Teacher Well-Being Promotion in School Workplace: The Role of Leaders
Keywords:
Teacher Well-being, School Leadership, School Workplace, Working Conditions, School Climate, Job Demands, Workload, AutonomyAbstract
Teacher well-being is increasingly recognized as an important concern for sustaining teachers’ professional functioning and healthy school workplaces. However, research has examined leadership and workplace-related factors with varying degrees of integration. This review aims to understand the role of school leaders in promoting teacher well-being by examining how well-being is situated within the school workplace, how leadership and workplace-related conditions are connected in the literature, and what these patterns reveal about how leadership and organizational practices may shape the conditions experienced by teachers. A structured literature search was conducted using Scopus, and 184 studies published between 2021 and 2026 were included following predefined eligibility criteria. Studies were coded across six domains: leadership (A), school climate/social relationships (B), working conditions (C), organizational support/practices (D), job demands/job resources (E), and workload/ autonomy (F), and analyzed for their distribution and co-occurrence patterns. The findings indicate
a shift from single-factor research toward more interconnected accounts of teacher well-being, while relationships among domains remain insufficiently specified. The review highlights the potential role of school leaders in shaping the organizational and workplace conditions through which teachers experience their work, including workload, autonomy, organizational support, and workplace relationships. Further research is needed to clarify how leadership and organizational practices shape these conditions and through what mechanisms they relate to teacher well-being.
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