Keith D. Walker – författare

Most educators will agree that they would love to see each student and staff member in schools flourish. Furthermore, it would be great to see entire communities experience the transformative power of circumstances that feature happy and vibrant learning. However, what does it mean to experience flourishing in schools? What is the role of positive leadership in this process? What can we learn from inquiring into the positive emotional and social aspects of the work of school leaders? Building on our research on flourishing in schools, this book highlights the stories and perspectives of educators and school leaders at all levels of the school system and demonstrate the intricacies of how positive leadership contributes to well-being in schools and encourages flourishing in these schools.

This book aligns with a growing shift in psychology and organizational studies to frame research using phenomena and constructs such as resilience, compassion, hope, efficacy, self-determination and meaningfulness at work and in other areas of life. Research findings from the disciplines of both positive psychology and positive organization studies bring these positive research intelligences into the field of education to study what works in school leadership practices, what goes well, what supports growth, and what brings vitality to people in school organizations. Research in positive psychology contends that attending to the strengths, positive outlooks, habits and mental models, as opposed to a deficit-oriented perspective, is beneficial to increasing subjective wellbeing, by increasing resilience, vitality, and happiness and decreasing stress, anxiety, and depression. How we imagine leading, teaching and learning in schools are implicated in these understandings and help us to contemplate the benefits of focus positive leadership in school organizations. Powerful insights into human inquiry and positive psychology are gained through qualitative study and most of the chapters of this book are grounded in such research.

Importantly, chapters in this book provide a varied repertoire of answers to the question that underpins this shift in research toward a positive organizational perspective: How does positive leadership leverage what works well to instill in each community member a sense of their value and capacity to contribute, encourage wellbeing for all and create school contexts of flourishing? This edited collection provides many examples, invitations, and inspiration for readers to notice in their own contexts in ways that encourage them to shift and grow through moving toward appreciative, strengths-based, positive approaches to teaching, learning, and, especially, leading in all school contexts.

Based on their 15 years of research on trust in education, the authors describe the nature and dimensions of trust, its importance and imperative, and its fragility and usefulness for school leaders, positioning them as trust brokers in school organizations. The book offers a detailed description of trust’s lifecycle stages, namely establishing, maintaining, sustaining, breaking, and restoring, as pertinent to educational settings. It discusses leaders'' trust brokering in relation to social capital and psychological contract and interconnected hosting virtues of compassion, hope, and trust. The authors conclude with the role of maturing vision of moral agency, the subjective and objective responsibilities of educational leaders, and the necessary ethical commitments and courage to enact transformative practices in order to provide trustworthy leadership.

With its theoretical and empirical basis, this book is an excellent resource for scholars in the fields of education, business, and leadership. It is also a valuable resource as required or supplementary reading for graduate courses in educational administration, leadership, and policy studies. Practitioners in these areas will find valuable insights that they can incorporate into their work.

There has been an increased focus on the need to address the wellbeing and mental health challenges that affect humans across organizational settings, including the higher education sector.

This comprehensive Handbook is organized into three sections: student wellbeing, faculty and leader wellbeing, and wellbeing initiatives at institutional or systems-level. Scholars from around the globe discuss initiatives, practices, and structures that provide a positive outlook on individual and organizational flourishing in higher learning and offer lessons from efforts to promote positive emotional and social aspects for students, leaders, and faculty. Topics include student resilience and leadership, supervisory relationships, appreciative mentoring, student thriving, issues of mental and physical health, faculty and leader wellbeing, development of wellbeing interventions and health promotion frameworks, and international student wellbeing.

The interventions and experiences presented in The Emerald Handbook of Wellbeing in Higher Education are aimed at enhancing flourishing among students, faculty and staff, and across institutions. This Handbook will be helpful to higher education leaders and managers as they consider ways to promote and implement wellbeing strategies within their institutions, whilst encouraging all readers to adopt an appreciative, strengths-based, positive approach to teaching, learning, and leading in higher education contexts.

There has been an increased focus on the need to address the wellbeing and mental health challenges that affect humans across organizational settings, including the higher education sector.

This comprehensive Handbook is organized into three sections: student wellbeing, faculty and leader wellbeing, and wellbeing initiatives at institutional or systems-level. Scholars from around the globe discuss initiatives, practices, and structures that provide a positive outlook on individual and organizational flourishing in higher learning and offer lessons from efforts to promote positive emotional and social aspects for students, leaders, and faculty. Topics include student resilience and leadership, supervisory relationships, appreciative mentoring, student thriving, issues of mental and physical health, faculty and leader wellbeing, development of wellbeing interventions and health promotion frameworks, and international student wellbeing.

The interventions and experiences presented in The Emerald Handbook of Wellbeing in Higher Education are aimed at enhancing flourishing among students, faculty and staff, and across institutions. This Handbook will be helpful to higher education leaders and managers as they consider ways to promote and implement wellbeing strategies within their institutions, whilst encouraging all readers to adopt an appreciative, strengths-based, positive approach to teaching, learning, and leading in higher education contexts.