Time: Thursday, 29/Aug/2024: 9:30 - 11:00 Session Chair: Thomas Blom |
Location: Room B110 in ΧΩΔ 02 (Common Teaching Facilities [CTF02]) [-1 Floor] Cap: 32 |
Paper
Interruption in Educational Leadership: Subjective Meanings and Sources
Tel Aviv University
Presenting Author:Workplace interruptions are a pervasive challenge, reducing performance, evoking negative emotions, and impacting relationships (Zide et al., 2017). Definitions of interruptions have evolved from Jett and George’s (2003) definition of interruptions as “any disruptive event that impedes progress toward accomplishing the organizational task.” Brixey et al. (2007) added the dimension of the suspension of goal-directed action. Later, Werner and Holden (2015) considered interruptions through a systems-based lens rather than as a single “event.” Recently, Puranik et al. (2020) added the unexpectedness of its occurrence to the definition of a “work interruption.”. Interruptions interfere with performance by moving the attentional focus from the planned work task (Puranik, 2020) and can engender negative emotional responses (Poirel et al., 2014).
Although School principals are “eminently interruptible” (Philips 1991), there is in general a conspicuous lack of specific research on interruptions experienced by educational leaders. Based on the literature regarding interruptions (Jett & George, 2003; Brumby et al., 2019; Puranik et al., 2020), one might presume school principals’ responses to interruptions would be similar to those of other types of managers. Even though interruptions potentially expose educational leaders to short- and long-term deleterious effects, school principals often view interruptions as time invested (Hunter et al., 2019). The goal of this study was to map the patterns and sources of interruptions that school principals face and to explore the typical responses to those interruptions.
The study focused on how school principals perceive an interruption in terms of the source of the interruption. The study explores how principals perceive the various sources of an interruption and how their perceptions can influence the interpretation of an unexpected event. Given this aim, the following research questions were proposed. (1) What do principals define as an interruption event in their job? (2) Who are the key stakeholders who are the source of these interruption events? (3) How does the source of the interruption affect the principals' interpretation of the event? (4) What determines whether a stakeholder or event is considered an interruption?
Principals are interrupted by various stakeholders (such as students, parents, teachers, and officials from the local municipality). The study shows that these stakeholders can be divided into extrinsic and intrinsic categories. Principals categorize interruptions based on how they align with or contradict their role definition, evaluating the event and the stakeholders based on their affinity to the principals’ core goals. Extrinsic sources not aligned with these core goals are most likely to be considered interruptions. For example, when the Ministry of Education makes an ad hoc request for data it is always considered an interruption as the principals perceived this request as not advancing their goal of concern for student welfare. By contrast, stakeholders aligned with their core goals are mostly considered an intrinsic source. For instance, parents asking for an emergency meeting to unexpectedly help a student would be considered intrinsic stakeholders because of their strong affinity to principals' core goals - such an event would not be considered an interruption.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
The methodology was based on constructivist grounded theory, which offered the most significant way to understand principals’ subjective definition of interruptions. The data was collected in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. The study applied a qualitative paradigm selected to gain insight into the principals’ internal attributions (Denzin & Lincoln, 2006), and what constitutes an interruption for them within their specific organizational frameworks. This method facilitated an open-ended dialogue instead of merely attempting to confirm predetermined themes. The study mapped the sources of interruptions defined by school principals with regard to their workday experiences and how they responded to these interruptions.
The Specific methodology was as follows: Twelve school principals were carefully identified through criterion sampling, The following criteria were utilized for this study:
1. Currently an elementary, middle, or high school principal.
2. A school principal for at least five consecutive years.
3. Principals from various educational subsystems in Israel.
The participants represented the education school system from first grade through 12th grade. Their experience as principals ranged from five to 27 years (an average of 12 years).
