Blazing New Trails - Connexions

38 CRITICAL ISSUES IN SHARED LEADERSHIP
Pounder and Merrill (2001). These descriptions were also much like those recorded by other
analysts who described the frenetic pace with which principals operate in their schools
(Fullan, 2001; Grubb & Flessa, 2006). The majority of the mean scores of professional task
management and instructional demands of the principal stressors were halfway marked
between seldom and often. The less frequent incidence of stress associated with professional
task management and instructional demands suggested that the roles of the principal were
clearly delineated, elevating the prospect for targeted stress relief.
Additional statistical tests revealed a deeper and more critical view of what principals
were reporting; multiple regressions allowed us to understand the relationships of the
independent variables of principals’ stressors with the dependent variables of relief the
principals felt was possible with teacher assistance. These tests revealed that as principals felt
more stress in handling conflict, they expressed that teachers would relieve their stress if they
were more involved with problem resolution where teachers would resolve parent complaints
and concerns and deal with student misbehavior; deal with teacher contact where teachers
would work with the ineffective and struggling teachers; deal with professional service where
teachers would deal with everything from completing reports to the state and serving as
liaisons to the stakeholder groups; and instructional issues where teachers would provide
instructional leadership for the staff.
As principals reported higher levels of stress with regard to meeting instructional
demands, they indicated that they would feel less stress if teachers were more involved with
teacher contact where they would deal with ineffective or struggling teachers; professional
service where the teachers would be involved with the reports to the state to serving as
liaisons to stakeholder groups; and instructional issues where they would provide
instructional leadership for the staff.
When principals reported a high degree of stress for professional task management
issues, they indicated that they would feel less stress if teachers were more involved with
problem resolution, where teachers would deal with everything from completing reports to the
state and serving as liaisons to the stakeholder groups; both teacher contact and instructional
issues were negatively correlated with principals who felt stress in professional task
management areas.
The category of personal task management had the highest mean scores for stress for
principals. The principals who reported the most stress in personal task management indicated
that they would feel less stress if teachers were more involved with teacher contact where
teachers would work with struggling, ineffective teachers to working with instructional issues
where teachers would provide instructional leadership for the staff.
DISCUSSION
Our initial interest in this study was to further the investigation into the world of
principals, seeking to understand the complexities of their work with regard to how principals
view the stressors they face. Underlying that line of inquiry was the interest in principals’
perceptions of how teachers currently function in a variety of managerial or integrated
leadership capacities, and, in particular, if principals felt that teachers could alleviate their
primary forms of stress.
What we learned from this study can be summarized in five observations:
1. This research provided confirmation of what is known about the world of work of
principals, that it is a world of constant demands and stressful situations.