Teachers emotionally profit from positive school leadership: Applying the PERMA-Lead model to the control-value theory of emotions

Abstract

Based on Pekrun's (2006) control-value theory (CVT) of achievement emotions, we investigated the antecedents of school teachers' emotions. We hypothesized that teachers' perception of positive leadership at school as assessed via PERMA-Lead, a leading style grounded in positive psychology, would lead to teachers' experiences of high positive and low negative teaching emotions. According to CVT, those relations should be mediated by teachers' perceptions of control and value of their work at school. We could confirm this mediation hypothesis based on a sample of n = 446 teachers. Implications for research and practice are outlined.