Due to the multi-cultural nature of Israeli society, schools are divided into three groups within the national system: secular and religious state schools in which the language of instruction is Hebrew and schools for Arab students in Arabic language of instruction. Principals were interviewed from all three types of schools to provide a more comprehensive and diverse perspective on how the school principals perceive the sources of interruptions. The data was collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted in 2021-2022. The structured component of the interview explored how principals view their job description, define their job as a metaphor, define interruptions, their sources, and their reactions to them in different environments.
An Iterative protocol was applied: (1) interviews were transcribed and coded in an open coding, including an initial marking of topics, emotions, metaphors, and ideas that recurred within each interview (2) Interview was re-examined in its entirety to identify metaphors, repetitive words as well as similar types of descriptions between interviews and other key themes that emerged from each interview (3) the topics to emerge from the interviews were repeated and re-classified into different categories. All ethical considerations were approved by the ethics committee.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
The study reveals several insights regarding how school principals interpret the source of an interruption. Principals experience interruptions like other managers as abrupt, unexpected, and extraordinary workflow disruptions with similar cognitive and affective implications to other managers. But Principals consider the source of the interruption in terms of both the interruption event and the stakeholders who generated the event. Stakeholders are evaluated based on their affinity to the principals' core goals. Interruptions by extrinsic stakeholders (not aligned with the core goals) are likely to be considered an interruption. Stakeholders can become differentiated over time; students, teachers, and parents are generally intrinsic stakeholders, whereas the Department of Education is consistently considered an extrinsic stakeholder.
At initial perusal, this study seems to follow the same concept, considering stakeholder types as modifiers. However, whereas Puranik views an external interruption source as unchanged, with only the outcome being influenced by the mediator, this study suggests that the interruption event, i.e., the source itself, may be reclassified as not an interruption when there is an alignment between the surprise event and the core goals of the principal. This finding appears to depart from studies that show that events are consistently perceived as interruptions when they have interruption characteristics.
The contribution of this study is that it sheds light on how principals evaluate whether an unexpected event is considered an interruption. A principal may not consider an event to be an interruption—even though it has interruption-like characteristics—provided the stakeholder who is the source of the interruption is strongly aligned with the principal’s core goals.
References
Brixey, J. M., Walji, M., Zhang, J., Johnson, T. R., & Turley, J. P. (2004, June). Proposing a taxonomy and model of interruption. In Proceedings: 6th International Workshop on Enterprise Networking and Computing in Healthcare Industry–Healthcom 2004 (IEEE Cat. No. 04EX842, pp. 184–188). IEEE.
Brumby, D. P., Janssen, C. P., & Mark, G. (2019). How do interruptions affect productivity? Rethinking productivity in software engineering, 85-107.
Denzin, N. K., Lincoln, Y. S., & Giardina, M. D. (2006). Disciplining qualitative research. International journal of qualitative studies in education, 19(6), 769-782.
Hunter, E. M., Clark, M. A., & Carlson, D. S. (2019). Violating work-family boundaries: Reactions to interruptions at work and home. Journal of Management, 45(3), 1284–1308.
Jett, Q. R., & George, J. M. (2003). Work interrupted: A closer look at the role of interruptions in organizational life. Academy of Management Review, 28(3), 494–507.
Phillipps, D. M. (1991). Interruptibility: A descriptive and analytical study of primary school principals’ administrative performance [Doctoral dissertation, University of New England, (Armidale, New South Wales)].
Poirel, E., & Yvon, F. (2014). School principals' emotional coping process. Canadian Journal of Education/Revue canadienne de l'éducation, 37(3), 1-23
Puranik, H., Koopman, J., & Vough, H. C. (2020). Pardon the interruption: An integrative review and future research agenda for research on work interruptions. Journal of Management, 46(6), 806–842.
Werner, N. E., & Holden, R. J. (2015). Interruptions in the wild: Development of a sociotechnical systems model of interruptions in the emergency department through a systematic review. Applied Ergonomics, 51, 244–254.
