Scaling the mountain to principalship: The barriers and the enablers of a female first time principal’s journey - chapter 8 ENABLERS IN JANET’S CLIMB TO PRINCIPALSHIP - mentors and role models

Chapter Eight: Mentors and role models

Mentors are people who stood and still remain at the top of the mountain to encourage Janet to navigate her path to principalship.  Role models should do the same but in Janet’s career path they sometimes put her off and were a barrier to her climbing.

8.1 “He believed in me” (Janet)

Mentors, both formal and informal, have a huge influence over female career paths by supporting them to achieve success and influencing them to take opportunities when they arise (Hansen, 2014; Kinnersley, 2009; Patuawa, 2006; Rosario, 2015). Wilson-Tagoe (2015) found in Ghana that mentors had a positive impact in establishing female faculty members at universities.  Mentors encouraged the women to undertake research activities and publish more papers which enabled them to have greater opportunities for career progression. 

Janet was given “professional endorsement” which is when a senior leader encourages someone by giving them confidence to apply for promotions (Young & McLeod, 2001, p. 485) by two mentors on her rise to principalship. Both mentors were male, as it is harder to find a female mentor as there are fewer around (Rosenthal, 2010), but Janet did not find this detrimental.  This is reinforced by research which specified that gender is not necessarily a factor in mentoring in terms of positive and understanding relationships (Lyman et al., 2012; Kinnersley’s, 2009).  Janet’s first mentor was a senior teacher who identified her potential early on in her career, similar to findings by Fink (2008) in Canada and Patuawa (2006) in New Zealand, when she was at the local intermediate school.  The other was the principal at her first high school teaching post, Tim, who was “very influential” in Janet’s life.  She talked about how important it was to have someone in a position of authority who actually believes in you.                                                                                                  

He believed in me, I didn’t believe in me but he did. Whatever he saw in me, I      don’t know to this day, he got me to go to the [university] course, I wouldn’t        have gone myself, I wouldn’t have thought that I should go to something like            that.

Tim also gave her responsibility which is vital in pre-principalship training (Wiendling & Dimmock, 2006) and would say to her                                                                                  

            when I give you the responsibility that also carries the authority. So in other          words don’t run back to me. Because every time he asked me to do           something in the early days as a DP (deputy principal), [I would ask] are you happy with this?

Tim continued his mentoring role and also supported Janet when she took on her first principal position.

8.2 Role modelling and the perception of what leadership looks like

Very closely linked to mentoring is role modelling as people in positions of power are always role models whether they want to be or not.  Principals and other leaders reflect their own styles and that becomes what leadership looks like to others (Christman & McClellan, 2008). 

Janet observed that her principals were all workaholics and did not spend time with students and she did not want that for herself especially while her daughter was still at school.  According to Coleman (2005; 2007) more female teachers go into education to teach than males and not being with students discourages them from administration roles.  Janet said “I wanted to stay working with the kids” and the more I saw “what the secondary principal did and [how he] was in his office all the time” the more I was “put off.”  At least as a deputy principal “you are out there, you are with the kids. You are teaching, you are in the classroom and that put me off seeing that he really couldn’t get away from his desk.”  Janet did not have much empathy for a previous principal “but now I feel really sorry for him.”  She actually “rang him the other day, because he’s not a principal anymore, and spoke to him and said I’m so sorry, I really apologise for not being nicer to you.” 

Janet took some more university papers when she was teaching at the intermediate school and was inspired by a course on “Women in Education.”  She had to choose four women in high positions to interview including a principal in a primary school and a headmistress at a high school.  These female role models exposed how much sacrifice they made with their families to get to their position.  Janet does talk about regret in leaving her daughter so long in childcare and perhaps this feeling remained with her as her daughter continued at school?