The Dark Side of School Leadership: Implications for Administrator Preparation

Examining Relationships between School Administrators’ Humor Behaviors and Teachers’ Mobbing Experiences According to Teacher Perceptions

“…Thus, sarcastic and rejective humor behaviors are a significant predictor of mobbing in line with expectations. Blase and Blase (2004) concluded that teachers who are maltreated by a school administrator experience difficulties in adapting themselves to the school, feel lonely, and face problems in their relations within the school.…”

“…Teachers maltreated by the school administrator find it difficult to adapt themselves to their institutions, feel lonely, and experience problems in their relationships within the school (Blase and Blase, 2004). According to Riley, Duncan, and Edwards (2009), more than 50% of education professionals said that mobbing behavior had a negative effect on their health.…”

Observing aggression of teachers in school teams

“…In the United States, the most recent Indicators of School Crime and Safety Report showed that 5-10% of teachers reported being threatened with injury or physically attacked in the 2003/4 school year (Dinkes, Kemp, & Baum, 2009). However, there is little systematic evidence of these suppositions beyond isolated case studies, which have explored school principals' misuse of power against teachers (Blasé & Blasé, 2004) and teachers' experience of bullying by their principals (Fox & Stallworth, 2010). Most studies have focused on the immediate outcomes of student aggression (Espelage, Holt, & Henkel, 2003;Galand, Lecocq, & Philippot, 2007) while ignoring aggression against teachers by co-teachers, which could predict teacher aggression (Fox & Stallworth, 2010;Somech & Oplatka, 2009).…”

“…Theoretically, this perspective could lead researchers to recognize outcomes that are specific to a particular perpetrator (Hershcovis & Barling, 2010). For instance, principals' abuse of teachers results in severe psychological and emotional problems (Blasé & Blasé, 2004). Principals, who are in a position of power, control allocations, dismissals, promotions, and school tasks.…”

Internal governance imperatives for universities

“…Instead, behaviour that appears alien to a true collegial environment often prevails such as harassment and aggression that ultimately leads to the breakdown of collegiality (Blase & Blase, 2004), practices of humiliation and marginalisation of high achieving academics (Westhues, 2005) and leaving young academics to 'sink or swim' (Cabral-Cardosa, 2004). Cooper (1987) proposes that challenging authority in universities can often lead to retribution, career damage, marginalisation or even expulsion, regardless of the quality of one's work while Cabral-Cardosa (2004) notes that support systems are not in place for junior faculty to challenge senior faculty when members close ranks against such whistle blowers.…”