Zide, J. S., Mills, M. J., Shahani-Denning, C., & Sweetapple, C. (2017). Work interruptions resiliency: Toward an improved understanding of employee efficiency. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 4(1), 39–58.
Paper
Being resilient: Case Studies of School Principals to Thrive at Work in China
Zhejiang International Studies, China, People's Republic of
Presenting Author:Based on the findings of the Principals Leadership Behaviour Project in two provinces in China, this paper provides empirical evidence from three school principals that contributes to the understanding of the factors that influence the resilience of school principals in their profession. Resilient leadership is one that is able to sustain an organisation or group's competitive advantage over time through its ability to perform two tasks simultaneously: to adapt and adjust effectively to rapid, turbulent change, and to thrive and prosper successfully against current goals (Dartey-Baah, 2015, Robb, 2000; Masten, 2012; Vera et al.,2020). If educational leaders fail to manage adversity, not only will the leaders themselves suffer psychological disorders, but students and teachers will also suffer as a result of the dysfunctional climate for all concerned.
Resilience research has been around for 50 years, but has been greatly intensified in the last 20 years (Förster & Duchek, 2017). The origins of this field of research lie in developmental psychology in the context of children at risk, suggesting that it is the protective factors with the individual, family and community that allow children at risk in adverse living conditions to thrive in their lives (Werner, 1996; Luthar, 1991). After that, resilience in the context of education is widely applied to children and teachers (Luthar, 2015; Beltman, Mansfield & Price, 2011).
Resilience in the context of education has been studied from a number of approaches to its definition. Firstly, resilience is seen as an important psychological trait associated with optimism, perseverance, adaptability, responsibility, courageous decision-making, personal ethical values, personal efficacy, personal well-being, etc. (Bennis, 2007; Lazaridou, 2020; Olmo-Extremera, Townsend and Segovia, 2022), which help individuals to bounce back from the challenges, disappointments and adversities they face. Secondly, resilience is considered as a socially constructed concept that is relative, developmental and dynamic and influenced by contexts or scenarios (Rutter, 1990; Bernard, 2002; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000; Henderson & Milstein, 2003; Gu & Day, 2007; Day, Johansson & Møller, 2011). In this case, resilience develops over time and is influenced by situational and personal factors and determined by individuals’ capacities to manage context-specific factors (Day, Johansson & Møller, 2011; Sarkar and Fletcher, 2014; Rutter, 2006). Apart from the two understandings mentioned above, there is another approach to explore resilient leadership. It is considered as a kind of transformational capability to demonstrate how to use resources (Dartey-Baah, 2015; Teo, Lee & Lim, 2017). Specifically, the capability perspective believes that resilient leadership is the use of social capital and financial, structural or technological resources to achieve the institution's goal so that it can thrive even in the face of adversity. (Vera et al., 2020).
Although the need and importance of resilient leadership is known, only a limited number of empirical studies have involved school principals. Some studies believe that resilience is static and resilient leadership is related to personality traits (Lazaridou & Beka, 2015; Olmo-Extremera, Townsend & Segovia, 2022), while others argue that resilience is dynamic and resilient leaders are influenced by positive and negative circumstances and are able to manage these context-specific factors (Day, Johansson & Møller, 2011). However, there is little evidence on which relevant factors, the trait variables or the context-specific variables, are more justified in Chinese principals and how such variables relate to success in the principalship.
This paper aims to portrait three resilient principals to demonstrate the range of internal and external protective factors impacting on leaders’ work which, together contribute to exercise leadership that resilience plays in enabling them to thrive, flourish and sustain their effectiveness.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
The Principals Leadership Behaviour Project is an ongoing qualitative study involving 115 principals in two provinces in eastern China. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, a total of 103 principals were interviewed in 11 counties of Fujian Province, including 33 principals whom we visited and interviewed in their schools and 70 principals whom we interviewed in focus groups. The second phase, currently underway, has so far visited 5 schools and interviewed 12 school leaders in three counties in Zhejiang province. The interviews mainly focus on the professional work of principals, including challenges and solutions at work, the role and values of principals, school leadership, etc. During each interview, with the consent of the interviewee, recordings were made and automatically transcribed at the same time. An initial memo and summary were written immediately after each school visit or headteacher interview.
