Understanding school principals' burnout

Abstract

AbstractThis study explores why the principals experiences burnout and what the future plans of the principals who experienced burnout were. This is a case study that uses qualitative research methods. Before collecting qualitative data, the researcher collected and analysed data from principals working at different school levels and revealed their burnout tendencies. Subsequently, I collected qualitative data from kindergarten, middle school, and vocational high school principals through semi‐structured interview questions and analysed them through content analysis. Along with the four main themes, four subthemes emerged based on the theme of burnout sources. Accordingly, school principals experience burnout due to situations arising from parents, senior management, teachers, other principals, students, non‐education‐related workload, and insufficient financial income. Although the short‐term plans of school principals experiencing burnout are to continue their duties in their schools, in the long term, they plan to leave the profession and completely move away from educational work.