Social Red Bull: Exploring Energy Relationships in a School District Leadership Team

Abstract

In this article, Alan J. Daly, Yi-Hwa Liou, and Chris Brown explore the idea of positive affective arousal through “energy exchange relationships” within a district leadership team. Education leaders have long been expected to be not only effective leaders but also motivators who can move change efforts forward. Although there has been attention paid to the role of effective leaders, much less work has contributed to the affective relations among education leaders. “Energizers” in social systems have been associated with positive individual and organizational outcomes but are rarely studied in education. Drawing on theories of social networks and using multilevel network modeling, the authors find evidence to suggest that job satisfaction and innovative climate help explain the likelihood of sending and receiving energy relationship nominations. Further, leader efficacy and similarity in work level and gender help explain the likelihood of forming energy relationships.