Abstract
Alternative school principals face a more concentrated population of high-needs students, which may impact principals’ daily emotional experiences. Understanding the events that activate an emotional response and how alternative principals respond to the emotion may inform how school administrators are supported and trained. The purpose of this study is to understand alternative school principals’ perspectives of their emotional process as leaders through emotionally activating events and subsequent actions. Through a multiple case study design, five participants from alternative schools in a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States shared their perspectives via semi-structured interviews over Zoom. The conceptual framework of this study incorporated authentic leadership as a lens for the emotional experience of practicing alternative school principals. The emotional experience included the activating event, the unconscious space, and the action principals took after experiencing an emotional response. A qualitative multiple-case study design, cross-case synthesis, and In Vivo coding guided the coding process. Findings relevant to this study are as follows: (1) principals demonstrated patterns of authentic leadership as inherent to their roles, (2) the events alternative school principals shared were mainly relationship-oriented, and (3) recognizing their own emotions helped leaders appropriately respond to emotionally activating events.