Drawing on data from the above-mentioned research project, this paper aims to explore how some school leaders are resilient to thrive in their daily work and profession. 1) Three characteristics of resilient leadership (inner motivation, academic optimism and courage to change) were summarized by reviewing the literature on resilient leadership. 2) The three characteristics are compared with the interview data in an attempt to identify resilient school leaders. Finally, three headteachers are identified, and the details can be found in Table 1.
Table 1 profile of three headteachers
Principals Gender Working years as a headteacher Teaching subject School location
A Male 30 Chinese county
B Female 18 English city
C Male 5 Art village
I then searched for them and their schools online and tried to find more information. I also arranged a second interview based on the following questions. 1) What difficulties or challenges are you facing or have faced and how do you deal with them? 2) What motivates you to make such a contribution? 3) What are your educational values and beliefs? Do you put those values and beliefs into practice? Constant comparative method was used to compare data from two interviews, memos and summaries and online news, and three storylines were emerged after coding and categorising. Finally, three stories were written with the subtitles of "Principal A-a retiring principal: turning days into decades with a vocational calling", "Principal B-a female principal: chasing for high standards of change with a global eye", "Principal C-a rising star: 'methods are always more than difficulties'".
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
Resilience plays a key role in helping principals become successful school leaders, and that trait factors contributes more to influencing resilience than contextual ones for three participants. Firstly, intrinsic motivation combined with resilient leadership underpins the steadfastness of them. The three participants consistently responded with one word, 'interesting', when asked about their work motivation as headteachers. In other words, to persevere over a long professional life requires considerable intellectual and emotional commitment (Palmer, 2017). Secondly, self-demand associated with resilient leadership generates the pursuit of excellence and success in school. The high self-demands are illustrated by three participants with different stories. As mentioned by Day (2014), leading at your best over time requires everyday resilience, which includes 'toughness', resolute persistence, hope and commitment. Thirdly, change is accompanied by resilient leadership that puts the headteacher's educational beliefs into practice. The principals made full use of local materials, resources and relationships to specialise their school, and they also combined their professional strengths to revitalise the school environment.
The study also found that contextual factors had a limited impact on the resilience of the participants. For example, Principal C, who works in a village primary school, expressed that he sees few difficulties as he believes that there are always solutions as long as one wants to make a difference. The findings differ from those of Gu and Day (2007), who focused on how balance is achieved in personal, situational and professional scenarios. They suggest that the more extreme the context, the more energy an individual needed to cope, and the more likely it was to test their resilience. However, based on the research, headteachers do not simply adapt to their work; instead, they thrive by actualising their beliefs through their positional power, regardless of the context, whether it presents an opportunity or adversity.
References
Beltman, S., Mansfield, C., & Price, A. (2011). Thriving not just surviving: A review of research on teacher resilience. Educational research review, 6(3), 185-207.
Benard, B. (2002). Applications of resilience: Possibilities and promise (pp. 269-277). Springer US.
Bennis, W. (2007). The challenges of leadership in the modern world: Introduction to the special issue. American psychologist, 62(1), 2.
Dartey-Baah, K. (2015). Resilient leadership: A transformational-transactional leadership mix. Journal of Global Responsibility, 6(1), 99-112.
Day, C. (2014). Resilient principals in challenging schools: The courage and costs of conviction. Teachers and Teaching, 20(5), 638-654.
Day, C., Johansson, O., & Møller, J. (2011). Sustaining improvements in student learning and achievement: The importance of resilience in leadership. How school principals sustain success over time: International perspectives, 167-181.
Förster, C., & Duchek, S. (2017). What makes leaders resilient? An exploratory interview study. German Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(4), 281-306.
