Chapter 15: Professional Burnout and Job Demands Among High School Principals: A Mixed Methods Study

Spanning the past 2 decades, U.S. school principals have reported increased levels of exhaustion, resulting in stress, burnout, and declining physical and mental health (Brock & Grady, 2002; Institute for Educational Leadership [IEL], 2000). Although stress and burnout are related, burnout occurs in response to prolonged stress experienced in one’s daily work (Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004), and stress has been one of the most common predictors to administrator burnout (Gmelch & Gates, 1998; Torelli & Gmelch, 1992). Generally, burnout refers to an extreme form of job stress (Cherniss, 1988); however, Greer and Greer (1992) explained burnout not as a form of stress but rather as the “chronic inability to cope with stress” (p. 169). Nevertheless, burnout is a progressive condition resulting in apathy, chronic fatigue, helplessness, and anxiety (Cherniss, 1988; Dedrick & Raschke, 1990; Maslach, 1982; Wisniewski & Gargiulo, 1997). As such, employees experiencing burnout typically have lower levels of job performance, lower levels of commitment, and are more likely to leave their positions (Lee & Ashforth, 1996; Wright & Cropanzano, 1998).