Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Complexities in the Workload of Principals: Implications for Teacher Leadership 35
Table 1 (continued). Workplace Stressors Identified through Principal Component Analysis.
Demands
Instructional Demands
Providing instructional leadership for faculty
Providing a vision for school improvement
Planning quality professional development activities.
Responding to new demands of the curriculum
Responding to student test score results
Conducting teacher evaluations
Sharing leadership with teachers
.814
.787
.754
.718
.715
.682
2.47 .66
2.64 .968
2.39 .962
2.53 .815
2.78 .872
2.48 .858
2.53 .883
.653 1.95 .902
Professional Task Management 2.57 .65
Dealing with parent complaints .730 2.59 .916
Student discipline .720 2.65 1.008
Lunchroom and building supervision .718 2.65 1.062
Volume of paperwork .678 3.21 .863
Dealing with changing demographics .677 2.19 .961
Working with parent groups such as PTA .654 1.92 .866
Evening and weekend responsibilities .648 2.62 .943
Increased performance expectations from cent. office .636 2.71 .966
Handling Conflict 2.13 .68
Dealing with staff disputes .809 1.82 .861
Conflict within the staff .808 1.81 .870
Teachers’ resistance to change .749 2.61 .931
Issues with unions .748 1.95 .899
Working with ineffective or struggling teachers
.690 2.38 .917
1 = Rarely, 2 = Sometimes, 3 = Often, 4 = Almost Daily
Interestingly, when the means were reviewed within the four factors, the highest areas of
stress reported by principals were within the personal task management factor. The means in
this factor ranged from 3.29 for insufficient time to get the job done to 2.12 for general loss of
joy in doing this work.
Seven variables were listed under the instructional demands factor with the means ranging
from 2.78 for responding to new demands of the curriculum to 1.95 for sharing leadership
with teachers. The instructional variables signified a relatively low incidence of stress for the
principals (occurring between sometimes and often), especially when compared to the tasks
associated with personal task management.
In the professional task management factor, the means ranged from student discipline
(M=2.65), lunchroom and building supervision (M=2.65), to working with parent groups
(M=1.92). Finally, the fourth factor, labeled as handling conflict produced the lowest mean
scores for stress of the principal, with 2.38 for working with struggling with ineffective or
struggling teachers, to a 1.81 for conflict within the staff, an indicator of stress occurring
between seldom and sometimes.