(by Amber Dembowski)
Even though we work in the field of education, I think we all recognize that instructional leadership alone isn’t enough. Our role as school leaders includes a mix of Facility Manager to Curriculum Advisor to Customer Service, and everything in between. With so many roles it can be difficult to know what to prioritize, and that’s why it’s important to rely on the research. Studies show us that feeling good at work matters. On average, 27% of educators don’t feel their supervisor recognizes their talents. To put this in perspective, if you’re in a building with 50 staff members, that’s 14 people. That’s incredible. Incredibly sad. I’m going to give it to ya straight – School leaders play a crucial role in teacher well-being and engagement.
Happiness in the workplace is a surefire way to make incredible gains toward school improvement, but we don’t often hear anyone in education talk about the happiness of our teachers, or school leaders, for that matter. What we most often hear about, and can easily correlate to happiness, is school culture. Positive school culture can promote happiness and learning and engagement for the students and the adults in the building. For our purposes, let’s zero in on happiness at work.
According to Martin Selingman, one of the leading researchers on happiness, there are three stages of happiness that build upon each other. Although all three are good places to be, we are our best self when we reach the state of meaningfulness.
Pleasant Life
When we learn to savor and appreciate the simple things in life.
Good Life
When we discover our unique virtues and strengths, and recognize the value within ourselves.
Meaningful Life
When we employ our unique strengths for a purpose greater than ourselves.
A meaningful life calls on our strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge, specifically in the service of others. This sounds like the life of an educator in a nutshell. We are met with challenges everyday. We persevere. We sacrifice to serve others. We learn through it. We show up to do it again.
As I read that statement again …
A meaningful life calls on our strengths to rise to an occasion and meet a challenge, specifically in the service of others …
The one word that stands out is ‘strengths’. Because even though in education we are dealing with a gazillion challenges everyday, and even though we do what we do because we get to serve others, educators are still exhausted from their work – and, often times, unhappy. How could this be when we're living the definition of a meaningful life? Could it be because, as school leaders, we aren’t tapping into, or recognizing the strengths that each teacher brings to the classroom?
Martin Selingman goes on to share five components of happiness, which are all applicable for our understanding in creating a positive school culture.
Positive Emotions
As a school leader this means fostering a positive and supportive work culture.
Engagement
As a school leader this means highlighting, recognizing, and showing appreciation for the strengths of those you work with.
Relationships
As a school leader this means nurturing trust and a sense of belonging.
Meaning
As a school leader this means connecting teacher moves to school improvement.
Accomplishment
As a school leader this means supporting teachers in their practice by providing strength based feedback.
Reading this, I was elated to see how it all aligns with the work of Dembowski Consulting and eudoleadership. Our COIR strategy is simple, yet captures all five of the components that Selingman highlights, AND focuses on the continued growth of teaching and learning.
School Culture and School Improvement are not two entities. They are entangled and webbed together. Without a positive school culture, there certainly won’t be sustainable school improvement. And where there is one, we should always see the other. They should be complementary to each other.
So often, school leaders work on school culture, and then work on school improvement. Separating them as if they are two fields divided by a fence, and the farmer, or school leader in our case, must open and close the fence between the two fields of school culture and school improvement each time they go to tend to the crop.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. When the fence is removed the two fields become one, the crops begin to creep into the other neighboring field, creating crop diversity, preserving soil fertility and profitability. Your farming methods, by creating this type of crop environment, is more sustainable and takes less energy.
Although this analogy is not intended as advice for any farmers, Ha!, it does serve as a great analogy as you work to cultivate a strong school culture and strive toward school improvement. You can work more efficiently by focusing on both school culture and school improvement when you remove the fence. The COIR strategy helps do that. Reach out to Dembowski Consulting to learn more.
You can read more about finding happiness in the book Flourish. Without focusing on happiness, you're missing the boat on school culture. And without a positive school culture, you'll never see the sustained school improvement that you're striving to achieve. Our most pivotal role as a school leader is to find a way to propagate both, creating a hybrid that is stronger than either of them separately.
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