Scaling the mountain to principalship: The barriers and the enablers of a female first time principal’s journey - chapter 7 ENABLERS IN JANET’S CLIMB TO PRINCIPALSHIP - Support

Chapter Seven: Support

Janet’s husband, whānau and colleagues all supported and are still supporting Janet by pulling and pushing her up the mountain and enabling her to stay there at the top.

7.1 “It’s good to have a supportive husband” (Janet)

During her interview Janet signposted a number of times that a support system both as a wife and mother was necessary while she was a deputy principal but also played a big part in her decision to become a principal.

Male principals often have a traditional home life with their wife at home looking after the children although female principals usually share responsibilities with their husbands (Coleman, 2009).  Janet utilised before and during principalship a wide variety of support systems in the same way as has been reported for other female educational leaders in the USA (Hansen, 2014; Sperandio, 2015) including: family, female friends and paying for a housekeeper to keep on top of the running of their home.

International research maintains the importance of a husband’s backing when a woman becomes a principal or takes on a similar leadership role such as superintendent (Kelsey et al., 2014) or school administrator in the USA (Young & McLeod, 2001), principal in Australia (Masters, 2015) and president in higher education institutions in the Philippines (Rosario, 2015).  This corresponds with Janet’s experiences and she specified that her own husband was “a great support” when their daughter was younger and now.  She felt “lucky because he is a shift worker” and when their daughter was at day care he would sometimes pick her up at 2 pm so he could spend time with her before going back on shift.  This would make Janet return home by 3.45 pm so he could go to work although sometimes she took her daughter back to school with her. When Janet became a principal he mowed lawns and fixed things until they got a caretaker at the school.  When she has difficult times at school and doesn’t know what she is doing he asks “shall I come to school and sort them out?” 

Family connections and support are of the utmost importance to both Janet and her husband.  When setting up as a new principal Janet had “aunties and uncles, nieces and nephews coming in hanging up curtains and putting them into classrooms.”  Janet believed that backing from whānau was vital in her success in becoming a principal which concurs with Loder’s (2005) USA research which also found that family was a help when women administrators had to negotiate work-family conflicts. 

A third support system for Janet was her female colleagues with small children who also used the school’s day care centre.  Janet reminisced “it was nice that a lot of teachers had their children there, had that empathy and quite often one of us would go and pick up four kids, while their mothers were still working.” In the USA Hansen (2014) and Young and McLeod (2001) determined that when women were in leadership positions they could also rely on their female colleagues with children to assist them if not practically but emotionally by giving them opportunities to discuss how to balance their careers and families. 

Janet did find support in a number of people which could have helped her to become a principal at an earlier time as support or lack of it can make or break a woman’s decision to take on this role (Loder, 2005) but decided that it was not the right time for her. Janet understood the external influences in her life and was pragmatic about them.  She did have agency over her life but chose to work within her boundaries (Smith, 2011).