School principals face very busy and highly unpredictable work days with many individuals and groups competing for their time. Roberson and Matthews write that many principals are overworked, constantly under fire, and unappreciated [1]. Fallon states that confrontation, conflict, and compromise are constants which principals face on a daily basis [2]. Gmelch asserts that principals are becoming increasingly faced with more pressure, more aggression, more change, and more conflict than ever before [3]. In Canada, recent newspaper reports indicate that many school administrators are "overburdened", have "tough demanding jobs that are getting tougher all the time"[4] and are "severely stressed" [5]. Further, several Canadian school districts have reported that a substantial number of school administrators have had to take medical leave due to stress-related illnesses. In one large urban school district it was reported that four school principals had suffered heart attacks and that three of the men had died [6].Stress has been identified as a serious disabling phenomenon that adversely affects the health and the lifestyle of individuals [7][8][9][10][11], and in some cases, as reported above, to death. Hence, school administrator "wellness" and "coping" programmes are being developed by school districts and principals' associations to address the problem of administrative stress. Since stress cannot be avoided, identification of effective coping strategies may provide school principals with the tools which can be used to reduce the amount of stress from the environment and to moderate the effect of stress on the individual.

643 public school principals in British Columbia, Canada responded to a survey on administrative stress. The findings show that stress is a serious concern for these administrators. In contrast to other studies of administrative stress, "administering the negotiated contract" was a source of stress uniquely important to school principals in British Columbia. A multivariate analysis indicated that principals who had greater total scores on the measure of administrative stress perceived that administrative isolation was a problem for them, reported greater stress due to the job, had seriously considered leaving school administration, felt that principals were under greater stress than other members of their community and reported that they had to cope with scarce or limited resources at their schools.

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