An affective paradigm for educational leadership theory and practice: connecting affect, actions, power and influence

In the last 20 years, various authors have drawn attention to the affective aspects of educational institutions, teaching and educational leadership, see for example, Hargreaves (1998a, 1998b), James (1999, 2010), James, Connolly, Dunning, and Elliott (2006), Dunning, James, and Jones (2005), Beatty (2000), Zembylas (2005), Crawford (2007, 2009), Oplatka (2011, 2017), Samier and Schmidt (2009), and Berkovich and Eyal (2015). This body of work is substantial, but even so, the various forms of affect – feelings, moods and emotions – have yet to be accorded the significance they warrant in understandings of educational leadership, the process of influencing others in educational institutions (Bush, 2008; Connolly, James, & Fertig, 2017; Cuban, 1988). Without that recognition, understandings of leadership theory and practice will only ever be partial and will be limited in nature and scope. Hence, our intentions in this article: to connect affects, actions, power and influence, thereby establishing the central place of affects in educational leadership theory and practice; and to develop an affective paradigm for educational leadership theory and practice. To achieve those intentions, we have analysed relevant sources and synthesised substantive concepts to develop a theoretical framework and a coherent argument. We have also drawn upon our experience as teachers/leaders in diverse educational settings. Our argument is as follows. Three forms of affect can be identified – feelings, moods and emotions. Feelings and moods are internal states, whereas emotions are complex physiological, psychological and social responses to events. Knowing and communicating about feelings and moods is highly problematic. Nonetheless, feelings and moods are central in initiating and motivating social actions, which take place during the emotion process. In those actions, power is experienced, which influences others. As the practice of educational leadership is an influencing act, affect, actions, power and influence are connected and the central role of feelings in motivating educational leadership practices is established. That argument calls for an affective paradigm for educational leadership theory and practice in which educational leadership practice is understood and interpreted from an affective standpoint. Such interpretation can give in-depth insights into leadership practice and a fuller understanding of the rationales for leadership actions. We start the article by exploring the nature of affects, distinguishing between the different forms, and reflecting on the problematics of researching feelings. In the section that follows, we consider the nature of emotions, and analyse the role of feelings in initiating social actions. We go on to establish an affective paradigm for analysing, understanding and theorising educational leadership practice. We then illustrate different interpretation perspectives that fall within the paradigm. In the last main section, we recap on the analyses and we finish with some concluding comments.