Podium Presentation - 10 minutes International Positive Psychology Association 8th IPPA World Congress 2023

Leadership for Flourishing: Positive Approaches to Relationship Building in Education (#255)

Benjamin Kutsyuruba 1
  1. Education, Queen's University, KINGSTON, ON, Canada

Background

Healthy schools can promote students’ thriving only if adults within them also experience well-being (Louis & Murphy, 2018). An ecological perspective allows to emphasize connectedness, contextual interdependency, and symbiotic relationships wherein challenges for some implicate difficulties for others, and celebrations of some have ramifications on the lives of others (Walker et al., 2021). There are direct and indirect benefits of paying attention to wellbeing of leaders who notice and respond to challenges and issues from a positive, generative, and appreciative approach (Cooperrider, 2013; Roffey, 2008). 

Aims

This research study examined perceptions of flourishing in the work lives of national award-winning principals in the Canada’s Outstanding Principals (COP) program. The research purpose was to examine how these outstanding principals experienced the sense of flourishing and what factors, in their opinion, contributed to working environments in schools where flourishing was possible and sustainable.

Method

The exploratory mixed-methods research study of Canada’s Outstanding Principals entailed an online survey with 62 closed and 12 open-ended questions grouped into the following categories: flow, flourishing and thriving, resilience, grit, and well-being (Kutsyuruba et al., 2021), followed by interviews with 20 COP awardees from the survey sample. This presentation draws on the qualitative data obtained from open-ended survey questions and interviews.

Results

This findings demonstrated the deep entanglement of the principals’ flourishing with that of others through the relational aspects of their work lives. Flourishing in schools, as living ecosystems, is a cyclical phenomenon based on the relational interdependence and a combination of intrapersonal and interpersonal factors (Keyes, 2016).  

Conclusion

Findings suggest the need to focus on the ecological development of relational quality school-wide, for both educational excellence and authentic flourishing of all (Roffey, 2012). Since relationships seem to be the most influential facet of school principals’ flourishing, the utter transformation of how principals interact with and draw energy from people could be a hidden yet strong contributor to addressing languishing and negative interactions in schools.

  1. Cooperrider, D. L. (2013). The spark, the flame, and the torch: The positive arc of systemic strengths in the appreciative inquiry design summit. In D. L. Cooperrider & M. Avital (Eds.), Organizational generativity: The appreciative inquiry summit and a scholarship of transformation (pp. 211-248). Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/s1475-9152(2013)0000004008
  2. Keyes, C. (2016). Why flourishing? In D. W. Harward (Ed.), Well-being and higher education (pp. 99-108). Bringing Theory to Practice.
  3. Kutsyuruba, B., Kharyati, T., & Arghash, N. (2021). Exploring the sense of flourishing among Canada’s Outstanding Principals. In K. Walker, B. Kutsyuruba, & S. Cherkowski (Eds.), Positive leadership for flourishing schools (pp. 231-252). Information Age Publishing.
  4. Roffey, S. (2008). Emotional literacy and the ecology of school well-being. Educational & Child Psychology, 25(2), 29-39.
  5. Roffey, S. (2012). Developing positive relationships in schools. In S. Roffey (Ed.), Positive relationships: Evidence based practice across the world (pp. 145-162). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2147-0_9
  6. Walker, K., Kutsyuruba, B., & Cherkowski, S. (Eds.). (2021). Positive leadership for flourishing schools. Information Age Publishing.
  • Please select up to 3 keywords from the following list to best describe your submission content: Education, Leadership/Management, Relationships