What does the evidence say about how our teachers’ wellbeing is defined, supported and measured across the country?
This was the probing question behind recent analysis led by researcher Paul Faci from La Trobe University, which canvasses some 35 peer reviewed articles on Australian teacher wellbeing published between 2015 and 2025.
While teacher wellbeing is increasingly framed as a critical issue impacting the workforce, research gives little attention to practical approaches that can be taken by schools to address it – at least ones that go beyond building individual resilience, the study found.
Across 15 studies, supportive school leadership was found to be the foundational pillar of teacher wellbeing, with five showing how it actually translates into measurable gains.
“Qualitative evidence from eight of these studies showed that valuing teacher voice, building relational trust, and embedding shared responsibility through everyday interactions were central to effective leadership practice,” the researchers note.
One 2024 study emphasised that empathy, approachability, flexibility, recognition, and support that was seen as genuine were core leadership traits that enhance both teachers’ professional satisfaction and the overall workplace climate in schools.
Other research has flagged that while teachers can address some aspects of their own wellbeing, it is the leadership team that is responsible for identifying the demands of the job, ensuring proper resourcing (including professional development) and managing the school culture.
“When these factors are not supporting teacher wellbeing, they become ‘environmental stress(ors)’ for the teacher. There is an inverse relationship between the two. The higher these stressors are, the lower the staff wellbeing becomes,” researchers warned.
Leadership also need to be aware of their communication style with staff, they added.
“Principals are often not aware that they are able to regulate staff emotions through their interactions. Communication styles, such as a positive tone in comparison to a negative one, will influence staff emotions.
“To further strengthen the leadership-teacher relationship, principals need to mentor individual staff members by displaying compassion, trust, and respect, thereby supporting teachers and enabling a stronger sense of efficacy by supporting confidence in their own skills.”
There is scant research which looks at Australian school leaders' readiness to lead in teacher wellbeing.
So what are the hallmarks of an unsupportive school leadership?
Faci’s research suggests it can arise when there is a “disconnect between teachers’ day-to-day work and leaders’ understanding of that work”.
This tension is illustrated by one teacher’s reflection:
“Sometimes you feel frustrated that those above you don’t necessarily know what you are doing … they get so caught up in all the administration that they forget about the teachers.”
Four studies highlighted the detrimental effects of tokenistic or ‘autonomy-thwarting’ leadership on teachers’ wellbeing.
“Together, these findings show how leadership both shapes and is constrained by growing administrative and accountability demands, pointing to workload as a central pressure on teacher wellbeing,” the study asserts.
Across the review, teachers described their wellbeing as being undermined by autonomy-thwarting practices, such as leaders being invisible or inaccessible, excluding staff from decision making, and not listening to concerns.
“Yet there was much less emphasis on what supportive leadership looked and felt like in practice. Where detail was provided, teachers associated support with behaviours such as active listening, visible advocacy around workload, flexibility, recognition and genuine involvement in decision making.”
The study also found comparatively little research examined leadership preparation or how confident school leaders feel to lead for teacher wellbeing, at least beyond accountability and performance motivations.
“This signals an important priority for leadership development and research.
“There is a need to specify the relational, organisational and advocacy practices that constitute supportive leadership for teacher wellbeing across diverse contexts, including regional, rural and remote schools, and to embed these practices in teacher-education curricula, leadership programs, induction structures and leadership standards and evaluations.”
In June, reports of teachers being watched via surveillance cameras by school leaders who monitor their attendance at mandated meetings surfaced, with some saying teaching staff are treated like students in workplaces that now carry Big Brother undertones.
One secondary teacher, who works at a public school in Melbourne, told EducationHQ that the situation at her school had become quite ridiculous.
“We have a camera that faces our meeting room, so you’re under surveillance.
“You have to sign in, we take a roll call – it’s like being in the army. And then they’ll check via the camera to see if you’ve left early or if you’ve put in a medical certificate for missing 15 minutes,” the teacher lamented.
“It’s like, ‘welcome to Utopia’.”
Another said teachers had become infantilised in the school context, with flexibility around working hours and time spent on-site virtually non-existent.
Even when staff don’t have a scheduled meeting after school they are expected to remain on campus and work until 5 o’clock as a ‘show of morale’ for those that do, the teacher said.
“That’s a rule. And we’re doing [tasks] that could be easily done at home – lesson planning, marking. [There’s no consideration] of professional responsibility…”
