Strategies secondary school principals use to manage their emotions

ABSTRACT

The very nature of contemporary principals’ work depends on the effective management and regulation of emotions. This study uses data derived from 13 interviews to provide insight into how secondary school principals manage their emotions. Findings indicate that principals use several strategies to manage their emotions, including those associated with the situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change and response modulation families of emotional regulation. Several implications for practice emerged from the findings of this study, including potential avenues for cultivating a sensitivity to the heavy emotional toll inherent in the contemporary principalship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.