The MRPP model: a support for school principals

Abstract

The crisis context related to the pandemic has proven to be exhausting and anxiety-provoking for school personnel. Principals have experienced changes that go beyond curriculum, pedagogical and managerial practices, and that affect their role and competencies, including additional tasks related to health measures. Faced with these changes, principals must demonstrate flexibility and creativity through their leadership. They are finding themselves in situations that are detrimental to their health, preventing them from exercising their leadership and maintaining their position. In 2021, FQDE revealed that some 60 principals were on work stoppage and some would have resigned before the start of the 2021-2022 school year. Moreover, principals have expressed their need to be accompanied by a mentoring program to develop their emotional competencies (EC; self/other) to ensure their well-being and exercise benevolent leadership. Various coaching programs, including those inspired by mentoring, have been designed over the years to support an individual as they take office. According to authors, mentoring is a supportive relationship between a mentor and a mentee and intended, among other things, to lead the mentee to improve performance and develop leadership qualities. Although measures have been put in place to help principals succeed in their tasks, increase school effectiveness and develop their leadership, the training objectives are not always met. Some findings highlight the importance of mentoring in school administration to develop EC and transformational leadership... The model of relational practices received during principal mentoring (PRMD) comes to address the emotionally demanding reality of principals that can affect their well-being. The PRMD is a synthesis of various mentoring models and was developed for school administration. In this model, the mentor allows new principals to anchor the emotional aspect to their managerial practices as well as choose a leadership style capable of mobilizing, motivating and inspiring... The purpose of this paper is to present the PRMD tested and the preliminary results of a collaborative research aimed at training a dozen mentors matched with principals. These results indicate that the PRMD appears to be an effective accompaniment for new principals.