Principal-Teachers Agreement on Teachers’ Interpersonal Emotion Regulation: Relations with Principals’ Transformational Leadership, Teaching Staff Positive Collective Emotions, and Teaching Staff Organizational Commitment

Abstract

The study investigated the link between principals’ awareness of their effect on teachers’ emotional reframing (i.e., a form of interpersonal emotion regulation aiding in cognitive reappraisal) and variables pertinent to school leadership, positive emotions, and organizational commitment. Data were collected from 69 primary schools, with 69 principals self-reporting on their influence on teachers’ emotional reframing and 639 teachers reporting on their principals’ influence (using an adaptation of Gross and John’s (Gross and John, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85:348–362, 2003) ERQ measure). The self-other rating agreement perspective enabled us to categorize principals into four groups based on the variance between their own assessment of teachers’ emotional reframing and the teachers’ ratings: over-estimators, under-estimators, in-agreement/good leaders, and in-agreement/poor leaders. The teachers also assessed the principals’ transformational leadership, collective positive emotions, and collective affective organizational commitment. Analyses revealed that primarily under-estimators and in-agreement/good leaders were associated with higher levels of principals’ transformational leadership, teachers’ collective positive emotions, and teachers’ collective organizational commitment to the school. Almost no differences emerged between over-estimators and in-agreement/poor leaders, which were associated with lower levels of school leadership, positive emotions, and commitment. The findings suggest that principals’ awareness of their influence on teachers’ emotional reframing fosters a conducive environment for positive leadership behaviors, emotional climate, and organizational commitment within schools. The theoretical implications attest to the significance of interpersonal emotion regulation in shaping organizational dynamics, and the practical implications point to the importance of interventions aimed at enhancing principals’ understanding of their influence on teachers’ emotional processes for nurturing a positive school culture.