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This study aims to explore the challenges reported by Israeli school vice-principals regarding their relationships with principals and teachers. The study examines two questions: (1) How do vice-principals perceive the challenges involved in their relationships with principals and teachers? and (2) How do they respond to these challenges?

The study employed a qualitative approach to explore the challenges encountered by Israeli school vice-principals in their relationships with principals and teachers. Semi-structured, face-to-face interviews were conducted with 17 vice-principals, allowing for an in-depth understanding of their perspectives and experiences.

The findings of the study highlight three challenges mentioned by the research participants: bridging between principals and teachers, maintaining complete loyalty to both sides and middle-ground responsibility for the school.

This study enriches the existing literature on vice-principals by investigating their distinct position as intermediaries bridging teachers and principals. It offers valuable insights into the challenges they encounter in their interactions with both parties, as well as their strategies to tackle these issues. Through the application of role theory, the research deepens comprehension of the intricate nature of the vice-principals' role, providing pragmatic suggestions for improvement.

Emotions are everywhere and, as multiple scholars have argued, can be considered a fundamental part of the human experience. Individuals are expected to behave in socially appropriate ways in a variety of public and private social situations, which often involve managing one's emotions. The management and regulation of emotions are also key components of effective school leadership. This chapter unpacks the emotional aspects of school leadership by exploring how the management of emotions is fundamental to the success of headmasters, principals, vice-principals, and other school-level leaders. I also provide the rationale for using the term ‘school-level leaders’ and call for emotional authenticity in educational leadership. Then I outline several benefits an increased scholarly and practical focus on the emotional aspects of school-level leadership offers for teachers and other school staff, school-level leaders themselves, and the students they serve on a daily basis. I also provide a short description of the methodology used for the participant quotes used to add richness and contextualize key themes explored in Chapters 4 and 5. The chapter concludes with an outline of how the rest of this book is organized and offers additional insight into the topics explored in the forthcoming chapters.

School-level leaders should not be expected to be mired in emotional turmoil and sacrifice their own health, happiness and well-being to do their jobs effectively. While the emotional aspects of school-level leadership have continued to evolve and become increasingly complex since the turn of the twenty-first century, the supports available to these individuals remain outdated, ineffective, and moribund. If mentoring, anonymous telephone support lines and other ‘old school’ approaches for supporting school leaders were still effective, they would not be struggling to deal with the emotional aspects of their work and workload. Further, there is a need to provide ‘just-in-time’ supports that are available to school-level leaders when concerns arise. Absent structural changes, isolated and individualized approaches to self-care cannot mitigate the challenges principals face or the physical, mental and emotional toll associated with their work and workload. Communal strategies and policy levers are recommended in an effort to go beyond mindfulness and other (potentially) individualistic and neoliberal approaches to self-care. This chapter also explores how principal preparation programmes and other formal professional learning opportunities are an untapped resource in terms of strengthening school-level leaders' emotional regulation capacity and building a general appreciation for the emotional aspects of school-level leadership.

The large role that emotions play in the work lives of school-level leaders is absent from much of the research exploring what they do on a daily basis. This chapter discusses future directions for research surrounding the emotional aspects of school-level leadership and how this research can influence practice in meaningful ways. For example, it may be beneficial for future research to focus on principals who are struggling to manage their emotions. This would allow researchers to identify factors or practices associated with school-level leaders who are less able to manage their emotions in a positive manner and provide supports. Further, more large-scale research surrounding school-level leadership is needed to better understand how the ability to manage emotions intersects with other challenges in contemporary principals' work. Research of this nature would also provide additional avenues of support for current leaders. Future directions for practice include an emphasis on changing the culture so that school-level leaders who are struggling feel empowered to reach out beyond their immediate colleagues for supports. Without a renewed appreciation for the emotional aspects of their work, principals, vice-principals and other school-level leaders will be unable to maximise their impact on student outcomes.

