“Holding Oneself While Leading Others”: Educational Leaders’ Lived Meanings of Self-Compassion Amid Professional Pressures

This qualitative study examines how educational leaders experience and negotiate self-compassion within the organizational, relational, and contextual demands of their work. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 35 school principals, vice-principals, and administrative coordinators in Northern Israel, analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis, the study identified three themes: self-compassion as a quiet internal anchor, yet not always accessible; self-compassion in tension with leadership expectations; and self-compassion as a relational resource. The findings conceptualize self-compassion in educational leadership as a conditionally accessible resource whose activation depends on whether leaders can create pause space, regard their own distress as legitimate, and reconcile self-directed care with norms of responsibility, composure, and availability. Conceptually, the study extends self-compassion and Job Demands – Resources scholarship by specifying how leadership norms shape the legitimacy and activation of personal resources; practically, it indicates that leadership preparation and policy must address the organizational conditions that make self-compassion possible rather than placing responsibility for sustainability solely on individual leaders.