Positive school leadership for flourishing teachers: Leadership actions that enhance teacher wellbeing

Abstract

Flourishing teachers lie at the heart of successful education systems. When educational leaders ensure that teachers are flourishing - their wellbeing is high - this enables educational improvement, enhances student wellbeing and academic outcomes, and has the potential to grow the teaching profession. Yet teacher wellbeing is often neglected. In 2019, teachers in New Zealand participated in a 'mega strike' to raise awareness of teachers' working conditions and concerns about teacher wellbeing. The research that explores this issue often takes a deficit approach - exploring teacher ill-being - investigating the causes of stress and burnout. There are few studies of how to enhance teacher wellbeing, particularly in the context of educational leadership (Cherkowski & Walker, 2016). This research is one of the first studies of leadership influence on teacher wellbeing in New Zealand, and adds to a growing body of international research on improving teacher wellbeing. The research draws on ideas from positive psychology, which is concerned with understanding what enables people to flourish (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), and the role of 'positive school leadership' in enabling teachers to thrive (Murphy & Louis, 2018). This study explored the educational leadership practices that enhance teacher wellbeing in an urban secondary school in New Zealand. The exploratory mixed methods investigation surveyed 29 teachers, then used purposive sampling to select three 'high wellbeing' and three 'low wellbeing' teachers, who participated in semi-structured interviews and completed a wellbeing journal over five consecutive days. Using inductive thematic analysis, I identified both individual and organisational factors affecting teacher wellbeing. A comparative analysis of high wellbeing and low wellbeing teachers produced a profile of a 'flourishing teacher', and a set of key recommendations for school leaders. To enhance teacher wellbeing leaders should: 1) ensure teachers feel that their voice, work and effort are valued;2) facilitate collaboration and professional development that is meaningful to teachers; and 3) enable teachers to have sufficient agency in school level changes. To enact these recommendations it is essential that leaders have sufficient social and emotional competence to enable relationship building and responsiveness to individuals and contexts.