What are some critical emotional intelligence skills for educators?

In preparing for an upcoming school leader wellbeing panel, the host shared the above question with me and my first thought was ‘how long have you got?’ Echoing school-based social and emotional learning competencies, emotional literacy considers characteristics around the awareness and management of self and relationships with others. In our panel context, I loved that he was asking both for student outcomes but also for educators’ own wellbeing.

We bring our own biases and favourite topics to panels, and mine is absolutely protecting and promoting school staff mental health at work. Emotional literacy skills I see as contributing to this for staff and leaders include:

• Self-awareness and the ‘self-other’ distinction – In our work in schools, we are around the emotional experiences of others all the time. We often form very close relationships with colleagues, and we are present to students’ lives and development as part of the job. It can be easy to be very empathetic in all of these experiences, but if this is an enduring stance that we take, it can also be exhausting and unsustainable. Understanding what is mine to hold, and what is another person’s, is very helpful here – feeling ‘for’ others not always ‘with’ them.
• Emotional labour – In schools, staff are required to display appropriate emotions and dispositions. Sometimes this aligns with how we genuinely feel, at other times we act, and display what’s required while feeling something else, and still other times we might try and reappraise, and try to shift into a genuine experience of what’s expected. This is a big conversation but the take-away here is that this takes energy, and if we can build our awareness of what’s going on we are less likely to be fatigued or impacted by what’s required.
• Social connections and asking for help – We can be great at supporting others, and terrible at asking for support ourselves! The complexity of work in schools means that the idea of the solo teacher with a closed door is long gone; working comfortably together in teams allows us to weather bad days, share our observations for others’ thoughts, and feel safe and supported. Starting with minor requests can be one way to build capacity here if we aren’t used to asking.

Melinda Phillips, Director/Principal Psychologist at Compassionate Schools.
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