scholarly journals What Is the Role of Emotions in Educational Leaders’ Decision Making? Proposing an Organizing Framework

2020 ◽  
pp. 0013161X2093885
Author(s):  
Yinying Wang

Purpose: Emotions have a pervasive, predictable, sometimes deleterious but other times instrumental effect on decision making. Yet the influence of emotions on educational leaders’ decision making has been largely underexplored. To optimize educational leaders’ decision making, this article builds on the prevailing data-driven decision-making approach, and proposes an organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making by drawing on converging empirical evidence from multiple disciplines (e.g., administrative science, psychology, behavioral economics, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroeconomics) intersecting emotions, decision making, and organizational behavior. Proposed Framework: The proposed organizing framework of educational leaders’ emotions in decision making includes four core propositions: (1) decisions are the outcomes of the interactions between emotions and cognition; (2) at the moment of decision making, emotions have a pervasive, predictable impact on decision making; (3) before making decisions, leaders’ individual differences (e.g., trait affect and power) and organizational contexts (e.g., organizational justice and emotional contagion) have a bearing on leaders’ emotions and decision making; and (4) postdecision behavioral responses trigger more emotions (e.g., regret, guilt, and shame) which, in turn, influence the next cycle of decision-making process. Implications: The proposed framework calls for not only an intensified scholarly inquiry into educational leaders’ emotions and decision making but also an adequate training on emotions in school leadership preparation programs and professional development.

Author(s):  
Julie Anne Gray

This conceptual article proposes a research-based model for leadership preparation programs to more effectively prepare, support, and sustain new school leaders in the field and profession. This study offers a new construct, which combines the concepts of early field experiences, experiential learning, leadership-focused coaching, and mentoring support, with university faculty and school district leaders and mentors working collaboratively to support novice leaders. University faculty would provide leadership-focused coaching while prospective leaders are completing coursework and later once they are placed in school leadership positions. Further, school districts would provide mentoring support by experienced instructional leaders.


2001 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond A. Horn

The problem of the efficacy of educational leadership as a promoter of just and caring change in schools and communities is explored in the context of educational leadership preparation practices. An exploration of this problem is based on the premise that despite the use of innovative instructional methods, in most cases current preparation programs merely reproduce the use of modernistic administrative practices and organizational structures. Here, the cohort model is identified as a means to promote just, caring, and relevant educational leadership. After a review of the benefits, drawbacks, and the nature of the use of cohorts in leadership preparation programs, a cohort structure is examined that will prepare educational leaders who are able to promote just and caring change in our postmodern communities.


2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 374-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle D. Young ◽  
Julie Laible

This article emerges from a belief that an overwhelming majority of White school leaders do not have a thorough enough understanding of White racism or the ways in which they are perpetuating White racism in their schools, even though most are well-meaning individuals. The lack of understanding or awareness of different forms of racism and how White racism works is highly problematic. Indeed, it has appalling consequences, detrimentally impacting the lives and dreams of millions of children. In this article, we draw from both literature and experience to argue for the incorporation of antiracism in school leadership programs. We begin with the assertion that because Educational Administration programs function as important agents of socialization for our future school leaders, White racism in all its manifestations must be confronted in these programs. After building the case that racism is enacted by teachers and administrators in schools and demonstrating the harmful effects of White racism on both children and adults, we argue that racism is not being adequately addressed in educational administration programs. Subsequently, we offer guidance to our readers for promoting antiracism among future educational leaders.


2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 693-720 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Cryss Brunner

This article focuses on power, its conception, and its enactment during decision making. Its purpose is to lay the groundwork for the intentional infusion into educational leadership preparation programs of classroom experiences that develop, encourage, and support leaders who attend to social justice issues while making decisions related to children. The article begins with a discussion of two modern conceptions of power and a mixed version of the two, followed by an exploration of the relationship between conceptions of power and the enactment of power in decision making. The second part of the article is in the form of a case that has been designed to draw attention to some of the difficulties administrators encounter when they try to understand and use power with others rather than over others. The case study is based on actual events that have occurred in public school settings. The final part of the article contains a self-reflective experience designed to facilitate the exploration of an individual's conceptualization of the term power.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Van T. Lac ◽  
Katherine Cumings Mansfield

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the value of educational leaders intentionally including students in shaping the policies and practices that affect young people’s schooling experiences. First, we share the literature on student voice and introduce Principal Orientations for Critical Youth Educational Leadership as a conceptual model, advocating ways leaders can engage young people in school governance. Second, we share an empirical example from our research that holds promise to build caring, equitable, and responsive classrooms and schools by centering students’ voices. Finally, we consider what our findings mean for educational leadership preparation programs.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eve A. Isham

