Positioning oneself for leadership: feelings of vulnerability among aspirant school principals

The research context for this article is the difficulty being experienced by a number of school systems, especially in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia, in recruiting principals. In our discussion we draw on preliminary findings from ongoing research into the experiences of a cohort of aspiring primary and secondary school principals. Our data comprise the electronic journal (E‐journal) entries of the 21 aspirants. We characterize the E‐journal reflections as identity narratives in which the aspirants are able to explore a range of feelings, challenges and uncertainties associated with the possibility of future principal role incumbency. The significance of these E‐journalling narratives, therefore, is that they provide aspirants with an opportunity, through semi‐private reflection, to begin positioning themselves for leadership. For this reason we articulate the idea of ‘positioning space’, a supportive holding environment which facilitates the exploration of potential and possible selves and we explore some properties and protocols associated with occupancy of this space.