ABSTRACT
Schools leaders play a central role in helping teachers manage their negative stress. Leaders can apply simple principles for every action they undertake and each decision they implement. There is a significant difference between the chronic stress that requires clinical help and the daily stresses that beset our busy lives as teachers. Stress, like low self-confidence, has been pathologised, with a freight-train industry of drugs, expertise and coping strategies to attend it. The latest government-commissioned survey in the United Kingdom has teachers working in excess of fifty hours a week. School leaders must make a conscious effort to ensure teachers feel valued and that they have an authentic voice in the decision-making process. Mention the word 'stress' in a crowded school staffroom and the word is likely to spark a litany of complaints. A problem shared is a problem halved' is the apple-pie-sweet aphorism.
