Wan Maroof, a School Culture and Wellbeing Practitioner within the Culture Development Service in Wales, reflected on why healthy workplace cultures benefit the whole community.
Have you ever felt anxious before walking through the gates at your school or education setting? Or found yourself ruminating on the interactions you had with your colleagues that day? When we think about the pressures facing education staff, the focus is often on workload, challenging classrooms, and staff shortages, but another factor that can have a huge impact on how you feel at work is the culture.
Education Support’s most recent Teacher Wellbeing Index found that half of education staff said their school culture negatively affects their mental health.
In my role, I work with schools in Wales to identify factors that both positively and negatively affect their culture and explore any underlying assumptions and beliefs that may be acting as barriers to meaningful change and staff wellbeing. This allows you to take small steps towards cultivating a positive culture, where staff feel valued.
What is culture?
Professor Edgar Schein describes culture as a set of underlying norms, beliefs, and values that are shared in a team and developed as you learn how to navigate challenges. These ways of thinking, feeling and problem-solving are passed on to new members of the team as the accepted way of working.
Thus, workplace culture is not only about the values an organisation promotes, but how these values show up in everyday behaviours. For example, how you talk to each other in the staffroom or how you react if someone makes a mistake.
Researcher Bréne Brown’s work on organisational culture emphasises how failing to translate values into behaviours can lead to cultures forming on their own, which may not be linked to the organisation’s original vision or mission.
The values you shape your working environment around are central to creating the culture you want to embody, and yet, from our work we’ve found that leaders are not always clear on the meaning behind their school’s values. This has led to staff feeling disconnected from their setting’s values or believing that they are purely centred around the learners and not relevant to them.
Anchoring to your values as a school or education setting
Leader Aiko Bethea argues that workplaces with positive cultures are ones where they are anchored to their values, reflect these in their behaviours, and hold themselves and each other accountable. This framework moves away from simply naming your values to thinking about how your behaviours are shaped by them. Values should be more than just the words you put on display in the corridor.
Aiko suggests you must connect the dots between words and actions and think about what impact you want to have on those around you.
Having clarity around the expectations and behaviours associated with your values will help you when you need to make a difficult decision or navigate a situation under pressure. For example, if one of your settings values is compassion, what does this look like when a colleague is late providing some important information to you?
A compassionate response could look like taking a minute to pause and consider what else may be going on for that colleague, so that you can approach the conversation with curiosity rather than judgement. This way, you’re still holding them accountable, but in a way that reflects this value.
Reflective questions – what values are most important to you?
You might like to answer these quick questions yourself, or as a team, to help you reflect on your values:
1) Think about one of your values
What feels important to you?
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2) Link to behaviours
How does this value show up in your behaviours?
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3) Apply pressure
What happens to these behaviours when you’re under pressure? Do they contradict your values?
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4) Observe impact
How might your colleagues experience your behaviours?
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5) Repair and learn
What do you need to acknowledge or do differently?
Source: Adapted from Brené Brown, Living Into Our Values
A final reflection on culture
Culture isn’t created by the values you put on your website or display on your walls, it’s formed through the choices you make every day, particularly when you’re stressed and living your values feels difficult.
If you can repeatedly translate your values into observable behaviours, they become more than just words. They become part of who you are as a school or education setting and the culture you create for your pupils, colleagues and wider community.
Staff Wellbeing Service for schools in Wales – sign up today!
The Staff Wellbeing Service is funded by Welsh Government, aimed at improving the mental health of school staff across the country. The service offers free advice and support, including free online sessions with fully qualified supervisors for headteachers, school leaders, and managers, and practical, expert guidance from Staff Wellbeing Advisors.
The service is designed to help school leaders and managers transform their approach to staff mental health and wellbeing, providing a confidential space for reflection and conversation. It has supported over 1,300 heads, school leaders and managers, helping them to create a positive culture and improve staff wellbeing.
Hear first-hand from staff in Wales who have benefited so far, and sign up for monthly newsletter updates featuring free bilingual staff wellbeing resources.