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This paper is situated in a larger research project concerned with how principals deal with controversial issues in their everyday practice. One early finding is that resistance to change is perceived as controversial issue by many principals (Rantala, forthcoming). In this paper I seek to deepen knowledge about the resistance from employees that principals meet and how they deal with it.

Having to change is inevitable. As society changes, schools and preschools also need to change to meet the demands which is placed on children and pupils both during and after their time in school. The principal, as a change leader, has the responsibility over and an important role in the improvement work that must take place (SFS, 2010:800; Timperley, 2011), but leading change work is no easy task (Holmes, Clement & Albright, 2013; Starr, 2011). Leading change involves dealing with resistance (Dolph, 2017; Starr, 2011) and resistance is always in relation to power (Foucault, 2002).

There is a vast body of research that describes how leaders carry out or should carry out change work (e.g. Fullan, 2015; Hargreaves et.al., 2010; Kotter, 2014). Research has also focus on strategies that principals need to adapt to enable change management to lead to change (e.g. Shaked and Schechter, 2017; Soini, Pietarinen & Pyhältö, 2016; Wang, 2018). But it also emerges, in research, that change leadership is complex and that the strategies even can collide (e.g. Homes, Clement & Albright, 2013).

Previous research on teachers' resistance to change has focused on resistance to specific changes, for example change in the curriculum (Kazakbaeva, 2021), resistance against educational reforms, for example introduction of in-service teacher certification (Choi, 2017) or quality assurance policies (Terhart, 2013). These studies show how resistance can arise when there is a lack of support and resources to create understanding for the change initiative (Kazakbaeva, 2021). Resistance can be expressed implicitly and that there can be prestige in the fact that the change initiative must succeed (Chio, 2017; Terhart, 2013). Research shows four factors that influence human resistance, self-interest, different values, low tolerance and lack of trust (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2013).

There are knowledge gaps in research regarding teacher's resistance to change in relation to principal's strategies, which is done in this paper. The aim is to study principals’ and deputy principals´ leadership of change, by analyzing principals’ and deputy principals ‘description of employee’s resistance and their strategies to handle it in school development work. This is then discussed in relation to power techniques. 

Amundsdotter et.al. (2015) and Linghag et.al. (2016) describes, anchored in Foucault’s theory of power techniques (2002; 2003; 2008), three different techniques, repressive, pastoral and regulated. They use these concepts both to describe employees' resistance and the principals' strategies for dealing with it. Amundsdotter et.al. and Linghag et.al. describes repressive resistance as clear and direct resistance, pastoral resistance takes more subtle expressions or is masked in other forms, e.g. lack of time or resources, and regulated resistance is about placing responsibility on others. Repressive strategies are for example when principals refer to laws or governing documents, blaming individuals, threats reporting or raising to a higher instance, pastoral strategies refer to offering help and guidance, demonstrating benefits, inspiring and motivating and regulatory strategies refer to building the change into the organization by emphasizing that it is a shared responsibility, reminding of the mission and what different roles entail. In this paper this concept is used to both to categorize and analyze the principals' and deputy principals' descriptions of employees' resistance to change and to categorize and analyze their descriptions of strategies they use to deal with the resistance.