Professional uncertainty in the managerial activity of school principals: content, sources, and coping strategies

Abstract: Problem. Traditional administrative algorithms demonstrate institutional inefficiency, requiring school principals to exercise cognitive flexibility, high managerial resilience, and the ability to shift planning paradigms. There is an acute scientific and practical need for a comprehensive study of objective situations that determine the sustainability of educational systems and for developing new models of scientific-methodological and psychological support for the principal corps. Aim. To identify and systematize the main sources of professional uncertainty in the managerial activity of school principals, as well as to describe typical coping strategies based on empirical data obtained from a Russian sample. Methods. The empirical basis of the study consisted of the results of a survey of educational organization leaders conducted using the standardized methodology “School Management under Conditions of Uncertainty.” The study sample (N = 91) represents predominantly experienced principals of large urban and rural schools with managerial tenure ranging from 1 to 30 years. The authors applied frequency analysis of closed-ended questions and thematic coding of open-ended responses, as well as qualitative content analysis of answers to open-ended survey questions. Results. Based on the empirical study, the phenomena of “autonomy diffusion”, management decentral-ization, and distortion of planning time horizons were verified. Four situations determining school sustainability were identified and substantively described: institutional stress, personnel-psychological deficit, leader’s managerial resilience, and the social-communicative context of interaction with stakeholders. The sociological dichotomy of adaptation strategies in urban and rural schools was revealed. The necessity of transitioning the system of continuing professional development for principals from clas-sical managerial models to institutional models of comprehensive support was substantiated. Conclusions. The shift in the man-agement paradigm of a school principal under conditions of uncertainty is an objectively driven process of transition to distribut-ed leadership and scenario-based micro-planning. Ensuring the managerial resilience of a modern school cannot be achieved solely through the internal resources of the principal. Modernization of the continuing professional development system is re-quired through the creation of a comprehensive support ecosystem (legal, methodological, and supervisory) that minimizes insti-tutional noise and preserves the human potential of educational organization leaders.