Navigating the Shadows: Exploring the Impact of Self-Centered Leadership on Teacher Emotional Exhaustion

Abstract

ABSTRACT Researchers studying educational leadership theory tend to examine positive leadership behaviors and their outcomes far more frequently than their opposite. Such a lopsided approach, while admirable in its intent, has undermined efforts to identify and excise the continuation of poor leadership attributes currently extant. This study aims to address the latter issue by investigating how, and under what conditions, a school principal’s self-centered leadership style contributes to the proliferation of teacher emotional exhaustion amongst school faculty. Data collected from 855 teachers in 72 Kuwaiti public schools were analyzed via regression analysis and bootstrapping tests to evaluate a moderated mediation model of self-centered leadership effects on teacher emotional exhaustion; teacher diffident silence acted as the mediator, while teacher ambivalent identification served as the moderator. The results showed that diffident silence partially mediates the relationship between self-centered leadership and teacher emotional exhaustion. Additionally, ambivalent identification mitigates the positive relationship between self-centered leadership and diffident silence as well as the indirect effects of self-centered leadership on teacher emotional exhaustion via diffident silence. Our discussion highlights the benefits of understanding the roles of diffident silence and ambivalent identification in the relationship between self-centered leadership and teacher emotional exhaustion, and offers recommendations for improving school leadership practices.