Resilience Under Pressure: A Scoping Review of Stress Coping Mechanisms among Malaysian School Leaders

Background: School leaders in Malaysia navigate complex stressors, including administrative overload, inspector pressures and systemic challenges, necessitating robust coping mechanisms to maintain resilience and leadership effectiveness. Global literature does take into account educator stress but empirical research on coping strategies among Malaysian school leaders is limited with an important gap highlighted. Objectives: This scoping review seeks to identify stress coping mechanisms among Malaysian school leaders, explore associated stressors, examine cultural and contextual influences, and propose actionable interventions. Methods: Following Arksey and O'Malley's (2005) framework and PRISMA guidelines, we screened 20 studies that met the inclusion/exclusion criteria from an initial pool of 310 and then included 12 empirical studies (2000-2025) focused on Malaysian primary and secondary school leaders or teachers with leadership applicability. Data were charted and synthesized narratively, prioritizing qualitative themes over statistical metrics. Results: Key stressors include role overload, job demands, inspector pressures, and technostress, while adaptive coping mechanisms encompass teamwork, spirituality, task distribution, optimism and time management. Maladaptive coping, such as smoking was less prevalent. Cultural moderators like collectivism and Islamic spirituality, alongside contextual factors - urban vs. rural, public vs. private schools, significantly shape coping strategies. A framework grounded in the transactional stress model integrates these findings, highlighting leadership applicability. Conclusions: Malaysian school leaders rely on social and spiritual coping to manage administrative and systemic stressors, with collectivism fostering resilience. Interventions, including training programs and stress indices are proposed to enhance leader well-being. Future research should explore explicit leadership coping, longitudinal designs and broader demographic factors.