Leadership strategies for alleviating teacher stress in crisis contexts: a grounded theory

José Antonio González-Carcacía; Sandra Ornés Vásquez

doi:10.51574/hamka.v5i1.108

Authors

José Antonio González-Carcacía
jagonzal@ivic.gob.ve
Centro de Estudios Avanzados, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Parroquia Macarao 1204, Venezuela
Sandra Ornés Vásquez Centro de Estudios Avanzados, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Parroquia Macarao 1204, Venezuela

Keywords:

Teacher stress, Crisis leadership, Grounded theory, Survival pedagogy, Institutional buffering

Abstract

Purpose: This study constructs a grounded theory of school leadership strategies designed to alleviate severe teacher stress and mitigate workforce attrition during acute systemic crises.

Method: Employing an inductive qualitative grounded theory design, data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 14 primary and secondary school educators operating within severe infrastructural and economic disruption contexts.

Findings: The grounded framework identifies two core leadership mechanisms: (1) Radical Task Triaging ("Survival Pedagogy"), which strips up to 80% of administrative compliance requirements to prioritize basic literacy and psychosocial stabilization, and (2) Institutional Buffering, wherein principals act as administrative "airlocks" to shield educators from unaligned state mandates while granting hyper-local operational autonomy.

Practical implications: The findings provide school administrators with actionable structural strategies to eliminate moral injury, adjust attendance policies flexibly, and preserve human infrastructure when national systems collapse.

Originality/value: This study advances crisis management literature by shifting the prevailing paradigm away from individualized teacher resilience toward leader-led structural workload reduction and protective institutional buffering.

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