Emotional leadership

Abstract

The bureaucratic model of leadership, developed by Max Weber in the 19th century, has proved to be remarkably resilient. Its underlying assumptions of organisational goals, hierarchy, top-down management and formal accountability processes still underpin the education system in most countries. Its limitations are well understood and include an emphasis on procedure at the expense of educational aims, limited opportunities for professionals to influence decision-making, and slow and inflexible processes which stifle innovation and creativity (Bush, 2011). Many alternative models have been developed to counter the bureaucratic approach, including distributed and instructional leadership, both of which have featured in recent issues of EMAL. Another such model is emotional leadership. Megan Crawford’s (2009: 3) important book on this theme refers to the ‘multiple ways of describing and analysing’ leadership. The book includes ‘heart’ in the title and it focuses on ‘understanding the emotional journey’ that leaders make. The first paper in this issue, by Mary Gardiner, Julie Yamamoto and Penny Tenuto, also explores how emotion impacts on leadership. It focuses on how secondary school leaders in the USA interpreted critical incidents that provoked emotion. Drawing on interviews with nine such leaders, supported by documents and observational data, the authors show that critical incidents forced principals to make meaning of fragmented events by choosing words to describe them and going through a process of story with self and others. They conclude that, by understanding such experiences, leaders and researchers gain valuable insights and enrich their own understanding of leadership. One aspect of emotion is stress and Crawford (2009: 22) states that stress may be seen as a negative aspect of emotion – emotional dissonance. In the second paper, Sharon Conley and Sukkyung You link stress to job restructuring and the effects of locus of control. They also note the potential conflict for professionals working in bureaucratic organisations, echoing the point I made earlier. Drawing on a survey of 390 teachers in seven high schools in Southern California, with 177 responses (45%), they found that mechanistic job restructuring produced strong negative effects relating to both role ambiguity and role conflict, leading to decreased satisfaction or commitment and, in some cases, to teachers feeling ‘trapped in their work’. The theme of role conflict is also addressed in Megan Kimber’s and Marilyn Campbell’s paper, which explores tensions and ethical dilemmas between principals and school counsellors in Brisbane, Australia. Eight principals and seven guidance counsellors took part in the authors’ research and they were asked to respond to seven scenarios drawn from the literature. The authors note that participants’ responses to the scenarios produced both commonality and dissension. The latter arises from different professional paradigms, with principals stressing administrative criteria Educational Management Administration & Leadership 2014, Vol. 42(2) 163–164 a The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1741143213512742 emal.sagepub.com