I have written many times about emotional well-being, stress and personal impact but that normally appears in my other blog "Teachers' Minds Matter" however this is the place to discuss the well-being of leaders. This article is simply a personal take on the matter and designed to ask you to reflect on your own actions and those of others. If you want a definitive view then I would recommend Staying Ahead by Viv Grant. In the posting "It's alright to be afraid" I talked about the courage that it takes to be a teacher and a leader. This post is largely anecdotal and may seem a little scrappy but I hope that the opinions and tales may be useful.
The danger of super-heads and super-leaders (even if you are one)!
Take care with your workload, for 2 reasons, firstly the impact on you and secondly on your colleagues. Hard work is one thing but inevitably your colleagues will look at you working your 60 hour week and thinking that they should be doing the same. Your actions place pressure on others (especially if you are good at your job) to aspire to your standards and workload. Unwittingly you could be making the lives of your colleagues much harder as they attempt to emulate you. Guilt is powerful and they may feel that if they are not matching you hour for hour then they are failing. I have worked for "super-leaders", and I always promised myself I wouldn't be one.
The first point was about personal impact. Be careful that the price you pay isn't too high. I would suggest annualising your hours and then working out how many 37.5 hour weeks you would need to do this amount of work. I tend to come out at around 60-ish weeks without holidays; that is far too much and I know I need to practise what I preach but please be wary. It is also salient to see then what you actually earn an hour! These hours will have an impact on relationships and potentially on both physical and mental health. So please be conscious of the demands.
Quickly forgotten
I understand that we do want to make an impact of the lives of children, we want to make learning fun, memorable and meaningful, but we need to ensure that we maintain balance. We can't be brilliant all of the time, we can't be hero teachers for 39 weeks a year and at times we do need to do a wordsearch just to allow us to take a breath. In my second post I worked with a venerable old science teacher who had been in the school for 30-odd years. He was a great teacher, the children loved him and the staff valued his wisdom. He took me under his arm and guided my early career. I was once off for a few days with a bad cold and came back to work probably too soon. He took me to one side and pointed out that I was not indispensable and ultimately I would only make it worse for myself and disadvantage the children more by being off longer.
But that wasn't the point I really anted to make. The teacher retired and was soon replaced. Within 2 weeks of the beginning of term his name was never mentioned again at school. 30-odd years off service and a 2 week legacy. No-one is irreplaceable. No matter how much you do, how hard you work and how much it impacts you you will be forgotten (unless you are catastrophically bad!). Have pride, do your job well, but don't sacrifice yourself for a legacy you will not have.
Stepping back
Many years ago I was working as a head of department. I tried to be a super-leader, working very long hours, placing unreasonable expectations on others, ruining my relationships at home and basically being a total arse. I eventually realised, though "prompted" by my wife, that this was all going horribly wrong and that changes were needed. Without dwelling on my home life too much I knew something had to give. I gave up the responsibility, handed over the load to a willing successor and went back to mainscale. Yes I missed the money but all of a sudden my week shortened by 20 hours, home became happier and I became healthier. By the time I left the school the hullabaloo over my stepping-down was long forgotten and by now I am a dim and distant memory only to be found in old year books.
Looking after your colleagues
Your colleagues will look to you for leadership and direction. My leadership goes beyond education and I regularly take on a pastoral role with staff. Whether you like it or not, you set the tome and expectations, you become a role model and so you have a responsibility to your staff to be a positive role model in all ways. Think of their well-being when bragging about hours worked, books marked and schemes of learning written. It may be unintentional but this is added pressure.
Looking after yourself
You have responsibilities, to your staff and probably family. Leadership in schools at any level can be physically tiring and emotionally demanding. The effects of these builds up over time and if you are not careful you hit a wall where pressure becomes stress, productivity drops like a stone and so does your emotional and physical health. So please work sensibly, get enough sleep, give yourself down-time, eat well and spend time with others.
An ex-colleague of mine used to pint out on a regular basis that you are a long time dead, so make sure you get in plenty of life whilst you can.
The danger of super-heads and super-leaders (even if you are one)!
Take care with your workload, for 2 reasons, firstly the impact on you and secondly on your colleagues. Hard work is one thing but inevitably your colleagues will look at you working your 60 hour week and thinking that they should be doing the same. Your actions place pressure on others (especially if you are good at your job) to aspire to your standards and workload. Unwittingly you could be making the lives of your colleagues much harder as they attempt to emulate you. Guilt is powerful and they may feel that if they are not matching you hour for hour then they are failing. I have worked for "super-leaders", and I always promised myself I wouldn't be one.
The first point was about personal impact. Be careful that the price you pay isn't too high. I would suggest annualising your hours and then working out how many 37.5 hour weeks you would need to do this amount of work. I tend to come out at around 60-ish weeks without holidays; that is far too much and I know I need to practise what I preach but please be wary. It is also salient to see then what you actually earn an hour! These hours will have an impact on relationships and potentially on both physical and mental health. So please be conscious of the demands.
Quickly forgotten
I understand that we do want to make an impact of the lives of children, we want to make learning fun, memorable and meaningful, but we need to ensure that we maintain balance. We can't be brilliant all of the time, we can't be hero teachers for 39 weeks a year and at times we do need to do a wordsearch just to allow us to take a breath. In my second post I worked with a venerable old science teacher who had been in the school for 30-odd years. He was a great teacher, the children loved him and the staff valued his wisdom. He took me under his arm and guided my early career. I was once off for a few days with a bad cold and came back to work probably too soon. He took me to one side and pointed out that I was not indispensable and ultimately I would only make it worse for myself and disadvantage the children more by being off longer.
But that wasn't the point I really anted to make. The teacher retired and was soon replaced. Within 2 weeks of the beginning of term his name was never mentioned again at school. 30-odd years off service and a 2 week legacy. No-one is irreplaceable. No matter how much you do, how hard you work and how much it impacts you you will be forgotten (unless you are catastrophically bad!). Have pride, do your job well, but don't sacrifice yourself for a legacy you will not have.
Stepping back
Many years ago I was working as a head of department. I tried to be a super-leader, working very long hours, placing unreasonable expectations on others, ruining my relationships at home and basically being a total arse. I eventually realised, though "prompted" by my wife, that this was all going horribly wrong and that changes were needed. Without dwelling on my home life too much I knew something had to give. I gave up the responsibility, handed over the load to a willing successor and went back to mainscale. Yes I missed the money but all of a sudden my week shortened by 20 hours, home became happier and I became healthier. By the time I left the school the hullabaloo over my stepping-down was long forgotten and by now I am a dim and distant memory only to be found in old year books.
Looking after your colleagues
Your colleagues will look to you for leadership and direction. My leadership goes beyond education and I regularly take on a pastoral role with staff. Whether you like it or not, you set the tome and expectations, you become a role model and so you have a responsibility to your staff to be a positive role model in all ways. Think of their well-being when bragging about hours worked, books marked and schemes of learning written. It may be unintentional but this is added pressure.
Looking after yourself
You have responsibilities, to your staff and probably family. Leadership in schools at any level can be physically tiring and emotionally demanding. The effects of these builds up over time and if you are not careful you hit a wall where pressure becomes stress, productivity drops like a stone and so does your emotional and physical health. So please work sensibly, get enough sleep, give yourself down-time, eat well and spend time with others.
An ex-colleague of mine used to pint out on a regular basis that you are a long time dead, so make sure you get in plenty of life whilst you can.
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