Leadership Fatigue and Burnout: Examining the Costs Associated With Leading in Underresourced Schools

• In Event: 15.014 - Fresh Perspectives on Hiring and Retaining Educators

Abstract

School leaders should not have to choose between personal well-being and professional success. However, as the pressures associated with high-stakes accountability persist, school leaders are often forced to make this difficult choice. In what we label as under-resourced schools, where leaders frequently experience the pressures associated with turnaround initiatives, fatigue is often compounded. The literature on leadership turnover is largely populated by quantitative research, and thus lacks a nuanced understanding of turnover and its relationship to turnaround reform. Through the lens of role theory (Biddle, 1986), this study addresses this gap by examining fatigue and burnout in under-resourced and turnaround-priority schools. Specifically, this study highlights leaders’ conceptualizations of stress and fatigue in order to better support current and future practitioners.

Authors

• Bradley W. Carpenter, Baylor University

• Katie Elizabeth Nuss, University of Houston