School Leaders: The Key Actor in the Quest to Secure the Well-Being of School-Level Educators

• In Event: Student Well-Being and Public Good: The New Front Line of School Effectiveness and Improvement?

Abstract

School leaders are essential to the delivery of improved student outcomes, mediated by their work with and for teachers. However, globally, many state-funded education systems are struggling to recruit and retain the requisite cadres of leaders needed to deliver high quality education outcomes for all. Lack of interest in school leader roles has been linked to: principal work intensification (Pollock, 2014); and shifting generational priorities (Edge, 2015).

As governments struggle to find solutions to attract and retain school leaders, we have observed an upswing in the number and scale of educationally-focused wellbeing policies and interventions. While initially focused on students, teacher and leader wellbeing appears to be gaining traction in local, state and national-level discussions. As leader stress and poor wellbeing habits have been linked to issues with follower stress and wellbeing (Skakon et al, 2010), the need for school leader wellbeing to be a policy priority is evident. Beyond specific interventions, our recent Global City Leaders (GCL) research identified three key roles that school leaders, themselves, can play in improving school-level educator wellbeing.

This paper contributes to school improvement-related discussions of wellbeing by highlighting several key roles school leaders can play in improving leader and teacher wellbeing. Drawing on evidence from our GCL study of Generation X (under-40-year old) school leaders in London, New York City and Toronto, we posit that school leaders must demonstrate to others how they prioritize their own wellbeing as role models. Similarly, wider evidence suggests that leaders’ own personal prioritization of work/life balance positively influences employees’ feelings of being supported (Lambert, 2000), job satisfaction (Forsyth and Polzer-Debruyne, 2007), and organizational loyalty (Renee Baptiste, 2008). Second, leaders must clearly articulate care for the wellbeing of their teachers and school-level staff members. Third, leaders mediate the social and educational contextual conditions that influence educator wellbeing.

Author

• Karen E. Edge, UCL Institute of Education