Wellbeing and leadership

DR JOLANTA BURKE AND DR MAJELLA DEMPSEY

MAYNOOTH UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Wellbeing is like a velcro sticking to all school-related activities (Burke, Dec 2020). Therefore, all decisions that school leaders, teachers, and parents make will somewhat affect their school community’s wellbeing. The realisation of this can be daunting, especially in the context of the Covid-19 school closure, as many of the leaders have expressed worry about their staff, parents and especially, their pupils.

“I worry about their wellbeing. I worry about our pupils with SEN or pupils with elevated anxiety and how they are managing this quagmire. I worry about the pupils for whom home might not be a safe place. I worry about the pupils that don’t have a supportive adult available to them.” Principal, May 2020

In the three surveys that we carried out with primary school leaders after the lockdown-related school closure, principals showed an enormous commitment to their school community’s wellbeing.

LEADERS’ CHALLENGES

The stress of managing schools remotely has taken a toll on many primary school leaders. While they have shown great mental agility and maintained moderate levels of wellbeing, not one of almost 1,000 respondents saw themselves as thriving psychologically during the COVID-19 crisis. A group that was of particular concern were the teaching principals, who reported the lowest levels of wellbeing, across all dimensions, when compared to administrative principals. Further research needs to be carried out to unpack the particular stressors for the teaching principals. We would invite teaching principals to contact us if they would be willing to take part in a short on-line interview to explore the particular challenges they face in their work.

Leaders’ stressors constantly evolve. Two weeks after the school closure, leaders asked DES for guidance in relation to distance learning, as many didn’t know what was expected of them at the time and it caused them stress. Two months later, however, leaders’ focus has shifted towards medium- and long-term goals. They were becoming increasingly stressed about the uncertainty of the schools reopening in September. Today, their stressors have changed yet again and are possibly related to the practical challenges associated with making the school safe for all. All these stressors have an enormous impact on leaders’ wellbeing.

All leadership is complex, especially in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 school closures. The survey we carried out with IPPN members in May showed that the challenges leaders face are multifaceted and complex (Figure 1). What is most evident is the pastoral and social role leaders have in relation to the children they teach and how this can spill into leaders’ personal lives, both physically and emotionally. Leaders found themselves organising food parcels in tandem with curriculum materials for some homes. At the same time, they mentioned supports that served them well. They included well-defined priorities, effective communication, strong team support, and flexibility in relation to the blending face-to-face interaction with the virtual learning space. (Figure 2).

Wellbeing challenges

Time constraints Multiple roles Lack of distributive support DES ‘Friday’ communications Complexity of community supports Engagements with multiple agencies

Wellbeing supports

Exercise and routine Professional networks Frequent contact and communication Well defined priorities Future focused and living in the present Flexibility

Figure 1: Challenges to and support for wellbeing

Well defined priorities

Identify your priorities for the year ahead with the school community Build consensus and try to have wide agreement and ownership keeping your mission and purpose in mind for all planning

Communication

Build a communication plan for staff, parents and students Have frequent connections with two way communication

A strong team

Leading curriculum - what will be your priorities as a school? Leading wellbeign - leader, teacher, support staff, parents, children and community

The virtual learning space

Can your school be flexible and agile if there is another school closure? How can the virtual space support you in leading? Plan for inducting pupils into the virtual space and professional development for leaders

Figure 2: Supports to put in place ahead of reopening in September.

GOING FORWARD

Wellbeing is a complex matter and thus requires a considered approach. Given that we live in such unprecedented times,

school leaders need some practical tools to help them manage their own and others’ wellbeing. Here are four examples of what leaders can do, adapted from Dr Jolanta Burke’s forthcoming book The ultimate guide to implementing wellbeing programmes for school, due to be published in December 2020 by Routledge (London):

1. Stress mindset

For years, we believed that the amount of stress we experience has a detrimental effect on our health. However, in the last few years, research is showing us that what also matters is our attitude towards it, because when the stress does not control us, we start to behave differently. For example, instead of pretending that everything is okay, we acknowledge that we are stressed. Instead of reducing our symptoms of stress, we focus on identifying the sources of stress and take steps to resolve them. Finally, instead of withdrawing from people, we should reach out to them and ask for help. Research conducted with 849 participants in a state organisation in Ireland showed that it doesn’t take much to change our stress mindset (Burke, 2020).