Gu, Q., & Day, C. (2007). Teachers resilience: A necessary condition for effectiveness. Teaching and Teacher education, 23(8), 1302-1316.
Lazaridou, A. (2020). Personality and resilience characteristics of preschool principals: an iterative study. International Journal of Educational Management, 35(1), 29-46.
Luthar, S. S. (1991). Vulnerability and resilience: A study of high‐risk adolescents. Child development, 62(3), 600-616.
Masten, A. S. (2012). Resilience in individual development: Successful adaptation despite risk and adversity. In Educational resilience in inner-city America (pp. 3-25). Routledge.
Olmo-Extremera, M., Townsend, A., & Domingo Segovia, J. (2022). Resilient leadership in principals: case studies of challenged schools in Spain. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1-20.
Palmer, P. J. (2017). The courage to teach: Exploring the inner landscape of a teacher's life. John Wiley & Sons.
Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. American journal of orthopsychiatry, 57(3), 316-331.
Sarkar, M., & Fletcher, D. (2014). Ordinary magic, extraordinary performance: Psychological resilience and thriving in high achievers. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology, 3 (1), 46–60.
Teo, W. L., Lee, M., & Lim, W. S. (2017). The relational activation of resilience model: How leadership activates resilience in an organizational crisis. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 25(3), 136-147.
Vera, D., Samba, C., Kong, D. T., & Maldonado, T. (2020). Resilience as thriving: The role of positive leadership practices. Organizational dynamics.
Werner, E. E. (1996). Vulnerable but invincible: High risk children from birth to adulthood. European child & adolescent psychiatry, 5, 47-51.
Paper
Relational Vulnerability and Trust in School Leadership
Karlstad University, Sweden
Presenting Author:Trust is crucial in many areas and levels of society. School is a place for children and students’ learning that promotes personal development to become active, creative and responsible individuals and citizens. Trust between principals and teachers is important regarding collaboration, professional learning and the quality of teaching. Results from various international studies suggest that the interaction between the principal and teachers and the teachers' trust in the principal is closely connected to a school climate that is favorable to students' learning (Price, 2015; Tschannen-Moran & Gareis, 2015).
Trust is crucial for leadership. It is a part of caring for and loving of others, and the way a leader use experience, imagination and empathy that makes life of the other person as eliberating as possible (Løgstrup, 1994, 2007). To create trust is not only something for the other person, rather trust in a relationship makes it possible for both lives to flourish. This is also the case in a principal-teacher relation. To show trust is to completely open oneself up (Løgstrup, 1994) and contains a willingness to make yourself vulnerable for the other and to take a risk, believing, that the other will meet your needs (Blom, 2022; Hoy & Tschannen-Moran, 2000; Løgstrup, 1994).
Vulnerability has an important role in a trusting relation and to be open in contributing to the life of the other. This natural vulnerability and responsiveness to one another is an important part of leading in schools, for example in collaborations, professional learning and teaching. Relational vulnerability can be understood as the “intrinsic ability of humans to be open to their experiences, reflect upon their physical and mental states of existence, and navigate their lives” (Satama, Garcia-Lorenzo & Seeck, 2023, p. 4).
Vulnerability can be seen as both positive and negative, but is traditionally understood as being related to weakness, dependency, and powerlessness (Gilson, 2014). Positive vulnerability can be seen in the willingness to be honest and open to learning by accepting our not knowing everything and the possibility of being wrong (Mayer, La Fevre & Robinsson, 2017). As Gilson (2014) states “epistemic vulnerability is what makes learning, and thus a reduction of ignorance, possible” (p. 93).
Negative vulnerability can for example be the possibility of embarrassment, emotional pain or feelings of powerlessness, which can result in defensive or ineffective behavior (Lasky, 2005). This affects the trusting relationship between a principal and teacher and may cause negative consequences on students learning.
