How Can Education Leaders Prevent Workplace Stress?

The Education Support's 2023 Teacher Wellbeing Index has, once again, highlighted some of the key challenges facing education staff - teachers, leaders, and support staff.

The headline results show that:

• Stress is at an all-time high, with 78% of school and college staff, 89% of senior leaders and 95% of headteachers experiencing work related stress.
• 21% of teachers and 24% of leaders are facing acute stress.
• 39% of staff had mental health issues due to work, another all-time high.
• 35% of staff and 40% of senior leaders also reported signs of burnout.
• 55% of staff said their institution's culture negatively impacted the mental health and wellbeing of staff.
• 71% of staff agreed that inspections negatively impact the mental health and wellbeing of staff and 73% believed they do not improve student outcomes.

With stress, depression, and anxiety accounting for 51% of all work-related ill health in 2021-22 (HSE, 2022), it's clear to see the impact that poor staff wellbeing has on outcomes - and it has taken a further downturn in the past 12 months. Sadly these findings will come as no surprise to most of us working in education.

So, while we wait and hope for the impossible - the government carrying out major reforms and significantly increasing funding, what can school leaders do to better look after and support the wellbeing of the staff they lead?

Tips for Leaders

Good staff wellbeing is all about culture and climate and making sure that decisions taken consider the impact on staff and their needs. This is also the best way to ensure students achieve their best academic and all-round outcomes too. The ten tips below will need leaders to create time each day to implement and sustain them, though many can be built into everyday schedules.

Leaders often talk up staff wellbeing as a priority, and if they want to reduce staff stress, reduce likely burnout, and keep more staff in the profession, then their actions need to match.

1. Manage yourself, and your staff will follow your lead: Whatever you are facing, it’s important to stay calm and manage your thinking. It is the quality of thinking that underpins actions, outcomes, and how you are feeling. Otherwise, worry can take over; you catastrophise and become overwhelmed during challenging or stressful times. Start by thinking regularly about your own current state – how are you thinking, feeling, and behaving? Having a high level of self-awareness is important and can be developed through reflection. Focus on things that are within your control and dismiss those that are not. Some people find it helpful to write their worries down in two lists, one for the controllable and one for those things they cannot control.

2. Communicate, communicate, communicate: Whether things are going well or whether you’re facing challenging times, staff need to understand what is going on. Facts are neutral, so share them and make sure staff have the information they need to do their job, including making sure they understand why things are done. If there are good lines of communication in calm times, this will pay off on the days when you have difficult messages to convey. Use a range of channels to ensure information is delivered consistently and confidently. With all the free technology available, this can feel relatively easy, though this can lead to complacency and needs to be managed well. Through personal contact and using other leaders and colleagues, you can ensure everyone feels connected.

3. Keep the conversation going: Life is busy, school timetables are inflexible, and there are competing demands for time. So, how can you hold regular check-ins and one-to-ones with team members? They must be scheduled in your calendar if you want to be confident that they will happen. They can take the form of just a few minutes regularly asking how people are and listening to them. If you make this a key leadership habit, you will see a real difference.

4. Make decisions: Indecision leads to uncertainty, confusion, apprehension, anxiety, and other emotions that are unlikely to be helpful in leading a team, particularly in challenging times. It also lowers trust. If it turns out you made the wrong decision, that’s OK, and you can learn from it. The best leaders are adaptable and can be honest when circumstances change or new information comes to light. Don’t spread yourself too thin – focus on the most important decisions first. Think through what will have the biggest impact for you and your team.

5. Trust your staff to use their knowledge and experience: Offering support and guidance to your team is usually a positive for them, though you must allow them to use their knowledge and experience. When staff feel they are in control and not subject to micro-management, stress and the risk of burnout are likely to reduce. Allow staff a say in setting their goals and manage them through outcomes, giving room for creative license. This will reduce your workload, too.

6. Take a coaching approach: Coaching is designed to raise awareness and develop responsibility in others by using effective questioning and listening skills. It’s usually non-directive, targets specific goals or outcomes, and forms the basis of a leadership style by raising awareness of both. To become highly effective takes training and practise – yet you can coach with just one question. The next time one of your team asks you a question, reflect it back – “What would you suggest? How would you do it? What options are there?”

7. Make praise part of every day: Schools are often great at shout-outs, sending staff messages, and saying thank you by email. Yet they often miss out on giving praise in the moment. While it can be hard to do this when your staff are dispersed across a site, when it’s done well, the impact will be significant. Set a goal to catch people doing things right every day while going about your everyday taskss and managing while walking around. This means being in the present, rather than thinking about all the things that need doing and spotting the brilliant things that happen around you.

8. Don’t avoid ‘difficult’ conversations: Sometimes things go wrong, or staff don’t behave or perform in line with what has been agreed. When this is not tackled, it can lead to stress for those involved and cause resentment in the wider team. It's important they are dealt with promptly. Identify when these conversations need to happen and prepare for them – it is the lack of preparation or fear about not being able to respond appropriately that means many leaders label them as difficult. By running through possible scenarios and ensuring you have the evidence available, you will be ready for any eventuality.

9. Distribute leadership: This means sharing responsibility and accountability as widely as possible, and it can make a real difference, as leadership is an act and not simply a position. This takes more of the pressure off senior and middle leaders if done effectively, with every individual taking greater ownership. It also means team members having greater autonomy, with the benefits this brings to wellbeing.

10. Create a psychological safe environment: All the previous tips will contribute to what is probably the number one requirement for having a low stress environment.

“A belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. and that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking”

This quote is from Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and who coined the phrase psychological safety. In the high stakes accountability of our education system, creating an environment where staff can speak up, ask questions, and share mistakes is so important.

How is the wellbeing of the staff in your trust or school?

The Teacher Wellbeing Index provides one snapshot of where staff may be sitting in terms of the areas measured and shared at the start of this article. Do you know how your staff are feeling?

One of the key areas for focus, if you want to know what action to take to improve staff wellbeing is to really understand where you are now and to track progress made. That’s also commitment 11 in the DfE’s Education Staff Wellbeing Charter.

The evidence-based and independently evaluated survey used by Welbee is recognised in the charter and forms the first step of 'The Welbee Way' - Welbee's systematic approach to improving wellbeing in trusts and schools.

Unlike other survey providers, The Welbee Way includes recommended actions based on your survey results and gives your leaders and all staff tools and resources to better manage their own wellbeing and embed it into your culture.

If understanding where you are now, knowing what to focus on first, and being supported with actions sounds interesting, then we'd love to say hello. Click here to book a 30-minute meeting with one of the team.

The tips above focus on how leaders can lead in a way that supports the wellbeing of staff. It is also important that all staff, including leaders can better look after and protect themselves from stress and burnout, and are able to manage their own wellbeing? Check out our separate guide for everyone who works in education by clicking here.