The Effects of Shame in School Leadership: The Case of Turkish Principals

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