Leading through adversity: strategies to maintain personal wellbeing

School leaders at every level are faced with adversity all too often. Whether critical incidents or adverse weather events, complex families or complicated staff matters, leaders have to (often continually) respond to unexpected challenges while still leading their team, portfolio, or school. When I speak with leaders in these circumstances, the first topic of conversation is often to check they have the information and support needed to complete the required tasks. But what comes after this? Depending on the nature of the adversity (one-off or ongoing), different approaches can be helpful, but in all cases these three key strategies may prove helpful:

1. Turbocharge self-care: this may sound counter-intuitive to some, obvious to others, and unnecessary to still more … but I witness, and name, and provide counsel on the impacts of this every day of the week. I wonder if it is something to do with the temperament of teachers and leaders that we don’t rate ourselves in this equation? We can’t make our best decisions, maintain composure (and hopefully a warm and enthusiastic presence) and keep up with the pace of complex circumstances if we aren’t prioritising ourselves – sleep, food, water, connection, favourite things.
2. Delegate: whether you are leading a classroom team or a 2000 strong workforce, when there are additional circumstances taking your attention, hand over some of your straightforward tasks if you can. School staff are masters at multi-tasking, but the cognitive load of managing through adversity means we want to free up bandwidth where possible. People generally want to help, and you don’t need to go into details about why – but if you can shift a task or two for a week (or month) or two, do it.
3. Stay connected: supportive colleagues at school and family/friends outside of school are both groups to remain connected to. We can feel like isolating ourselves to get things done more quickly, and sometimes even because decision making under pressure is hard, and we mightn’t feel like seeing other people. Hanging in there with contact with at least one or two others is good for our health though, as it reminds us that we are more than just our jobs and to-do lists – we are people who benefit from care, just as others do.

Melinda Phillips, Director/Principal Psychologist at Compassionate Schools.
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