. steps in processing data are: tabulating data, performing normality tests, and descriptive analysis.

Results and Discussion

Teacher’s response to internal communication

Through data collection tools in the form of questionnaires (questionnaires) given to 62 Amir Hamzah Private High School teachers, data was collected and then tabulated on the answer / response data provided by the teacher regarding the implementation of the principal’s internal communication. The answers given by the teacher are given a score according to the choice of answers given, SL option (always) score 4, SR option (often) score 3, KK option (sometimes) score 2 and JS option (rarely) score 1.

Teacher’s Spirit of Work

Through the data collection tools in the form of questionnaires (questionnaires) given to 62 Amir Hamzah Private High School teachers, data was collected and then tabulated on the answer / response data provided by the teacher regarding the teacher’s work spirit/motivation. The answers given by the teacher are given a score according to the choice of answers given, SL option (always) score is 4, SR option (often) score is 3, KK option (sometimes) score is 2 and JS option (rarely) score is 1. The result is stated in the following table.

The problem in this study is how the teacher’s response to the internal implementation carried out by the principal and how the teacher’s response to the enthusiasm of the teacher’s work in Amir Hamzah Private High School, Medan. This study aims to determine the meaningful effect between the implementation of internal communication conducted by the principal of the school on work morale in Amir Hamzah Private High School, Medan. To obtain data in this study, the author uses descriptive method in the form of a closed questionnaire. From the calculation results, it was found that the teacher’s response to the implementation of internal communication conducted by the principal was categorized as very high (3. 44) while to find out the working spirit of Amir Hamzah’s Private High School teachers also used descriptive analysis and the results were categorized as very high. To analyze the influence of the teacher’s response to the implementation of internal communication conducted by the principal of the teacher’s work morale first sought the degree of relationship between the two variables by using a correlational statistical product test of person moment.