The Emotional Labor of the Aspirant Leader: Traversing School Politics

• In Event: School Leadership Development: The Art of Leadership Development

Abstract

In this paper we detail how (N=130) aspirants experienced the transition from teacher to leader and the associated emotional labour during events of high emotional arousal: when they felt professionally wounded by colleagues, leaders, parents or students. During woundings, emotional work and emotional labour hinged on dissonance between school “display rules” and aspirants’ real feelings. Exploring the wounding stories revealed common display rules. The most prevalent form of emotional labour was surface acting. The final discovery was the resilience of the aspirants as they recovered. Invariably, aspirants progressed through an emotion cycle of Regrouping, Recovery and Resolution. The quality of collegial relationships was the key to resolving the woundings.

Authors

• Philip Riley, Australian Catholic University

• Andrea Marlene Gallant, Deakin University- Melbourne -Australia