For principals, not all stress is equal

Student discipline, staffing problems, frustrated parents — school principals spend their days moving from one problem to the next.

And the stress of running a school doesn’t necessarily end when they leave campus.

Work gets taken home. There isn’t enough time to get everything done. Problems from the day can keep running through a principal’s head long after they’ve left the building.

Dr. Eleanor Su-Keene calls it “work spillage.”

“Whether it’s too much work, work they take home, or thoughts that keep repeating in their head, making it difficult for them to sleep, that kind of stress is what affects their mental health and well-being,” said Su-Keene, an assistant professor in Texas A&M University’s Department of Teaching, Learning and Culture. 

New research led by Su-Keene suggests where principals’ stress comes from may matter more than simply how many pressures they face. The findings are published in Educational Management Administration & Leadership.

Among 119 Texas principals at public, noncharter K-12 schools, researchers found different patterns depending on where stress originated. The most commonly reported stressors came from their immediate school environment, where principals can be responsible for everything from supporting teachers to making sure the building itself is functioning. Yet those everyday challenges were not significantly associated with work stress, anxiety or depression symptoms.

Instead, broader pressures such as district demands, funding constraints and accountability requirements stood out as the strongest predictor of work stress. And when demands of the job spilled into principals’ personal lives, whether by competing with responsibilities at home or creating emotional strain, they were associated with higher anxiety and depression symptoms.

Looking deeper into sources of stress

For their analysis, Su-Keene and her co-authors asked principals to identify their major sources of job-related stress and complete established measures of work stress, anxiety and depression symptoms. Next, the researchers identified 10 types of stressors and organized them based on where they originated in and around a principal’s work. 

Some were close to the day-to-day job: student behavior, teacher effectiveness, staff morale and parent complaints. Others came from further outside the school, reflecting pressures they had less control over — including decisions made at the district level and broader political pressures surrounding public education.

About 61% of principals cited school- and teacher-related problems, making them the most commonly reported sources of stress. Nearly 30% mentioned problems involving parents. But neither type of stressor was significantly associated with higher work stress, anxiety or depression symptoms.

Su-Keene said one possible explanation is that principals expect that these issues are just part of the job.

“You expect to experience these types of crises at the school level,” she said. “That’s kind of what you sign up for as a principal.”

The pressures coming from outside the immediate school environment told a different story. District demands, funding constraints, systemic education issues, accountability pressures and other policy-level conditions were collectively the strongest predictor of work stress.

When work crosses into personal life

A different pattern emerged for anxiety and depression symptoms.

The researchers identified another group of stressors at the boundary between work and personal life — including emotional demands, competing pressures at work and home and simply not having enough time to complete daily tasks.

Su-Keene described this as an “overlapping space” between the two — like taking work home to finish before dinner, working on weekends or continuing to think about problems from the day after leaving school.

In statistical models, these work-personal pressures predicted higher anxiety and depression symptoms, while the total number of stressors a principal reported did not.

The findings come amid broader concerns about school leaders’ well-being.

On average, principals in the study scored in the high range for work stress, the moderate range for anxiety, and the mild-to-moderate range for depression symptoms. About 54% scored at or above a threshold associated with moderate anxiety symptoms, while about 44% did so for depression symptoms.

Su-Keene, whose broader research focuses on the health and well-being of educators, said those numbers are particularly concerning because principals don’t work in isolation. Their leadership can affect the teachers and students who rely on them.

Making school leadership more sustainable

For Su-Keene, the findings point to a need for support at multiple levels.

She said universities that prepare future school leaders can do more to equip them for the emotional demands of the job, including managing stress and resolving conflict. Districts can help by making mental health resources accessible — and giving principals the time to use them.

But she also sees a need to look further upstream at how the job itself is structured, including the responsibilities placed on principals and how much time they have to carry them out.

“What are truly principals’ job responsibilities and how much time do they actually have dedicated to that work, and not these other phantom tasks?” she said.

Su-Keene said principals are often an overlooked part of conversations about educator well-being, even as schools depend on their leadership. That makes the mental health of principals more than an individual concern.

“We need to think about organizational and systemic changes needed for principals to do their best job,” Su-Keene said. “If you think about it, when we’re not well, we often don’t work well, especially if your work requires a lot of social interactions. For principals, that can impact these important relationships with teachers and staff. And if the adults in the school are not well, then those students may not get the best educational experience.”