Leaders and those who hold positional power need to model the courage it takes to confront and discuss difficult issues, especially if these can evoke emotional reactions (Mayer, La Fevre & Robinsson, 2017). For principals this can be issues regarding the cooperation within the school, professional learning and school development. Thus, this includes that vulnerability is also about being sensitive and responsive towards the other.
The notion of vulnerability is important when thinking about how leaders can build more trusting relationships (Mayer et.al., 2017).
Previous research focuses on the broader concept of trust and this study aims at examining how school leaders and teachers think about relational vulnerability and how it manifests in their everyday school life.
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to examine how principals show vulnerability and responsiveness in their leadership in schools as a part of trust, with a particular focus on the principal-teacher relationship.
Research questions
How do principals describe their actions that involve vulnerability and responsiveness to other persons?
What are the possible reasons for principals’ willingness to be vulnerable to others?
How do teachers experience principals’ actions in regards to vulnerability and responsiveness?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
This study has a qualitative approach. Principals will be in-depth interviewed about how they show vulnerability and responsiveness in their everyday leadership. From an interpersonal perspective and to gain a greater understanding about principals’ leadership, teachers will also be interviewed. It is necessary to take into account both the actions of the leader and the receptivity of the other. Using qualitative analysis, focus is to explore the meaning in the participants descriptions (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2014). Løgstrup’s (1994) theory of the ethical demand and his view on trust will be used to achieve a deeper analysis.
Interviews will be conducted with 5-10 principals and 5-10 teachers. The study will focus on schools with students at the age of approximately 13-15 years old and in small to large schools with a number of 300 – 600 students.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
The research aims to contribute to a greater understanding of vulnerability and the concept of trust in principals’ everyday leadership and to further research. Results will be communicated through publications in peer-reviewed journals and presentations at research conferences.
While it is difficult to determine prior to data collection, expected outcomes from the interviews with principals and teachers will hopefully contribute to a deeper understanding of the concept of trust and vulnerability. This will perhaps further give an opportunity to explore what may enable and constrain vulnerability and trust in leadership and what attitude that lays behind the way principals lead.
References
Blom, T. (2022). Time for trust:Critical moments in principals´everyday work. Karlstad University Studies. https://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:1653929/FULLTEXT01.pdf
Gilson, E. C. 2014. Beyond Bounded Selves and Places: The Relational Making of Vulnerability and Security. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 49 (3): 229–242.
Hoy, W.K. & Tschannen-Moran, M. (2000). A multidisciplinary analysis of the nature, meaning, and measurement of trust. Review of Educational Research. 70(4) 547-593
Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2014). Den kvalitativa forskningsintervjun (3 uppl.).
Studentlitteratur.
Lasky, S. (2005). A sociocultural approach to understanding teacher identity, agency and professional vulnerability in a context of secondary school reform. Teaching and Teacher Education 21(8) 899-916, doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2005.06.003.
Løgstrup, K. E. (1994). Det etiska kravet. Daidalos. (Original 1956)
Løgstrup, K. E. (2007). Beyond the Ethical Demand. University of Notre Dame Press.
Meyer, F., Le Fevre, D.M. and Robinson, V.M.J. (2017). How leaders communicate their vulnerability: implications for trust building, International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 31 No. 2, pp. 221-235. https://doi-org.bibproxy.kau.se/10.1108/IJEM-11-2015-0150
Price, H. E. (2015). Principals’ social interactions with teachers. Journal of
Educational Administration, 53(1), 116-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/jea-
02-2014-0023
Satama, S., & Seeck, H., & Garcia-Lorenzo, L. (2023): Embracing relational vulnerabilities at the top: a study of managerial identity work amidst the insecurities of the self, Culture and Organization, DOI: 10.1080/14759551.2023.2291696
Tschannen-Moran, M., & Gareis, C. (2015). Faculty trust in the principal: an
essential ingredient in high-performing schools. Journal of Educational
Administration, 53(1), 66-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-02-2014-0024