The Emerald Handbook of Wellbeing in School Leadership

This handbook makes a timely and important intervention in educational leadership scholarship by demonstrating how leadership is implicated in the production of wellbeing across complex systems, rather than merely responding to its absence. By foregrounding interdependence across individual, organisational, and systemic levels, the handbook provides both conceptual clarity and empirical insight. It is a serious and welcome contribution to ongoing debates about the purposes and practices of educational leadership that will resonate across research, policy, and professional audiences.

-- Steven Courtney, DFBelmas, Professor of Sociology of Education Leadership, Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester

This handbook provides a transformative and timely examination of educational leadership, repositioning wellbeing from a peripheral concern to the very core of school success.

Drawing on rich, contextually grounded research offering a diverse international perspective, this handbook is a call to action for educators to move toward a systems-thinking approach, transforming the underlying conditions that produce stress into environments where purpose, belonging, and growth can thrive. For any researcher, policymaker, or practitioner committed to the sustainability of the teaching profession, this handbook is an essential guide for building healthy, flourishing, and thriving communities.

-- Christopher Bezzina, PhD, Professor of Educational Leadership, Department of Leadership for Learning & Innovation, Faculty of Education, University of Malta

The editors of The Emerald Handbook of Wellbeing in School Leadership have given us a marvelous book that provides a comprehensive view of the manner in which school leaders around the world are dealing with their personal wellbeing and ability to flourish. It is insightful and powerful! It should be read by everyone who prepares school leaders, those who supervise them, and school leaders who want to foster their own wellbeing. It’s a wonderful contribution to the literature!

-- Frances Kochan, PhD, Wayne T. Smith Distinguished Professor, Emerita, Auburn University

This theoretically compelling yet practical volume offers a comprehensive and responsive exploration of educator and school leader wellbeing, resilience, and flourishing across diverse contexts. Grounded in empirical research and innovative frameworks, it lays an evidence-based foundation for fostering sustainable leadership and thriving learning communities, with notably drawn from trauma-informed practice, collaborative mindfulness, intentional self-care, and strength-based school improvement. This book is an essential resource for those committed to nurturing healthy, resilient schools where leaders, teachers, and students can flourish together.

-- Amy Burns, PhD, Dean and Professor, Faculty of Education, Queen’s University

The Emerald Handbook of Wellbeing in School Leadership arrives at a critical moment in educational leadership scholarship, offering a richly diverse, international collection that reconceptualizes wellbeing not as a peripheral concern but as the very foundation of effective, sustainable school leadership. The handbook covers individual, relational, organizational, and systemic dimensions of flourishing and draws on a wide range of theoretical frameworks—from self-determination theory, resilience research, positive leadership, and systems thinking—then ties them to real-world practices that school leaders can immediately recognize and apply. Editors Walker, Kutsyuruba, Mahfouz, and Cherkowski have assembled a landmark volume that will be indispensable reading for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners committed to cultivating thriving school communities.

-- Jeffrey Glanz, Professor, Director of MS Degree Program in Educational Administration at Michlalah-Jerusalem Col