In this article, Curt Adams presents his empirical research examining the relationship between need-supportive principal-teacher conversation and teacher burnout.
Teacher Retention: Challenges Facing School Principals
Oklahoma is battling a teacher shortage, as are many states and localities across the nation. Recruitment is one challenge—fewer young people are pursuing careers in education with each passing year. Scholars have attributed lagging recruitment to many factors, including poor compensation, student behavioral challenges, and declining levels of respect for the teaching profession.
Shortages are also being driven by poor teacher retention. Teachers leave the profession at higher rates than in the past, making teacher retention as important to quality schooling as shoring up teacher recruitment. But why are current teachers departing? Although salary, student misbehavior, and insufficient administrative support are commonly cited reasons, burnout seems to be among the most significant reported factors behind teacher attrition.
The empirical link between teacher burnout and retention is important because evidence indicates that school leaders can play a key role in counteracting teacher burnout. While school principals employ different interventions or leadership styles to address teacher burnout, a potentially effective strategy that is often overlooked is conversation. Not just any type of conversation is effective though. Need-supportive conversation is a particular conversational technique that has shown evidence of protecting teachers against burnout.
In an urban district in Oklahoma, my colleagues and I analyzed survey data from 263 teachers to test the relationship between need-supportive conversation and teacher burnout. We found that principals’ use of need-supportive conversations (reported by teachers) was associated with reduced teacher burnout (as defined by self-reported levels of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of diminished personal accomplishment).
Need-Supportive Principal-Teacher Conversation and Burnout
Unlike conventional district-led interventions that focus on individual coping mechanisms, need-supportive conversation techniques are thought to attend to teachers’ social and psychological well-being on an ongoing basis, thereby enhancing teacher job satisfaction and lessening the potential for burnout. What exactly is need-supportive conversation?
Need-supportive principal-teacher conversation has three core elements:
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Autonomy-Support – Principals encourage teachers to exercise professional discretion, provide meaningful feedback, and express confidence in teachers’ abilities.
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Competence-Support – Principals offer constructive, non-controlling feedback, recognize teachers’ achievements, and affirm teachers’ skills and expertise.
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Relatedness-Support – Principals cultivate a sense of belonging, show care and concern for teachers, and ensure that they feel aligned with the school’s mission and values.
Main Results
This correlational study was conducted using survey data from 263 teachers serving in elementary, middle, and high schools in an urban school district in Oklahoma. Survey data evaluated teachers’ self-reported burnout, need-supportive conversation with principals, psychological need satisfaction, and workplace connectedness.
The following results are highlights from our analysis:
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Teachers who reported experiencing higher levels of need-supportive conversation with principals also reported significantly lower levels of burnout.
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The relationship between need-supportive conversation and burnout was mediated by psychological need satisfaction. In other words, when teachers reported a stronger sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness from their interactions with principals, they were less likely to report burnout symptoms.
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Principal-teacher conversation had a larger association with teacher well-being than workplace connectedness with colleagues and the school.
Considerations for Oklahoma’s Principals
It is important to emphasize that the findings of our study are non-causal, coming from a small survey sample in one district. Nonetheless, the findings do raise some questions for leaders to consider.
Shifting Focus. Traditional burnout interventions focus on helping teachers manage stress on their own. While individual coping strategies might be useful, they likely do not address the root causes of teacher burnout. This study suggests that by using need-supportive conversation, principals might play an active role in creating supportive environments that prevent teacher burnout from occurring.
Conversation Training for Principals. School districts should consider professional learning programs that equip school principals with the skills needed to engage in need-supportive conversations. This training for principals should focus on using reflective questions, effective listening, providing constructive feedback, and fostering supportive school culture.
Building School Cultures Supportive of Teacher Well-being. Need-supportive conversations are related to improved job satisfaction, potentially reducing the likelihood that teachers will leave the profession. Our findings also hint at the need for school leaders to prioritize teacher autonomy, competence, and relatedness through leadership practices. Schools that foster these psychological needs in teachers are conceivably more likely to retain teachers, and by extension, foster a positive learning environment for students. To incentivize this approach, state education agencies might incorporate support for teacher well-being as part of leadership evaluation frameworks.
Conclusion
Oklahoma’s education system faces an urgent challenge: recruiting and retaining quality teachers in a time of rising burnout and attrition. To address this problem, effective state policy related to teacher compensation and student behavior is likely to be important. However, the role of school leaders in creating a supportive environment for teachers should not be overlooked. This study’s findings offer compelling evidence that need-supportive conversation could be a powerful tool for mitigating teacher burnout.
Principals who promote open, supportive, and empowering dialogue may not only reduce teacher burnout but also enhance teacher motivation, job satisfaction, and overall school performance. By prioritizing the psychological well-being of teachers through need-supportive conversation, Oklahoma’s principals may foster a more resilient and effective teaching staff within their schools.
Author Bio
Curt Adams is Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Oklahoma.
