Perceived principal servant leadership and teacher stress
Year: 2018
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Stress is one of the major factors in teacher attrition, a continuing problem in education. Further contributing to teacher stress are state and federal accountability measures, which put added pressure on schools and teachers to increase student performance. School leaders must navigate not only how to keep pace with these accountability practices, but how to do so in a manner that does not increase the stress on their teachers. To seek answers in how this might be accomplished, this paper investigates the relationship between perceived principal servant leadership characteristics and occupational stress in teachers. Data was collected using the Wilson Stress Profile for teachers (Luh, Olejnik, Greenwood, & Parkay, 1991) and a servant leadership scale adapted from leadership research in the business literature (Ehrhart, 2004) from elementary teachers in schools in Virginia not meeting state accountability benchmarks. Findings demonstrate that having higher levels of perceived servant leadership was associated with lower levels of reported stress after controlling for several demographic and behavioral covariates. These results indicate that developing servant leadership characteristics in principals could be a means to alleviate some of the occupational stress teachers feel, particularly in schools that are struggling to meet accountability benchmarks.
Author: Donald Harris
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2979731642