Emotion Management and Feelings in Teaching and Educational Leadership

In this opening chapter the authors analyse current scholarship on teacher emotion and leader emotion produced almost entirely in western countries, and call for contextualising this research by juxtaposing emotion with basic characteristics of traditional and transitional societies. Some attention is given to the meaning of emotion across national culture, including those of developing countries.

This chapter seeks to make the case that emotions are central in organising in schools and that the way members of staff oversee their emotion processes is crucial to the legitimacy of the institution. The logic of the case is simple, as follows. There are three forms of affect: feelings, moods and emotions. Feelings and moods are affective states, the description of which depicts our inner world. Emotions are very different. They entail a process in which an event of some kind is experienced and appraised. This appraisal results in physiological responses, psychological changes and social responses, which entail actions. The emotion process creates a state of action readiness and a motivation to act. The actions are manifestations of power and they may influence those who experience them. Because actions influence, they are leadership actions and are therefore central to organising processes. Actions may have a high affective content and may be experienced as an individual ‘emoting’, which typically increases the significance of the action experienced by others. Emoting can therefore change the influencing effect of an action. We may seek to defend ourselves from actions with a high affective content by means of social defences, which can take various forms. The social actions resulting from the emotion process and emoting are subject to a whole range of ‘rules’: personal, interpersonal, institutional and cultural. How well members of the school staff understand and oversee – manage – that emotion process in relation to these rules is crucial to the legitimacy of schools as institutions.

This study scrutinised Shanghai junior high school teachers’ emotions and emotion management strategies in relation to teachers’ work settings and content. A mixed-methods approach was applied to collect data via field observations, interviews, and a quantitative survey. The aim of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it aimed to identify the typical work settings in which teachers experienced work-related emotions. Secondly, it aimed to reveal teachers’ priority work in school and how it affected teachers’ choices of emotion management strategies.

The data were analysed through the lens of emotional labour theories and professional agency theories. Findings showed that classroom teaching and the professional learning community activities were two typical settings in which the teachers experienced the most intensive emotions. Most Shanghai teachers managed their momentary emotions by either genuinely expressing their emotions that matched their roles and the scenario, or by purposely suppressing emotions to meet social and organisational expectations. Furthermore, most teachers adopted the long-term mood regulation strategy by aligning their emotions with long-term goal achievement in the future. As professional agents, the Shanghai teachers did not only manage their own emotions at work using these two strategies, but also managed students’ emotions as part of the moral education.

Schools are placed in ‘special measures’ in England if they are deemed to be under performing by failing to provide their pupils with an acceptable standard of education. This chapter explores one female headteacher’s emotional experiences as she coped in difficult circumstances during an intense period of scrutiny as she led her staff towards school improvement and out of special measures. The headteacher regulated and utilised her emotions intelligently to deliberately enhance the performance of others at work and in doing so she addressed and changed the localised culture of the school. Data are drawn from a series of interviews with the headteacher and her self-reported responses to an ‘EQ Map’ (Cooper & Sawaf, 1997). Using the EQ Map as the conceptual framework, findings show a sense of work satisfaction emerged as a result of tackling challenging situations. An increased awareness of one’s emotions led to being mindful regarding the emotional state of others, as the headteacher sought opportunities to bring about school improvement and address challenges presented by being placed in special measures. A distinctive list of 21 key features of emotional management emerged from the scales of the EQ Map capturing a model in relation to coping under internal and external pressures.

Emotions are recognised as central to all aspects of human experience. Yet, in some cultures and across various professional domains, there is a tendency to suppress emotions and limit their perceived significance. The development of research in neuroscience has allowed for a better understanding of how different parts of the brain interact and function, connecting emotions and cognition. However, despite the advancement in neuroscience, many leaders continue to embrace data-driven decision making, distancing the role of emotions in these critical processes.

This study seeks to better understand how school leaders define leadership and to reflect on the role of emotions and emotion management in two collectivist transitional societies: Liberia and Palestinian Arabs in Israel. A total of 14 school principals (seven from each country) were interviewed for this study. A Restorative Practices framework, combining a focus on cognitive (rational) and emotional (affective) components was used to analyse the data.

The results indicate that a high level of emotional involvement when discussing decisions related to individual students and an effort to suppress emotions when discussing professional decisions related to teachers or the institution. Differences were found in the way emotions were handled in relation to school level (elementary vs. high school), gender, stakeholder (students, teachers) and the principal’s development stage (experience). The Liberian participants perceived a conflict between western culture and the local culture with regard to newly implemented educational policies.

The chapter aims to identify strategies used by Arab deputy-principals in Israel to manage their emotions at work. The following questions guided the research: (1) Which emotions do Arab deputy-principals tend to express and which emotions do they suppress? and (2) How do they suppress the expression of certain emotions and are the results of such suppression? In order to explore these issues, the author adopted qualitative research methodology, conducting 15 semi-structured interviews with school deputy-principals in the Arab education system in Israel. It was found that deputies described their relations with the principal and the teachers in terms of closeness, attentiveness, support, encouragement, inclusion and conflict resolution. Deputy-principals reported suppressing their emotions, because their expression might be understood as a personal weakness. They felt that an effective deputy has to conceal some or his/her unpleasant emotions (hate, anger or fear) to emphasise that the principal is the real ‘boss’ in the school. Arab cultural norms dictate that female deputy-principals cannot display their emotions in front of a male teacher and vice versa. Understanding the unique social and organisational contexts in which Arab deputies work may clarify correlations between organisational culture, professional ethics and emotion regulation. Further conclusions and implications are discussed.

