I have had the pleasure of working with and presenting alongside thought leaders in the field of mindfulness, sharing these insights with leaders across the world, particularly in Australia, and helping them navigate their high-pressure roles. The strategies have enabled them to grow more resilient, have greater focus, and build a culture of wellness in their schools, thus ensuring that teachers and students are better equipped to handle the growing pressures of our fast-paced society.
These strategies are best summarized by the words “Take time.” Take time to be grateful and to build relationships. These two strategies build a mentally stronger, more resilient, more joyous, and more focused leader.
Take Time to Be Grateful
Gratitude is a key mindset that creates a calmer, more joyous outlook on life. Gratitude enables people to refocus on what they have instead of what they lack. While it may feel a little contrived at first, this mental state grows stronger with practice. With gratitude, people are more aware of the goodness in their lives. Gratitude also helps them connect to something outside of themselves: a higher power, nature, or other people. In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly connected to greater happiness, helping people deal with adversity and build strong relationships.People feel, cultivate, and express gratitude in various ways. Consider these:
- Weekly gratitude notes. School leaders can model gratitude by writing weekly gratitude notes and encouraging teachers (and then students) to do the same. Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, found that a personally delivered letter of gratitude resulted in a massive increase in happiness scores.1 The impact was far larger than that of other interventions that were studied, with benefits lasting for several weeks. While such studies do not always point to cause and effect, they do indicate a correlation between gratitude and the mental well-being of an individual.
- At the end of a semester at Principia in St. Louis, Missouri, my school principal and I have all teachers gather to celebrate success. Cards are placed on the tables for teachers to write notes of gratitude to their peers. While thank-you cards are encouraged throughout the year, we also give time at the end of each semester in a final faculty meeting to focus on writing gratitude cards for peers. It has created a positive atmosphere and an expectation of good. The benefits are seen in better trust, teamwork, communication, creativity, and innovation.
- Mentally thank someone. Even if you have no time to write, thinking about and mentally thanking the individual has positive effects on well-being for the person doing the thinking.
- Keep a gratitude journal and in it count all your blessings. Write about the positive experiences of each day. Either simply list them, or reflect on the sensations you felt when something good occurred.
- Pray or meditate. People can use prayer to nurture gratitude or mindfulness meditation to focus on and appreciate the present moment.
- “Magnify the good” with faculty. I find this the most powerful ingredient of any successful school. I expect the chairperson of any meeting to begin with “Magnify the good.” This is an opportunity for people to celebrate the successes of their peers, their students, and their own and others’ practice. Faculty know they could be called on at any time to share celebrations of good so they are always on the lookout for good. It becomes an individual and collective mindset, with people looking for the good in others. It starts off slowly, but after a few months, this agenda item needs to be timed because so much good is shared. Magnifying the good creates a culture of positivity, trust, and growth — all key ingredients of a healthy culture. A school where I used this strategy became the top-ranked coeducational school in the state, with many of the faculty pointing to this practice as a key lever in their success.
Take Time to Build Relationships
Good relationships, more than the quantity, are at the center of mental wellness. This is what Stephen Covey meant when he wrote about prioritizing the “Big Rocks.”2 Big rocks are important relationships like those with your spouse or partner, children, parents, friends, and colleagues. Good leaders are purposeful about identifying and building key relationships and prioritizing time for them in the week.However, it’s not just being in a relationship that matters, it’s the quality of them too. One of the longest and most complete studies of adult life ever conducted was done by Harvard psychiatrist Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development. The study found that people who were closer to others were mentally and physically healthier and lived longer than those not as socially connected. Work pressures tend to force us to work harder and longer, yet these long-term studies show that the people who outperform others invested in their relationships with family, friends, and colleagues.3
The leader’s awareness of the needs of others grows as he or she takes the time to connect with faculty, students, parents, and key stakeholders. Taking this time allows a deeper sensibility to emerge and more compassion, understanding, and empathy to flow. Consider these ways to build relationships:
- Stand at the front of the school building at the start and end of each day.
- Do weekly check-in phone calls to five families a week.
- Send a thank-you note to a spouse whose partner has given up several evenings with his or her family for school events.
- Socialize with a quick coffee, a lunch, or even a dinner at your home. I know of a principal who invited each of his faculty members and their partners once a year to dinners at his home to foster relationships.
- Spend time with students. Another principal I worked with blocked out each morning from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. to spend time in class or in his office with students. He took the time to be emotionally present and listen to them. Good relationships foster mental well-being.
In an increasingly complex school environment, leaders need to take the time to build their mental resilience and mental health. New levels of consciousness arise when gratitude and important relationships are nurtured. Leaders can tap into these to build community, instigate change, and encourage innovation. A more positive and healthy state of mind focuses on the uniquely positive qualities and capabilities of people and schools and uses these as the basis for improvement and change.
Notes
1. Harvard Mental Health Letter, “In Praise of Gratitude,” November 2011; online at http://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/in-praise-of-gratitude.
2. Steven R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic (rev. ed.) (New York: Free Press, 2004).
3. Tanya Lewis, “A Harvard Psychiatrist Says 3 Things Are the Secret to Real Happiness,” Business Insider, December 29, 2015; online at http://robertwaldinger.com/harvard-psychiatrist-says-3-things-secret-real-happiness/.