School Leadership in Crisis: A Job Demands-Resources Model of Saskatchewan School Administrators’ Work, Stress, and Burnout

Abstract

This article mobilizes the Job Demands-Resource (JD-R) model and draws on data from a longitudinal study of Saskatchewan school administrators’ work and wellbeing to situate and trouble the enduring nature of high job demands, low job resources, and stress for incumbents in this province. Our findings point to serious implications of continued inattention to issues of stress, with school administrators either retiring from, leaving, or expressing their desire to leave, the role. We position this reality as a crisis not just in Saskatchewan school administration but as a more widespread, urgent equity issue that requires urgent attention before burnout becomes more widespread among school administrators.