The Role of Authentic School Leaders in Promoting Teachers' Well-Being - Perceptions of Israeli Teachers

Oct 15, 2026

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Explores how Israeli teachers perceive principals’ roles in promoting teachers’ well-being amid stressful working conditions and low professional self-image. Grounded in a qualitative, personal interpretive approach, the study analyzes reflections from 53 teachers using a four-stage process of condensing, coding, categorizing, and theorizing. It applies planned behavior theory and links findings to emotional intelligence and leadership competence, highlighting relationship management, a positive emotional climate, and genuine concern as key mechanisms. Results support EI-focused educational leadership to improve functioning at work and strengthen the school system.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Background on teacher stress and well-being

Authentic leadership and planned behavior theory

Purpose and research question

The Role of Authentic School Leaders in Promoting Teachers' Well-Being: Perceptions of Israeli Teachers By Yaffa Buskila+ & Tamar Chen-Levi * This study aims to explore teachers’ perceptions of the role played by school principals in promoting teachers' well-being. The teachers in Israel have a low professional self-image and work under stressful conditions. Psychological wellbeing combines a good feeling with effective functioning and promoting wellbeing can enhance efficacy at work. This is a qualitative study, with a personal interpretive paradigm of teachers' reflections. Data was collected from 53 teachers and analyzed in a four-stage process: condensing, coding, categorizing, and theorizing. The study was based on the planned theory (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), and the data was encoded and categorized according to the Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee (2004) emotional intelligence (EI), leadership competence which founds to enhance well-being and effectiveness at work. Findings indicate that school principals can play an important role in promoting teachers’ wellbeing by displaying relationship management, which generates the highest level of EI: Creating a positive emotional climate, keeping relationships on the right track, and demonstrating genuine concern for teachers. Understanding the importance of EI and mastering it by educational leaders is important for promoting well-being. It is significant for the positive functioning of the teachers and school system. This study contributes to the epistemology of promoting teachers' well-being and developing EI by educational leader. Keywords: School principals, teachers’ well-being, emotional intelligence Introduction The teaching profession is considered to be highly stressful in many places in the world (Jepson & Forrest, 2006) and in Israel as well. There are many reasons for this stress but one of the prominent ones is the neoliberal ideology that advocated for competition, accountability, equality and more (Carnoy, 1995). Stress is a negative phenomenon that develops under conditions of uncontrollable, prolonged and increased pressure. It is defined as a psychological and emotional reaction to imbalance between requirements and the ability to fulfill them (Hakanen, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2006). It has side effects in terms of health, adverse results at work, and the reduction of job satisfaction (Bellingrath, Weigl,&Kudielka, 2008) . In Israel, the stressful conditions affect the whole education system and cause teachers and school principals to leave the profession (Oplatka, 2017), further exacerbating the situations. There is a shortage of 3,000 teachers in the Israeli education system due to stress and burnout (Datal, 2019) . This scarcity of teachers is not only an Israeli problem; it exists in many other places as well +Lecturer, Orot Israel College of Education, Rehovot, Israel. * Lecturer, Department of Education, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. [https://doi.org/10.30958/aje.8-2-3](https://doi.org/10.30958/aje.8-2-3) doi=10.30958/aje.8-2-3 such as England, Switzerland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, USA and Germany (Shnider Levi, 2016), and even in East Asia (Bas, 2011) . Stress has a negative effect on the well-being of individuals and on the organization as a whole (O'Driscoll & Cooper, 1996). The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined positive mental health as “a state of Well-being which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make contributions to his or her community”(WHO, 2001). Ajzen & Fishbein (1980) developed a planned behavior theory that reveals strong connections between perceptions, attitude and behavior. Recent studies have proven the significance of value-based leadership, through the concept of authentic leadership. Authentic leaders are among the prominent kinds of school leaders that is considering attitude and

FAQs

What is the main purpose of the study?

To understand teachers’ perceptions of the role school principals play in promoting teachers’ well-being and how this is carried out in practice.

How was the research conducted?

A qualitative study collected data from 53 teachers and analyzed it through condensing, coding, categorizing, and theorizing.

Which leadership mechanism is most linked to promoting teachers’ well-being?

Relationship management, described as creating a positive emotional climate, keeping relationships on track, and showing genuine concern for teachers.

Oct 15, 2026

Upload by Marglet