Background: Educational leader wellbeing is vital to the entire educational community (Mahfouz et al., 2019). Research has shown that leaders can impact teacher wellbeing and burnout and student outcomes (Hascher & Waber, 2021; Rangel, 2018). As we contemplate creating healthier school communities, it is vital to understand how to support wellbeing for all who work in these settings. Leaders are often overlooked in this process. Listening to the voices of educational leaders can help us design interventions to meet their needs.

Aims: While there have been efforts made to understand the cultivation of wellbeing in the workplace, more work is needed to explore the stressors experienced, impacts of those stressors, and the self-care behaviors used help mitigate the effects of the stress educational leaders are exposed to. This investigation sought to fill the gaps by examining qualitative and quantitative reports on these topics.

Method: A convergent parallel mixed-methods case study design was used to collect survey responses from thirty-three school and district administrators from an urban/suburban school district in Pennsylvania. Structural content analysis was used to examine open-ended responses. Descriptive analyses were conducted on quantitative reports of sources of stress, impacts of stress, and sources of coping and self-care. T-tests were also used to analyze demographic differences.

Results: Leaders reported stress brought on by behavior of others, job concerns, and concern for welfare of others. They reported wide-ranging impacts of stress including emotional, physical, cognitive, motivational, job-to-home spillover, and workload management. Leaders reported using physical exercise and positive health behaviors, as well as emotional, social, occupational, and spiritual self-care to cope with job stress. Demographic differences were identified especially for use of social support.

Conclusion: These findings are helpful in understanding the day-to-day stressors that educational leaders are faced with and ways that they engage to promote their own wellbeing. These results can be used to help design pre- and in-service programs to support resilience in educational leaders.