The Principal at Risk: Stress and Organizing Mindfulness in the School Context.

Pierluigi Diotaiuti,Stefania Mancone,Giuseppe Valente,Fernando Bellizzi

doi:10.3390/ijerph17176318

Abstract

Background: In recent years the role of school principals is becoming increasingly complex and responsible. Methods: This study was voluntarily attended by 419 Italian school principals who were administered the Psychological Stress Measurement (MSP), Mindfulness Organizing Scale (MOS), Polychronic-Monochronic Tendency Scale (PMTS), and the Scale of Emotions at Work (SEW). Results: The study has produced a path analysis model in which the relationships between the main predictors of principals’ work discomfort were explained. The effect of depressive anxiety on perceived discomfort (ß = 0.517) found a protective mediator in the mindfulness component that recognizes the sharing as a fundamental operational tool (ß = −0.206), while an increasing sense of effort and confusion could significantly amplify the experience of psychological discomfort associated with the exercise of school leadership (ß = 0.254). Conclusions: The model developed in this study suggests that focusing on organizing mindfulness can be a valuable guideline for interventions.

Highlights

Research on work-related stress has long identified the school as one of the risk environments, and various studies and publications deal with the stress and burnout of school workers
Personale Amministrativo, Tecnico e Ausiliario), teachers, students and their parents. Each of these players must adapt to regulatory changes, both individually and collectively, with time dictated by political choices, which can be both national and supranational; the educational system, through the schools operating on the territory and the people who effectively act and put into practice the regulatory frameworks decided by the government institutions, must follow and pursue the changes in a short time period, often far from the actual physiological timing that the institution can implement
(1) Monitor the stress levels of a large sample of principals belonging to different levels of Italian schools; (2) verify the incidence of specific pathologies associated with high levels of school stress; (3) evaluate the relationships between the perceived stress, work discomfort and dimensions of organizational mindfulness; (4) test the fit of a general path model illustrating the influence of the predictors on principals’ work discomfort; and (5) identify the role of organizing mindfulness on principal’s perceived work discomfort

Summary

Introduction

Research on work-related stress has long identified the school as one of the risk environments, and various studies and publications deal with the stress and burnout of school workers. Most of the work produced devotes attention to teachers, and there are few reflections on the psychophysical resistance of the principal, especially considering all the legislative and organizational changes that have taken place [1,2]. These continuous changes, necessary in a rapidly changing society (well described by the “liquid society” metaphor coined by Zygmunt Bauman) become a cause of work-related stress for all school staff, especially principals. Methods: This study was voluntarily attended by 419 Italian school principals who were administered the Psychological Stress Measurement (MSP), Mindfulness Organizing Scale (MOS), Polychronic-Monochronic Tendency Scale (PMTS), and the Scale of Emotions at Work (SEW)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion