This article is reposted from Te Mahau – click here to read the original.

When Greg Sharland took the reins as acting principal, he set out to explore the question: What are the key requirements for being responsive to the needs of students and staff at that particular period of time? His thoughts were: ‘if I can get staff into a really good place and get them functioning well, everything is going to flow from that’.  Rather than just focusing on the desired staff behaviours, Greg and the Senior Leadership Team decided to concentrate on supporting the emotions that drive good behaviours.  “If you get the emotions right and you get the emotional culture right, then the behaviour will flow from that,” says Greg.

The team examined the work of Jeremy Dean who promotes emotional leadership that has an awareness of the importance of emotions and the need to understand people and where they are emotionally. They applied Jeremy Dean’s...