In this empirical study, I describe how Muslim women leading American Islamic schools demonstrate emotionality by managing their own emotions and the emotions of others as core components of leadership practices. Using the lens of critical feminist studies, this research makes private emotional expressions a site for critical analysis of social, cultural and political influences that reflect patriarchal power imbalances and rising anti-Muslim sentiment. Through a national analysis of 13 interviews of Muslim women school leaders, centering their everyday leadership experiences as qualitative data, I found that these women skillfully managed emotions as both a demonstration of their faith and a professional effort to advance their school communities. The following themes emerged from the data as evidence of emotionality within American Islamic schools: (a) emotions as nurturing; (b) emotions as burdens; (c) emotional fluency and (d) emotions as resistance. This study expands the scholarship of critical feminist studies that examine the intersections of emotionality and leadership, by adding the voices of Muslim women school leaders who expertly manage emotions across cultural boundaries, through a difficult political environment, and as an embodiment of prophetic principles.

Directing schools of high complexity in disadvantaged social contexts with high rates of emigration requires skills for emotional leadership. Directors with self-managing capacities are needed to manage their own emotions. They also need to mobilise people (teachers, students and families) by focussing on their feelings of satisfaction, identification with the group, belonging, joy, success, unity and cohesion.

The content of this chapter presents the study of the emotional management of directors who perform their work in two highly complex schools in Catalonia, Spain. The views of these directors as well as teachers and families examine: (1) the construction of their professional identity, (2) their social and ethical commitment to the community, (3) the orientation towards the values of social justice and (4) their emotional leadership practices focussed on personal attention towards all of the actors in the school community.

The chapter concludes with 10 suggestions that can be useful to improve the professional practice of school directors. These should also be taken into account when designing and implementing initial and ongoing training programmes for school leaders and to inspire ideas for future research.

Often new principals approach their first appointments with a high expectation to make their mark by introducing changes that would lead to school improvement. However, these expectations may be void of thoughts of how an inherited school culture may weigh on their emotions and upset their notions about principalship on a daily basis. Emerging from a multiple case study research design, in which a critical incident technique was the main source of data on new principals’ emotional experiences, the findings show that the new principals experienced predominantly negative emotions and wounding, often linked to pre-formed expectations of school members. Also, influenced by a need to protect their leadership authority, they selected which emotions to disclose versus which to suppress. These findings as drawn from a broader study conducted in Trinidad and Tobago imply a need for training and continuing professional development that would support aspirant and practising principals’ emotion regulation.

This chapter depicts the case of a leading school principal in a large suburban Temporary Education Center for Syrian students in Turkey through exploring his emotions and the ways in which he de/regulates them, while performing his professional duties. A single-case study technique was employed within the qualitative realm. Data were attained by interviews, narratives and observations at the school. Drawing on the cultural view on emotions, this authentic school leader’s emotions and emotional regulation (ER) style were analysed as he poses a critical case in refugee education, an unfamiliar phenomenon for Turkish schools. The findings revealed the impact of the cumbersome reality of culture on the emotions, which is a blend of religion, faith, traditions and consequent values in this case and the strategies selected for emotion regulation. His ER techniques are an outcome of his patriotic values, deep belief in justice and humanity, formed by his faith and Anatolian culture he adopted. The data show that the Western perspectives of emotion literature may not necessarily be valid in a case where locally embedded needs and dynamics are interwoven. His paternalistic care and relevant display of emotions create a form of trust and confidence in the other members of the fragile school community and parents, which is significant in demonstrating the impact of local needs.

The role and effects of basic emotions in organisations have been an important issue of researchers. In this chapter, the authors aimed to see how school principals conceptualise the emotion of shame and to reveal the role of shame and its effects on the behaviours of school principals’ work in schools through data obtained from six principals working in state schools in Turkey. Results showed that principals conceptualise the feeling of shame in terms of moral base in the formation of interpersonal relations in school organisations. The study also showed that shame experienced by school principals has restorative effects on school leaders’ behaviours. The authors claimed that this effect of shame on school principals could be affected by the collectivist nature of the Turkish culture.

Trust has been identified as key to students’ academic improvement. The purpose of this paper is to identify the conditions that build trust in teachers, both towards their colleagues and school leaders, and to explore the emotions triggered among these participants. This study uses the critical incident technique to conduct interviews with 34 teachers from the Valparaíso Region (Chile). Results show that incidents are easily remembered when a subordinate relationship is involved. Many critical incidents are related to situations in which teachers are particularly vulnerable. Hence, teachers value the treatment received and support provided. The arrival of new teachers to a school is crucial when building bonds of trust. Benevolence is the facet that stands out the most in incidents reported by teachers and school leaders, while satisfaction is the most recurrent emotion. In the case of school leaders, benevolence is closely followed by competence. In the case of teachers, benevolence is followed by honesty, openness and competence. In this case, the associated emotion is affection.

Willpower is a quality that predicts positive outcomes in many areas of life and it is the greatest human strength which can make people go a step further (Baumeister & Tierney, 2011; Karp, 2015). Brunch and Ghoshal (2004) indicate that leaders need more than motivation to spur their actions. This is because difficult challenges underscore the limitations of motivation, and therefore leaders would need to rely mostly on their personal willpower. In leadership research, willpower is a capacity that is less studied and overlooked by researchers, in spite of the fact that many researchers strongly argue that willful leaders achieve more results and are perceived to be more determined in their thoughts and actions. Bearing this fact in mind, and being myself a great believer in this personal quality, enticed me to delve into the importance of willpower in acts of leadership. This chapter is a short account of the present phase of the author’s study which is being conducted with leaders who work in the educational field but who come from different countries, thus embracing diverse cultural backgrounds. The aim is to try to establish if cultural background gives a different perspective to the phenomenon of willpower. Results show that albeit culture has an impact on expected leader behaviour, and national cultures adopt different views on desired leadership qualities, willpower is still a strong phenomenon among educational leaders no matter what their cultural background is.