Here is what you can do: ■ When stressed, before leaving the school, write down, in bullet points, what caused you stress today. Then leave the list on your desk, so that you can deal with it tomorrow. ■ The next day, take three main issues from your list that you can do something about and brainstorm ways to deal with them.

Consider who can help you resolve them. If they can’t be resolved completely, making some progress makes us feel better. ■ If an issue stays on your mind while at home with your family, take a piece of paper and write down your deepest thoughts and feelings associated with whatever is on your mind, for 10-20 min. After you have finished writing, do not read it and destroy the paper you wrote it on.

2. Gratitude

Gratitude is the most effective activity known to psychologists, to enhance our wellbeing. In a study with a group of school leaders in Australia, they were asked to count their blessings on the way home after a busy day’s work (Waters and Stokes, 2015). The researchers found that this simple activity allowed the school leaders to find balance, especially after experiencing a lot of stress at work. When we have a stressful day, all we can think about is the stress we’ve experienced or the situations and the people who contributed to it. What this activity does is that it pulls us out of the negative space, into a more balanced and neutral space.

Here is what you can do: ■ On your way home, reflect on what went well (w.w.w.) for you today. ■ When your day is getting out of control, stop and think: it could be worse, if… and speculate what could make the day worse, which may help you put things into perspective.

3. Forgiveness

Research is showing us that while teaching professionals teach and expect forgiveness from children, they often find it difficult to extend it to organisations (Northern and LinsDyer, 2003). There are two types of forgiveness, one is decisional and relates to us deciding not to retaliate when someone does us wrong. The second type of forgiveness is emotional. When we are upset over an institution’s decisions, policies, or other wrongdoings, a lack of emotional forgiveness can be particularly bad for us, as it raises our heartrate and blood pressure and makes us more anxious.

Here is what you can do: ■ Take a piece of paper and write about the benefits of the challenging situation/s you have found yourself in due to some decisions made by an organisation, or a person.

Consider how you are going to grow from this experience, what you will learn as a result of it, and how it will change you for the better. ■ Write a letter of forgiveness to a person, or an institution, in which you detail your feelings towards them and allow yourself to let go of these feelings. Please do not send the letter to anyone, instead discard it after writing.

4. Minding your emotions

When stressed, we often experience more negative than positive emotions. Negative emotions are very useful for us, as they carry important messages about what is happening in our minds, and they serve us well by improving our memory, or finding good arguments for a discussion. However, when we experience too many of them, we may become overwhelmed and simply unhappy. This is why, it is important to mind our emotions throughout the day and find ways to balance them.

Here is what you can do: ■ Plan to play - In the morning before going to school, plan something enjoyable you are going to do that day, be it sitting down for lunch with your team, or spending 10-30 min after work reading your favourite book, or perhaps engaging in your favourite hobby. Make time for the sources of enjoyment you want to experience during the day and make sure you allocate the time to do them. Mind your body – When you are about to embark on a stressful period at work, it is important that you keep your body healthy by eating well and engaging in physical activity. To change your emotions from negative to positive, all you need is 20 minutes of physical activity. Also, eat breakfast, as your body needs the fuel to keep you going. Your food is associated with decision-making. When our sugar levels drop, so do our cognitive abilities and we tend to make more irrational decisions.

Over the last six months, we have carried out and published research to assist you in enhancing your wellbeing and the wellbeing of your school community. Thank you so much for your participation in it. We are humbled and grateful for your help. We will continue in our endeavours, as we plan a number of wellbeingrelated studies at Maynooth University in the forthcoming year. Firstly, we will be organising three teachers’ and principals’ online exchange forums to share pedagogies for wellbeing. In September, we are engaging in another qualitative study about principals’ wellbeing, and ask you to contact us if you wish to be involved in a short online interview. Finally, we are also preparing a short wellbeing survey, which will be sent to you over the next few months, and we would appreciate it if you would take the time to respond to it. We hope that our enhanced knowledge of school principals’ wellbeing will help us build an evidence-based database of wellbeing interventions that you can use daily at work. Please contact Jolanta Burke {Jolanta.burke@ mu.ie}, for further details about any of the wellbeing initiatives planned at Maynooth University.

References available by request to editor@ippn.ie.

A copy of the report is available on request from Maynooth University here:

LINK

See also Dr Burke’s book The ultimate guide to implementing wellbeing programmes for school, London, Routledge, Burke J, to be published December 2020.