The Emotional Labour of the Aspirant Leader: Traversing School Politics

Abstract

The emotions of the aspirant leader are underexplored. In this chapter, we detail how aspirants experience the transition from teacher to leader and report on the kinds of emotional labour associated with the transition. This was examined during events of high emotional arousal for 130 school aspirants: when they felt professionally wounded, either by colleagues, leaders, parents or students. During a time of wounding, emotional work and emotional labour hinged on the dissonance between ‘display rules’ of the school and what aspirants’ actually felt. Exploring the wounding stories revealed common display rules, which were often broken. Breaking these rules always had consequences and emotional correlates. 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.

Citation

Gallant, A. and Riley, P. (2013), "The Emotional Labour of the Aspirant Leader: Traversing School Politics", Newberry, M., Gallant, A. and Riley, P. (Ed.) Emotion and School: Understanding how the Hidden Curriculum Influences Relationships, Leadership, Teaching, and Learning (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 18), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 81-97. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3687(2013)0000018009