Raising Leadership Self-Efficacy and Minimizing Organizational Burnout Among School Administrators in a GROW Model of Cognitive Behavioral Coaching

Abstract

Poor leadership self-efficacy and high organizational burnout are context-based cognitive conditions that sabotage leadership outcomes across organizations. When school administrators who are the leaders and directors of school affairs struggle with poor leadership self-efficacy and elevated levels of burnout their leadership styles are negatively affected with far-reaching impacts on the teachers, students, and the overall school outputs. This randomized control trial sought to investigate the effectiveness of GROW-Model (GROW-M) of Cognitive behavioral Coaching in raising leadership self-efficacy and minimizing burnout symptoms in a sample of school administrators in Enugu State, Nigeria. Participants included 77 school administrators who were randomly assigned to GROW-M ( N = 38) and waitlisted control ( N = 39) groups. A 2-h GROW-M program was delivered to the GROW-M intervention group weekly for 9 weeks. Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educators’ Survey and the School Leaders’ Self-Efficacy Scale were employed to source data at preintervention, postintervention, and follow-up evaluations. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to explore data using SPSS version 24. Results revealed that participants’ organizational burnout reduced, while their leadership self-efficacy improved significantly at posttest. The changes in burnout and leadership self-efficacy levels were sustained through a 3-month follow-up. We concluded that intervention using GROW-M minimizes organizational burnout and raises leadership self-efficacy as a pliability resource for coping with overwhelming work demands.