Chapter 8 The Emotional Labour of Educational Leading: A Practice Lens Jane Wilkinson , Lucas Walsh, Amanda Keddie, and Fiona Longmuir Abstract In this chapter, we examine the heightened volatilities and politics of the emotional labour of leading in contemporary times. We begin the chapter by ‘zooming out’ to examine the practice architectures which prefigure schooling, teaching and leading practices in the state of Victoria and how they shape the intersubjective spaces of educating. Drawing on case studies of schools defined as exemplary in building socially cohesive communities, we then ‘zoom in’ to examine the practice landscapes of the case study sites and how varied types of emotional labour were enabled and constrained within them. We analyse emotional labour primarily through the contested emotion of caring, examining how ‘caring’ practices are variously bundled together with other emotions as part of the labour of leading. We analyse how these practices emerge and circulate in the sites, their political impacts, and their relationship with practices such as teaching and learning. We conclude by teasing out the implications of this analysis for practice architectures theory, educational leading and emotions as fields of scholarship and practice. Keywords Emotional labour of educational leadership · Social cohesion · Practice architectures · Principals · Secondary schools 8.1 Introduction Q: What are the major social issues facing schools today? A: Feelings of disengagement, hopelessness and at times anger against the disen- franchising inertia of society’s power structures. Every social issue I can think of for our school stems from the widening gap in incomes and its associated beliefs of superiority and inferiority [Australian principal, 2020]. The increasing diversification of societies over recent decades stems from a variety of factors. These include the global mass migration of peoples from a range of ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious backgrounds and a greater recognition of difference when it comes to gender, sexuality and ability (Kostogriz et al., 2021). The speed, complexity and intensity of these societal changes has led to the coining of the term, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 J. Wilkinson, Educational Leadership through a Practice Lens, Educational Leadership Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-7629-1_8 157