Chapter 14: Informal Mentoring: An Innovative Practice for Promoting Principal Wellbeing

Research regarding stress and burnout suggests that the pressures of life as a school leader are becoming more intense each year. No longer just managing buildings, finances, and people, the principal must be responsible for high stakes accountability, state and federal mandates, central office demands and, in the wake of COVID-19, extreme safety protocols (Stone-Johnson & Weiner, 2020). When the demands of the job exceed the principal’s strengths, they often become emotionally burned out and exhausted (Mahfouz & Gordon, 2021). With principal turnover at 18–20% per year before COVID-19 (Levin & Bradley, 2019), it is becoming alarmingly apparent that measures to stabilize the school leader ranks need to be explored and incorporated in school districts.