Creating flourishing schools focused on well-being

Photo by Joel Mott on Unsplash

​You may be thinking: flourishing, well-being ... sounds good, I'm in! 

But then reality creeps in and you say: I have no time to invest in well-being. People are going to have to figure this out for themselves. 

Last weekend, I attended the 2019 International Leadership Association Conference.
​Here’s what I learned…

#1 Well-being is critical for organizational and student success! 

• Employee health directly impacts the success of organizations (in the case of schools, this is student achievement). 
• A principal’s sense of well-being is related to the well-being of students and teachers. Similarly, educators report that they flourish when their students flourish.
• "According to the Mayo Clinic, the person you report to at work is more important for your health than your family doctor.” (Pfeffer, 2018) 

#2 Flourishing schools are focused on these things....

• Researchers (Walker, Kutsyuruba, & Cherkowski) have explored examples of positive deviance in Canadian schools that are flourishing. They found…
• Flourishing schools are filled with trust, hope, compassion, play, purpose, passion, and presence.
• Leaders (meaning administrators or teacher leaders) of flourishing school cultures are: engaged, purposeful, adventurous, resilient, and collaborative. They have: a shared leadership mindset, the ability to adapt, and have high subjective well-being. 

#3 Award-winning school leaders do the following...
When researchers (Kutsyuruba, Sadata Arghash, & Kharyati) looked into examples of positive deviance at the principal level, they found Canada’s “Outstanding Principal” award recipients demonstrated these leadership features: They fostered nurturing relationships

• They made decisions to elevate others’ ideas and professional growth
• They brought the organization’s vision to life
• They built capacity of school stakeholders (focused on holistic well-being)
• They were approachable, accessible, available, aware, and appreciative
• They reported high levels of resilience (which encompasses self-awareness, learning and developing, finding purpose and meaning), and this was significantly and positively correlated with thriving and the experience of flow (being intrinsically motivated by and immersed in the work). 
• They also reported high levels of grit (working toward challenges and through failure) which was positively correlated with thriving and resilience. 

 Leadership scholar, Robert Kegan, asks us to: 

“Imagine so valuing the importance of developing people’s capabilities that you design a culture that itself immersively sweeps every member of the organization into an ongoing developmental journey in the course of working every day. Imagine making the organization itself--and not separate, extra benefits--the incubator of capability…” (2016) 

What would that look like to prioritize developing well-being in your school or in your classroom? 

Malayter & Dehmer (2019) recommend doing 4 things to start: 

• Do the self-work.
  • Learn your strengths and the strengths of the people you work with
  • Walk the talk (model a life of well-being) 
• Support others’ well-being.
  • Make sure your organizational environment is reinforcing healthy behaviors (not as an add-on, but as part of the fabric of how you do things). 
  • Foster well-being through positive interpersonal communication. 

To summarize, well-being is critically important. So many schools have high turnover rates and are feeling the time crunch to improve scores quickly, but what if school leaders re-focused their attention and made time to create space for teachers to grow and learn and be well? Schools that don’t prioritize well-being likely see high rates of teacher burnout and signs of deteriorating teacher and student well-being. Teacher stress affects student success and well-being! It’s important we tackle this issue. How do we do this? We look at what is being done in schools that are flourishing. We learn from the positive deviants. 

I hope this quick summary of the exciting research being done on this topic helps you think about how your organization can take steps to increase teacher, student, parent, and leader well-being. Don’t forget to share your brilliant ideas with the Time for Teachership community in the comments section or on our facebook page. 

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​Keep thinking big, acting brave, and being your best self. 
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Go forth and flourish! ​
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