LEADREAD 3: Invisible labour: Principals’ emotional labour in volatile times

“This has been such a helpful process. In more than 20 years in education, it’s been the best PD I have had. Because in all that time, I’ve never been given such candid, actionable feedback.”

HCA Candidate

---

Introduction

Monash’s four-year Invisible Labour project surfaces the centrality of principals’ emotional labour, managing their own and others’ emotions to build safe, socially connected school communities, and translates this insight into practical levers for preparation, induction and sustained professional learning amid a recruitment-retention crisis. The project synthesises 298 critical incidents from 256 public-school principals, showing emotional labour is central, escalating, and insufficiently recognised, impacting health, safety and retention. In 2024, in 2024, 55% reported threats or physical violence (up 78% since 2011). The report calls for system-level recognition of principals as emotional leaders, with role design and resourcing to match, backed by explicit training in relational, trauma- and culture-informed practice, structured coaching and clinical supervision, peer networks, and workload/compliance reform, so leaders can sustain their wellbeing while stewarding thriving, inclusive school communities.

Key Insights

1. Professional masking: leaders routinely “surface” and “act deep” to stabilise communities. This can come at a personal cost (exhaustion, and burnout).
   
2. Place matters: the emotional and cultural load varies depending on the location. There is an intensified emotional load associated with rural/remote, Indigenous and low-SES contexts.
   
3. Bodies at work: sleeplessness, illness and first-responder roles are now commonplace.
   
4. Systemic drivers: post-pandemic “new normal” combines record burnout, rising student need and heavy compliance.
   
5. Reform framing: Solutions must be collective, recommendations must span macro, meso and micro. Individual “resilience” is not enough.

Application

This research matters for school leaders, boards and the wider industry because it is indicative of a need to:

• Re-scope the role: Boards and systems should recognise Principals and the broader Executive team as first responders and embed proactive check-ins and clinical supervision.
  Example: embed post-incident debriefs and protected recovery time.
  
• Appoint for context: diversify pipelines and match leaders to each school’s unique context.
  Example: review, contextualise, and broaden key selection criteria, identify lateral opportunities & promote leader agency.
  
• Tailor support by context: fund brokerage roles and community partnerships.
  Example: create and resource fit for purpose roles such as community liaison, strategic partnerships.  
  
• Reduce load to lead learning: streamline compliance during crises and prioritise resourcing frontline services.
  Example: carefully tailor and craft critical-incident procedures co-designed with leaders and staff.
  

Conclusion

Emotional labour is vital, visible in crises, but too often either unsupported or not adequately valued. Sustaining Principals’ and leaders’ emotional labour is a system responsibility. Fully resourcing policy that is equity-minded, and codifying wellbeing/accountability are essential to sustain performance and lift outcomes over the longer term. HCA stands with leaders and Boards to turn evidence into practice, so school communities thrive.

---

“The opportunity to engage in this process, to reflect on everything we do as educational leaders, to really drill into what makes us tick, why we are here …. has called for vulnerability and risk and well, that has been priceless in terms of growth and improvement.
So I’d certainly encourage others to take that same leap.”
HCA Candidate

Citation: Wilkinson et al. (2025), Invisible Labour: Principals’ Emotional Labour in Volatile Times—Report Two, Monash University.