Term 4 is always a fast and furious term in Australian schools. As we reach its midpoint, teachers are marking, assessing and reporting, supporting students through examinations, and celebrating milestones and transitions. School services staff are organising, preparing and responding. School leaders are simultaneously navigating the complexities of the present, finalising this year and planning for the next.
I have been thinking about the emotional and ethical dimensions of this work. There are moments in school leadership when what we feel and what we express are quite different. We might feel frustrated, disappointed, saddened or deeply concerned, while needing to remain calm, attentive, measured and compassionate. We might empathise with one person’s perspective while holding responsibilities to others whose circumstances we cannot disclose. We might need to uphold a decision, maintain a boundary or follow a process, knowing that doing so will cause disappointment.
This is part of the relational and ethical work of educational leadership, often undertaken under conditions of high visibility, competing expectations and limited time.
Care and professional judgement
A recent article by Carolyn Wade and Natalie Thackwell (2026), From call-out to complaint: The care work of school leaders in asymmetrical educational relations, resonates with my experience. Drawing on interviews with 14 Australian primary school leaders, the researchers explore how emotional and ethical labour is shaped by parent engagement, digital communication, complaint processes and public scrutiny.
Building on Hochschild’s (1983) conceptualisation of emotional labour and subsequent educational leadership scholarship, Wade and Thackwell examine how expectations of calm, fairness and responsiveness become institutionalised measures of professionalism. These expectations are appropriate, but the emotional experience of leading is often more complex than what can be expressed.
One of the themes they identify is fairness-as-care. Care does not always mean agreement, accommodation or giving everyone what they want. It can require making difficult decisions, maintaining professional boundaries, and balancing the needs of individuals with those of the wider community. Ethical judgement involves considering multiple perspectives, obligations and consequences, sometimes without a clear or entirely satisfactory resolution.
Parents understandably advocate for their children and expect their concerns to be heard and addressed. These concerns can reveal matters schools need to address, or opportunities to do better. School leaders, meanwhile, must consider the needs of individual students alongside those of other students, staff, families and the school community. They must also navigate policy, regulatory obligations, procedural fairness and confidentiality. Sometimes the responsibility to protect one person’s privacy means being unable to explain the full circumstances of a decision to another.
Wade and Thackwell describe asymmetrical educational relations, in which parents may share their experiences and concerns publicly, while school leaders are constrained in what they can disclose or explain. This does not diminish the importance of parent voice or school accountability, but adds complexity to the relational and ethical work of leading.
Another finding that struck me was Wade and Thackwell’s concept of care-by-paper: the increasing documentation of conversations, decisions and processes to demonstrate that appropriate care, fairness and procedural diligence have occurred.
I have written previously about the cognitive load of school communication, including the work involved for both sender and receiver. Responding to a concern requires more than composing an email. It can involve establishing facts, considering different perspectives, exercising professional judgement, protecting confidentiality, and carefully constructing a response that may subsequently be scrutinised or shared beyond its intended audience.
Documentation and accountability are important. Yet the work of evidencing care can consume time and attention that might otherwise be spent enacting it.
The emotional work of composure
Working through complex matters with students, staff and families involves considerable emotional self-regulation and co-regulation. School leaders need to listen when challenged, resist defensive or impulsive responses, and remain composed during difficult conversations. Our capacity to self-regulate can also help others to regulate their emotions, creating the conditions for constructive dialogue, trust and considered decision making.
I care deeply about the people in my school community, and the situations that affect them can affect me personally. Yet in my role as a principal, it is not always appropriate to share how I am feeling or how a situation is affecting me. The person I am speaking with needs me to be present for them, to listen and respond with care and professional judgement. They should not have to manage my emotions, reassure me, or feel responsible for how I am experiencing a situation.
This does not make the care any less genuine. Rather, the deliberate regulation of emotion is part of the professional and ethical responsibility of leadership. There can, however, be a loneliness to this work. We might carry concerns, feelings or knowledge that cannot be shared with those around us, while continuing to be available to others.
This emotional labour is not confined to principalship. I see it in middle and senior leaders who navigate complex relationships, competing responsibilities, sensitive matters and difficult conversations. With experience, we can become more seasoned in how we respond, developing our professional judgement, emotional regulation and repertoire of approaches to challenging situations. Yet becoming more practised at this work does not mean becoming less affected by it.
A difficult conversation may end, but the emotions associated with it do not disappear as the next meeting, lesson or school event begins. The ongoing work of regulating ourselves, supporting others and navigating ethical responsibilities requires considerable emotional energy.
Sustaining the capacity to care
Wade and Thackwell remind us that emotional labour is not simply an individual matter of resilience or capability. It is shaped by organisational cultures, institutional expectations, accountability processes and the conditions in which leaders work. They describe the practice of boundary-keeping as important, in which school leaders work to protect the time, attention and emotional capacity required to continue leading with care.
For schools, this means maintaining clear and accessible processes for raising concerns, while allowing time for listening, establishing facts, and making considered decisions. It means recognising that a thoughtful response may not be an immediate one, and that care is not necessarily measured by whether everyone agrees with a decision. Professional boundaries, trusted relationships, shared responsibility and opportunities for reflective supervision can help sustain leaders in the work.
There is deep meaning and purpose in the relational work of school leadership. Caring for people, supporting their growth, and navigating the complexities of school communities, are among the reasons I do this work. The emotional demands of leadership are not separate from its purpose, but professional composure does not come without personal cost.
If we want caring, ethical and sustainable school leadership, we need to attend not only to how leaders demonstrate care for others, but also to the conditions that enable them to continue doing this work well.
References
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press.
Wade, C., & Thackwell, N. (2026). From call-out to complaint: The care work of school leaders in asymmetrical educational relations. International Journal of Leadership in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2026.2722641