Past studies have employed the subjective experience of decision time (Libet’s W) as an index of consciousness, marking the moment at which the agent first becomes aware of a decision. In the current study, we examined whether the temporal experience of W affects subsequent experience related to the action. Specifically, we tested whether W influenced the perception of difficulty in a decision-making task, hypothesizing that temporal awareness of W might influence the sense of difficulty. Consistent with our predictions, when W was perceived as early or late, participants subsequently rated the decision difficulty to be easy or difficult, respectively (Exp.1). Further investigation showed that perceived difficulty, however, did not influence W (Exp.2). Together, our findings suggest a unidirectional relationship such that W plays a role in the metacognition of difficulty evaluation. The results imply that subjective temporal experience of decision time modifies the consequential sense of difficulty.HighlightsPerceived timing of decision (W) can bias the metacognition of difficulty evaluation in a decision-making task.Defined as a temporal index of consciousness, time W’s influence on difficulty evaluation reflects the possibility that the role of consciousness is to modify subsequent thoughts and behaviors.Explicit attention is necessary for the timing of decision (W) to be consciously experienced and effectively influential on subsequent thoughts.


2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Eric Tubbs ◽  
H. E. Holliday

The findings of this study identified practicum areas that meet the educational demands of candidates while highlighting practicum areas that need improvement. The study contributes to the knowledge base of the field by drawing upon feedback from university supervisors, school mentors and program candidates to evaluate and improve the practicum experience in the educational leadership program. Program candidates are in the best position to discuss their recent experiences of exposure to the real world. Supervisors and mentors can witness from their first hand experience how effective practicum activities work. Responses from supervisors, mentors and candidates regarding leadership practicum experiences are valuable to program developers in their future program redesign effort. Practicum experiences expose candidates to real-world school leadership experiences. Unfortunately, because of all kinds of conditional limitations, such practicum experiences can only be offered in conjunction with candidates' regular work in school. However, leadership practicum experiences can be well planned with a high collaboration of supervisors, mentors and candidates who have an invested interest in school improvement. In this study, what we learn from the differences of perceptions among supervisors, mentors and candidates is a caution to all stakeholders that we need to do a better job to prepare the next generation of school leaders. Supervisors, mentors and candidates need to form a coalition to explore other options, especially out-of-the-box strategies, to deliver a highly effective practicum program for potential educational leaders. 


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 30-52
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Mendoza-Collazos ◽  
Göran Sonesson

Many contemporary scholars have recently defended the idea that the agency of things is symmetrical and equivalent to human agency. We propose an alternative approach to artefacts’ agency based on a field study concerned with contextually situated observations of the process of design of artefacts in Amazonia. By means of participant observation and interviews, we address the role of artefacts in relation to human agency. In so doing, we focus on the human-unique capacity for design as it is related to cognitive resources such as intentionality, decision-making, planning, and volitional adaptations of the material world to human purposes. We argue that such cognitive resources are ultimate manifestations of human agency. The findings allow us to conclude that artefacts possess a special form of agency, which operates in different ways from the agency of true agents. This agency is derived: it depends on the actions of true agents, with either function as remote intentions or are required for the artefact to work at the moment of use. Thus, the relation between artefacts and agents is asymmetrical. Given that the derived agency of artefacts allows people to expand their own agency, we propose the notion of enhanced agency for the prosthetic incorporation of artefacts into the agentive capabilities of human agents.


Author(s):  
Aleksej Valentinovich Dovgan’

The features and the role of deterministic social sense in the context of the archetypical approach are considered in the article; the specifics of the existence of the above-mentioned phenomenon in relation to public administration are presented. The nature, principles of the functioning of archetypes as a direct, pragmatic decision-making factor of the personality are represented. It is argued that archetypes are significantly different from those historically established or transformed by human characters, whose senses are not mentally inherited, but transmitted from generation to generation. The emphasis is placed on the relevance of the archetypal approach for research in the management sector in general and deterministic social sense — in particular. The author emphasizes that the archetype is a direct pragmatic factor in personal decision-making, acting as a created internal complication that ensures the course of certain socially deter mined processes in the human brain. Attention is focused on the continuity of the concepts of “sense” and “culture”: from the moment of alienation of a person from the surrounding natural world, all thoughts, created things, found and used means and methods of actions are given meanings. Thus, the decision, that is, the choice, appears to be the natural basis for an individual’s being in ontological reality, acting as a necessary precondition for structuring his administrative, legal and so on needs in modern society. Further investigation of the archetypal approach to the study of the phenomenon of deterministic social sense is seen in the study of the features of citizens’ reflection on the images and symbols created by the government in order to achieve some behavioral manifestations in the latter, allowing more deeply and clearly understand the needs of the people, and also to update the relevant role of public administration in his life. At the same time, from the standpoint of social, psychological, culturological pragmatics etc., the archetype is the primary form of sense stratified according to the types described by Jung. This differentiation of this phenomenon is natural, due to its universalism, which allows us to speak about the degree of social adaptability of the latter.


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