Rationality and Emotion in primary school leadership; an exploration of key themes

This article discusses the symbiotic relationship between emotion and rationality in leadership in primary schools. It uses the literature of both emotion and leadership to ask whether school leadership has learnt some of the lessons from the recent interest in emotion and leadership. Drawing on recent research into the lives of primary school headteachers, it asks how far our knowledge of affective leadership has informed future research, and what it means for the practice of leadership in primary schools

Emotional coherence in educational leadership: the importance of the personal in interpreting and sustaining primary school headship

This thesis examines how primary headteachers experience, and talk about, emotion and meaning in their daily interactions, and sets out to understand further how the affective impacts on their leadership. It presents a reflective journey into the affective world of the primary headteacher, concentrating on the personal side of headship. It argues that primary headship is reliant on the personal emotional quality of the headteacher, and at the same time a quality of the social relationships in the school. By using an iterative process, the research argues that emotion and leadership are closely tied together, and this is of crucial importance in creating, modifying and sustaining both the headteacher and the emotional coherence of the whole school. The research draws on the headteachers’ own reflections on emotions as well as the influence of their life history, school context and emotional epiphanies. The affective is examined firstly by exploring the literature outside the educational leadership and management field that deals with emotion. This leads to an examination of the metaphor of emotional textures. Then, using qualitative methodology, this metaphor is used to discuss and draw upon on a small-scale study of primary headteachers to discuss the reality in the mind of the participants. Observation is then used as an analytical tool to develop understanding of the need for emotional coherence in primary school headship. The concept of a personal leadership narrative is developed to show not only that an individual’s complexity is not adequately served by competency approaches to emotion, but also that primary school headship is a complex synergy of emotion and leadership. Finally, the implications of the findings for adding to leadership theory and practice are discussed

Walking with teachers:A study to explore the importance of teacher wellbeing and their careers

Teacher turnover and retention is a global challenge. It appears that in times of teacher shortages, policymakers often focus on recruitment. Yet, it could be argued that focussing on retaining experienced teachers not only addresses teacher shortages but provides additional benefits to the teachers, their students, and the teaching profession. The aim of this interpretive case study was to investigate the views of experienced primary school teachers. Twelve teachers, who had taught in English primary schools for more than five years, participated in walking interviews. The research looked at the areas where teachers want to feel supported by the culture of the school, created by the leadership team

A scientific exploration of scenario planning, thinking, and cognitive biases

Scenario planning, as a recognised practice, is approaching the better part of a century. In this time it has experienced broad application across various industries and, as of late, growing popularity as an academic discipline. In stark contrast to its prolific use in the field and academia, is the lack in scholarly work that brings verifiable and robust knowledge regarding the efficacy of the practice. In order to understand the impact of scenario planning interventions, it is first necessary to understand scenario thinking. The importance of investigating scenario thinking lies in the notion that scenario planning has less to do with forecasting (i.e. aiming for facts) and more to do with futures-thinking (i.e. working with perceptions). The mental models, experiences, and abilities of scenario teams largely dictate the efficacy of a scenario planning intervention. At this time, however, scenario thinking remains a black box. The present investigation, first, provides a discussion on how to understand scenario thinking. A gestalt perspective is offered, where discrete cognitive features are defined, which comprise the structure of scenario thinking. The motivation to this discussion is understanding the level(s) of influence scenario thinking may succumb to, in the face of changes to external information. Next, three higher-order cognitions (creative, causal, and evaluative thinking) are explored, in depth, and tested against the Intuitive Logics model of scenario planning to help determine i) the robustness of scenario planning against ii) the influence of the cognitive experience. A multi-attribute approach is taken, borrowing methods from cognitive psychology, behavioural economics, and management science. A form of the traditional framing manipulation is used to measure for biases in scenario thinking. Results suggest that even the smallest change in information can lead to several biasing effects across the tested cognitive features of scenario thinking. Understanding the nature of influences on scenario thinking helps reveal the efficacy of scenario planning for management and organisations.Scenario planning, as a recognised practice, is approaching the better part of a century. In this time it has experienced broad application across various industries and, as of late, growing popularity as an academic discipline. In stark contrast to its prolific use in the field and academia, is the lack in scholarly work that brings verifiable and robust knowledge regarding the efficacy of the practice. In order to understand the impact of scenario planning interventions, it is first necessary to understand scenario thinking. The importance of investigating scenario thinking lies in the notion that scenario planning has less to do with forecasting (i.e. aiming for facts) and more to do with futures-thinking (i.e. working with perceptions). The mental models, experiences, and abilities of scenario teams largely dictate the efficacy of a scenario planning intervention. At this time, however, scenario thinking remains a black box. The present investigation, first, provides a discussion on how to understand scenario thinking. A gestalt perspective is offered, where discrete cognitive features are defined, which comprise the structure of scenario thinking. The motivation to this discussion is understanding the level(s) of influence scenario thinking may succumb to, in the face of changes to external information. Next, three higher-order cognitions (creative, causal, and evaluative thinking) are explored, in depth, and tested against the Intuitive Logics model of scenario planning to help determine i) the robustness of scenario planning against ii) the influence of the cognitive experience. A multi-attribute approach is taken, borrowing methods from cognitive psychology, behavioural economics, and management science. A form of the traditional framing manipulation is used to measure for biases in scenario thinking. Results suggest that even the smallest change in information can lead to several biasing effects across the tested cognitive features of scenario thinking. Understanding the nature of influences on scenario thinking helps reveal the efficacy of scenario planning for management and organisations

