Drawing on the autobiographies of school principals, proposes guidelines that can help educators combat the occupational hazard of excessive stress. Each guideline is illustrated by vignettes from educational leaders who have learned how to avoid some thinking fallacies that could erode self-esteem and leadership effectiveness. (RJM)

The study of school leaders' feelings during and about their work suffers from inadequate academic definitions about the depth, character, and legitimacy of those feelings, as well as from limitations on the means of capturing and recording those feelings. This study pushes the definitions of administrators' stress into the areas of traumatic…