Within the context of an ethnographic study of leadership in the learning and skills sector, this article focuses on the role of leadership in making staff feel valued (Iszatt-White & Mackenzie-Davey, 2003) and the 'emotional labour' (Hochschild, 1983) through which leaders' valuing practices are accomplished. By shadowing college leaders, observation was made of the day-to-day practices through which they sought to give staff a feeling of being valued. The article provides evidence of such 'valuing practices' before going on to explicate the notion of emotional labour - previously researched largely in the services sector - in the professional context of educational leadership. In doing so, it differentiates professional emotional labour from 'emotional intelligence' (Goleman, 1995), a more common theme within the management literature. It also explores the role of social identity and value congruence in moderating the 'emotional dissonance' (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) which can result from a requirement for prolonged emotion work. © 2009 SAGE Publications.
CITATION STYLE
Iszatt-White, M. (2009). Leadership as emotional labour: The effortful accomplishment of valuing practices. Leadership, 5(4), 447–467. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715009343032
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