Meaningful Work

What is meaningful work? Meaningful work is defined as “work experienced as particularly significant and holding more positive meaning for individuals” (Rosso et al., 2010, p. 95). In general, meaningful work is considered to be work and work accomplishments that are viewed as valuable, worthwhile, and aligning with one’s values (Allan et al., 2018). Current theory suggests that meaningful work tends to result from self-actualization or from working towards a higher purpose (Lepisto & Pratt, 2016). More specifically, meaningful work may come from feeling a sense of unity with other people, serving others, from developing oneself, or from working towards realizing one’s full potential (Lips-Wiersma & Wright, 2012). Importantly, meaningful work is not a continuous psychological state. As individuals participate in their workplace, they accumulate many experiences that they may perceive as meaningful or meaningless. Over time, these experiences are integrated into a bigger picture by which individuals come to believe that their work has a larger meaning or does not (Allan et al., 2018). Specific tasks are not inherently meaningful or meaningless. Rather, individuals each form subjective judgments about the value and significance of their work, and some individuals will be more apt to seek out and ascribe meaning to their lives and work tasks than others (Bailey et al., 2019). Meaningful work is most often measured using the Work and Meaning Inventory, a 10-item scale that assesses three dimensions, including positive meaning in work (e.g., “I have discovered work that has a satisfying purpose”), meaning making through work (e.g., “My work helps me better understand myself”), and greater good motivations (e.g., “I know my work makes a positive difference in the world”; Steger et al., 2012). Scores across the three dimensions are aggregated to form a single meaningful work score. Why is meaningful work important? Meaningful work is important because it is associated with job attitudes, stress indicators, and behaviors. More specifically, meaningful work is strongly related to greater organizational commitment and job satisfaction and is moderately related to greater organizational citizenship behavior and job performance. Meaningful work is also moderately associated with having lower turnover intentions and exhibiting less stress, burnout, and counterproductive work behaviors (Allan et al., 2018; Hu & Hirsh, 2017). How can organizations help facilitate meaningful work? Although meaningful work is a subjective judgment, organizations can help lay the groundwork for employees to experience meaningfulness. One of the most commonly studied areas for enhancing meaningful work is through job design. Meta-analytic evidence indicates that job design factors like job autonomy, skill variety, task significance, and feedback from the job are strongly related to experiencing meaning at work, and factors like task identity, interdependence, and feedback from others show moderate relations (Humphrey et al., 2007). Many other factors have been studied as antecedents of meaningful work, although we currently lack meta-analytic evidence to indicate how stable the findings are across studies. A generally recommended starting point to ensure that employees have the capacity to find greater meaning in their work is to make sure that all basic work needs are met, including adequate pay, safe conditions, time for rest, and access to healthcare (Lysova et al., 2019). Allowing employees to job craft may also help lead to greater work meaningfulness, as they will be able to tailor the job to their unique personality and goals to establish better fit (Lysova et al., 2019). Social factors and culture could also play a role. General recommendations are that organizational culture should be supportive or innovative in order to stimulate personal initiative and feelings of belongingness among employees (Lysova et al., 2019). Additionally, positive interactions with coworkers and other individuals in the workplace may foster perceptions of meaningful work because these interactions allow for a sense of common purpose and provide opportunities to give to others within the workplace (Colbert et al., 2016; Lysova et al., 2019). Lastly, leaders can also help to facilitate meaningfulness by acknowledging employees’ contributions to the organization and tying daily taskwork back to the higher purpose of the organization (Lysova et al., 2019). QIC-WD Takeaways Meaningful work is a subjectively formed individual judgment about whether work is personally significant for the employee or serves a valuable higher purpose. Meaningful work is positively related to organizational commitment, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, and job performance. Meaningful work is associated with having lower turnover intentions and exhibiting less stress, burnout, and counterproductive work behaviors. The elements of job design are positively associated with meaning in the workplace. Researchers and practitioners seeking to measure meaningful work should consider using the Work and Meaning Inventory (Steger et al., 2012)