The work of school principals is changing not just in Australia but also internationally. The neo-liberal climate of recent times and the impact of discourses of managerialism have had considerable impact on the nature of their work. Principals now have even greater responsibility and earlier positions where policy was directed through often large bureaucracies has changed. These variations have meant a change to school cultures so that earlier positions have had to be renegotiated and in many cases the nature of the work of principals has remained unresolved. Among increasing administrative duties there is now a need for principals to demonstrate a a stylization of the successful self, for they are now, more than ever, identified by the public and parents as embodiments of school culture and sucess. This study positions schools and their leaders as complex social organisms, ever changing and influenced by reciprocal self and society relationships, actions and interplays. The work of school principals can be identified as a form of emotional labour where the management of emotions is involved in paid work, a process of feeling the right feeling for the job. Linked to the social dimension of emotional labour is the notion of haeccity, or 'thisness', Rather than the skills of the principal being transferable from school to school, leadership is influenced influenced by particular social and economic situations that make each school unique.Haeccity has a particular quality that cannot be measured, for it is 'this', rather than 'what', and is part of a web of environmental, personal and school relationships that combine to influence organisational outcomes.

A qualitative study involving interviews with a number of principals from private, public (State) and Catholic schools in South Australia and New South Wales was conducted. Interviews were transcribed and analysed within a framework of theories of emotional labour, governmentality and haeccity

In all interviews principals commented on the changing nature of their work and the increasing demands upon them. They stressed the the unique of qualities and elements of the various schools they worked in, whether those elements were related to economic, social or bureaucratic conditions. It was those unique conditions that fashioned their work. Some identified the way in which they were expected to display and embody precise dispositional qualities, while yet others spoke of the way that they felt they were expected to see work as an enterprise and way of self fulfillment within school situations.