DIAGNÓSTICO

A range of personal characteristics were identified as having an impact on work/life balance. The following themes outline the issues identified:

• Resilience

• Personal organisation

• Energy

• Stress

5.5.1 Resilience

The term resilience was one commonly used during interviews. A number of school leaders indicated that they had had challenging experiences that they had overcome and learned from. This capacity to “bounce back” was often described as a capacity that needed to be acquired as a prerequisite for work/life balance. One school leader expressed it as “a skin” – something protective. The topic of positive relationships was a feature of many of the interviews, as was the desirability of having someone with whom to debrief, which two of the females referred to as opportunities to “cleanse” or “wipe things away”. This capacity to learn resilience was expressed thus:

At first I found things a bit problematic but with experience I find every crisis a learning experience.

In addition to evidence of resilience, the concept of thriving (Spreitzer, 2006) may more adequately describe the Balancers’ capacity for proactive coping than resilience, which suggests recovery from adversity.

5.5.2 Personal Organisation

Most emphasised the importance of being personally organised, especially in dual career households, and viewed the home as some refuge from the workplace. It was in this area of the study where differences associated with gender and care responsibilities featured. It was the mothers in the study who emphasised proactive/task-focused strategies to ensure home life was organised. Two mothers in the study noted:

I am well organised and plan ahead. I plan menus, share tasks with my husband. I am well planned at home, but not as well planned as at school. I am not the principal at home!” These processes for dealing with issues mean you are not playing catch up or surprised by events. I am organised at home and have support. My partner and I are both positive people. You have to work at it. It is a role which absorbs one.

With both of us in demanding jobs, I am well organised—our home is a well-oiled machine. We need to accommodate two careers and time tables of older children, things like part-time jobs, study and transport to sport and so on.

Conversely, the males with significant care responsibilities tended to emphasise time- allocation strategies. For example, the father of primary school children said:

I trim responsibilities to make sure there is time for work and family.

Another discussed “ratchetting back involvement” tomake time for family responsibilities, or “taking time off” to attend family functions.

Despite the mothers experiencing the ‘second shift’, as described by Hoschild (1989), carrying major responsibilities for domestic and care activities in conjunction with the leadership role, it is evident that this balancing of multiple roles was largely viewed in expansionist rather than depletion terms. They framed the balancing of multiple roles or second shift as a way of switching off from work, rather than a burden or a drain on energy. This suggests that the salience or importance attached to roles in each domain (work and family) (Greenhaus, 2006) may be a moderator of work/life conflict. Also evident were similar strategies to those which Medved (2004) observed: there are common skills and psychological resources used by these women in both domains—they are organised, proactive, delegators of tasks, responsibility sharers, and mentally positive at work and at home.

5.5.3 Energy

One prominent strategy successfully used by many of the school leaders was that of actively enhancing energy as a means of ensuring good work/life balance. Contributors to energy were study, the school children, attention to health and fitness, outside interests and extra-

departmental involvement. In addition to actively using these “energisers,” a positive outlook was a characteristic of most of the school leaders. The two strategies appear to be linked. According to Beatty (2004) denying emotions saps energy. These school leaders enjoy the work and see the importance of maintaining a positive attitude, as described in the following comments:

I have a positive mental framework—I am an optimist. The (school) children energise me.

The key things that support a positive balance are: attitude to the job, priorities, and ability to have a laugh.

What is also evident in the Balancers’ responses is the ability to regulate emotions, for example:

I make sure I have a good home life. I make myself happy. I have the right sort of personality. I am decisive, wind things up then do not worry.

I make myself happy.

There were also references to having learnt or acquired such qualities:

I enjoy a challenge, exercise control over work and life. I have learnt to do it

(separate work and non-work). I wasn’t always able to forget things and move on and to keep things in perspective.

I don’t try to over commit, although some extra departmental involvement actually energises me- I gain ideas from different people.

5.5.4 Stress

Work /life balance is often correlated very strongly with stress (Cooper, 2001, Grant, 2006), a fact which these school leaders appeared to appreciate. All the Balancers indicated that stress was not a problem they experienced personally. However, a number referred to taking proactive measures to prevent stress. EL recalled the catalyst to embarking on a comprehensive change strategy: I started to understand I was drowning.”

As well as providing examples of being proactive in relation to stress, these Balancers also displayed evidence of the efficacy of positive thinking and belief in their ability to control what happens to them; of not catasrophising things and exerting control over emotions. They paid attention to self-care as a moderator of stress.

Four school leaders (all the Strivers and one Acceptor) indicated that they had experienced stress of some significance as a consequence of pressure relating to the role. For the Strivers this was a wake-up call to attend to work/life balance, and a major catalyst to effect change at work and in non-work domains. It was a realisation that fuelled the resolve to achieve

work/life balance. The Striversindicated that they had some difficulty keeping a focus on the family domain, “ofnot being there mentally”, as one of them expressed it, as thoughts of work intruded while at home. Ezzedeen & Swiercz (2002) describe this as cognitive intrusion and found that the cognitive intrusion of work results in lower job satisfaction, less happiness, a greater incidence of work/life conflict, more frequent burnout, and was a factor which correlates with stress.

The Acceptor, who admitted that experience of stress and time to reflect while on leave, had motivated a resolve to attend to work/life balance (particularly managing long hours), found the resolve had dissipated and time spent at work had gradually crept up. The second Acceptor acknowledged a low level of stress, which was managed through attention to after work physical activity and a capacity to unwind.

5.5.5 Boundaries

Various commentators (Nippert-Eng, 1996, Clark, 2000, Singh, 2002, Ashforth, 2000, Hyman, 2004) place the issue of boundary work at the core of work/life balance. Managing work/life boundaries was a part of the off-the-job and on-the-job strategies. It was also evident in the personal characteristics and strategies. Separating work and personal life was part of self-care, recovery and ensuring time for a range of activities such as health and fitness. These strategies are evidenced by such representative statements as:

You need a skin— and the resolve to achieve work/life balance, time to wipe everything away and be yourself.

I make time for looking after myself. Put “me” time into my diary.

I have lots of interests outside of work, but there is one major involvement - it is a complete contrast and without it I would go mad.

Home is home, work is work.

This also speaks to the issue of mental boundaries (Clark, 2000) around work and personal lives and ways of recuperating from pressure at work.

5.5.6 Commentary: Personal Characteristics Strivers

Strivers shared a vision of the possibility of work/life balance. While optimistic about eventually achieving positive work/life balance, they currently experienced some feelings of strain and tiredness. However, they were implementing strategies to achieve work/life balance, particularly in terms of personal organisation and self-care. Attention to self-care strategies was, to some extent, a response to the experience of stress and negative publicity about principals’ health and well-being.

Acceptors

The Acceptors did not see work/life balance as an achievable goal in the role of school leader. They reported a level of stress but also a capacity to unwind, to enhance energy through interests, and to be personally organised. They made time for personal fitness and interests. They had a view that it was not possible to shed tasks, reduce workload and hours, and share leadership. Their acceptance of the inevitability of work/life imbalance and difficulty in making changes is markedly different from the agentic approach of the Balancers.