Educational Research Association of Singapore (ERAS)
Abstract
Should the cabin lose pressure, oxygen masks will drop from the overhead area. Please place the mask over your own mouth and nose before assisting children or other adults' (A typical Pre-flight Safety message). Pondering these words gave me clarity as to the importance of Subjective Well-Being (SWB) for school leaders. These words parallel the concept of maintaining the self's own SWB before seeing to the needs of others, fitting the oxygen mask to yourself first to ensure functioning. The truth is that we can't help anyone else if we ourselves are having difficulty functioning. Many of us have somewhere been tutored to think that it is self-centred to firstly take care of ourselves or our needs. This assumption needs to be challenged. Is it not probable that if we do ensure that our SWB is maintained then we will then come from a position of strength to help those around us thereby increasing our capacity for leadership? The article proposes that the maintenance of school principals' SWB contributes to their leadership capacity. This qualitative case study, utilised An Interactive Model of Design (Maxwell, 2009). Eleven school principals participated in the study which had two phases of data gathering. The first phase consisted of 11 interviews each of 60 to 90 minutes duration. This paper reports findings in relation to the first phase of data gathering. Ten key enablers were identified by participants as contributing to the maintenance of their SWB. Participants also asserted that the maintenance of their SWB contributed to their increased leadership capacity. Principals' effectiveness is influenced by their Subjective Well-Being so enhancing enablers to Subjective Well-Being is a worthy cause
