Impact of female school superintendents' multiple roles on perceived psychological well -being and perceived leadership effectiveness

This study grew out of field-based concerns about the under-representation of women in the superintendency and the expectation that this is due in part to women's challenges in balancing family responsibilities and the superintendency. The purpose of this study was to investigate the strength of women superintendents' commitments to various life roles and explore the extent to which these roles conflict or complement each other. The intent was to provide information to inform potential female aspirants and hiring Boards about women superintendency role conflicts and, potentially, how multiple roles are complementary and may contribute to leadership effectiveness and personal well-being.;The study draws on role accumulation theory using Ruderman et al. (2002) study as a framework. All 167 female superintendents in New York State were surveyed about their commitments to multiple life roles and their perceived psychological well-being and leadership effectiveness. The multiple roles measured included: occupation, spouse or committed partner, parent, friend and community member. Psychological well-being included self-esteem and satisfaction with life, two standard research constructs, as well as self-fulfillment and stress. Perceived leadership included five practices of transformational leadership. Additional questions about how skills and beliefs from female superintendents' non-work roles affected their jobs were included. In all, 78 superintendents responded and the results were analyzed by descriptive statistics and through a series of regression analyses.;The findings showed that responding women superintendents reported high levels of occupational commitment as well as commitments to other life roles of marriage or committed relationship, parent, friend and community member. There was a strong, positive relationship between their perceived psychological well being and their commitment to all roles. No relationship was found between role commitment and perceived leadership effectiveness. This study suggests that having multiple commitments, including family responsibilities, does not make women superintendents perceive themselves to be less successful as leaders. Moreover, respondents with strong commitment to multiple roles, including the high level leadership role of the superintendency, also reported positive psychological well being across all areas measured. These findings may demystify the stereotypical female superintendent as an over-taxed and over-stressed worker who struggles to balance career and non-work obligations at the expense of her happiness, suggesting that being busy at work does not eliminate the opportunity to lead a rich and rewarding life outside work.;The limitations of this study were that female superintendents were from one state, lacking a comparison group and the research methodology was exclusively surveys.