Healthy and adaptive strategies for regulating emotions and coping with the demands of their jobs can help school-level leaders mitigate the factors and forces heightening the emotional aspects of their work, stave off the negative effects of work intensification and achieve wellness. As with most individuals in most professions, school-level leaders use several different strategies to manage their emotions and cope with the stresses associated with their work. Some of these coping strategies are associated with positive outcomes including situation selection and exercising autonomy over their workday, talking to colleagues, reappraisal, humour, controlled breathing, exercise and engaging in hobbies outside of work. However, even the most experienced and effective school-level leaders demonstrate a proclivity for engaging in coping strategies associated with maladaptive and negative outcomes. These maladaptive strategies include worrying about events over which they have little or no control, masking one's emotions using expressive suppression, using thought suppression to deal with symptoms of emotional exhaustion, distraction, manipulating the emotions of others as well as use of illegal or prescription drugs, alcohol and other forms of self-medication. This chapter concludes with a discussion of how there can be some overlap between these strategies in practice and how they are classified.

After completion of the case study, students will be able to learn, understand, examine and customize leadership styles per organizational culture; understand the conflict management styles of a female leader; and comprehend the organizational change process to devise an effective communication strategy.

Ever-changing business demands managers adopt organizational change in leadership styles, business processes, updated skill sets and minds. One must be ready to understand influential nurtured corporate culture and human resource resistance towards the inevitable change. This case study attempted to discuss the female protagonist dealing with an organizational conflict. The case study introduces one such protagonist from a century-old woman’s educational institution. Subsequently, this case study presents organizational change under the leadership of a female protagonist. This teaching case study gives the reader an insight into situational leadership, conflict management styles and the corporate change process by implementing an appropriate communication strategy. This case study describes the change process through the various decision-making scenarios that an academic institute over a century old faced during the post-pandemic crisis after adding a crucial protagonist. The employee union, followed by students and administrative employees, has challenged the dominating leadership position held by the college principal. Protests occurred due to the college administrator’s refusal to adjust her approach to leadership. This teaching case then provided different leadership styles of the current and old leaders. Finally, the case study lists the challenges a leader faces during turbulent times and the lessons a leader should learn from such situations while transforming the institute.

The teaching case benefits undergraduate students in business management subjects such as conflict management, leadership and organizational behaviour. Nevertheless, trainers can use this case study to teach seasoned managers and emerging leaders the significance of adopting and implementing change while understanding situational leadership.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 10: Public Sector Management.

School-level leaders are suffering. They are experiencing a well-being crisis after years of working long work hours, managing an unrelenting workload, and navigating shifting policy contexts. School leaders that are experiencing work intensification and highly stressful work environments can suffer personal and professional consequences. On a professional level, school-level leaders are immersed in intensified work environments that mute the power and potential increasingly associated with their role. This chapter describes challenges that threaten school-level leaders' productivity, job satisfaction, happiness and well-being, such as work intensification, burnout, stress as well as loneliness and isolation. In these ways, the emotional aspects of their work can influence school-level leaders' ability to lead happy and healthy lives, while also having the supplementary effect of making the position less attractive for the next generation of school leaders. Research conducted in jurisdictions around the world is discussed throughout the chapter to demonstrate that the well-being crisis experienced by school leaders is an international phenomenon. I also use this discussion of the challenges facing contemporary school-level leaders to encourage them to reconnect with the reasons why, and the emotions they felt, when first pursuing a position in K-12 school-level leadership.

In this chapter, I propose a model for how school-level leaders manage their emotions. This model consists of six components. School-level leaders typically have little direct influence over the first component of the model, which are the socio-contextual factors in the schools, school communities and jurisdictions in which they work. A school-level leader's identity, sense of self and their personal characteristics comprise the second component of the model. The third component of the model is a multi-directional arrow demonstrating connections and interactions between the socio-contextual factors and a school-level leader's sense of self. Factors that heighten school-level leaders' emotional experiences in schools are considered as part of the fourth component of this model for school-level leaders' emotional regulation. The fifth component are the emotional regulation strategies school-level leaders use to manage emotions that emerge as part of their workday, while influence of supports and professional learning are considered as part of the sixth component, Finally, the model also accounts for the chain reactions and feedback loops that can occur when an individual utilizes an emotional regulation strategy that is unsuccessful. Those processes produce new emotions that must be regulated using similar, or different, emotional regulation strategy(ies).