The morale imperative

Good morale and motivation are vital to a school’s success, but how do you achieve it and maintain it? Phil Spurr has some answers.

A school has been in special measures for a while and is struggling to improve. Regular Ofsted and local authority reviews keep telling the school that it isn’t getting any better.

Staff morale is low and some have left or are considering leaving and as is often the case, it is the ones that the organisation desperately wants to keep.

Budget management is poor and a large budget deficit means that staffing levels, not addressed previously, have to be reduced.  As a consequence, redundancy procedures and organisational reviews are in place every year.  Recruiting to support skills gaps and strengthen the team is therefore very difficult because, when staff leave, they are unlikely to be replaced. Parents have a negative view of the school and pupil behaviour is a significant problem.  

Everyone is working themselves to a standstill but no one feels that it is making much difference.

It’s a grim situation, and a massive challenge for any leader. Morale and motivation really matter – whether it’s in a school in serious difficulties like the one above, or even in reasonably successful schools which are struggling to sustain their success.

So what can you do to build up morale and sustain it over the long term?

Often, especially when arriving as a new leader to work with an established team, the advice received may be along the lines of go in hard and sort them out.  This attitude to taking over leadership of a school in crisis assumes that staff are to blame, are not working hard enough and generally, are not good enough to get the job done.

In my experience, having led two schools out of negative Ofsted categories, the opposite is the case as people are generally highly committed, very capable, keen and willing to change and are probably not to blame.  Often, people in these situations are intensely frustrated by the position the school is in and are desperate to make improvements.  In fact, they have been disabled in a variety of ways and need to be properly led, supported, looked after and developed. An important part of the answer then, in my view, is in establishing high morale and motivation and high quality relationships.

In any organisation, whether struggling to improve or striving to become even better, good morale and high motivation are vital.

Generally, morale can be seen as a group state of mind whereas motivation tends to refer more to individuals in the organisation. Either way, as a leader, focusing on improving morale and motivation will mean that everything else becomes much easier to deal with.

Commitment, work ethic, teamwork, positive attitudes and self-esteem, both group and individual, will all improve, making it easier to overcome any challenges and more likely that opportunities will be recognised and grasped.  

People will be more committed and confident, more likely to 'go the extra mile', use their own initiative, work more effectively and, importantly, enjoy their work. Retention and recruitment may well be easier and the organisation will develop and embed a positive working culture.  Standards for everyone, not just the pupils, will rise.  Just like smiling, good morale and high motivation can be contagious.

Contrast this with schools where the spiral is negative and often heading downwards. Low morale and motivation results in negative attitudes, internal disputes and conflict, fragmented teams, limited commitment, recruitment and retention issues, informal 'working to rule' and standards falling for everyone.

Challenges are harder to overcome and opportunities are rarely grasped or may well be missed altogether. It is worth remembering that low morale and motivation and their consequences are not only found in struggling schools.  They could also be holding back schools deemed to be reasonably successful, preventing them from improving further.

A measure of morale and motivation could be staff turnover, especially if there has been a noticeable change in recent times.  For example, in both the schools I was asked to take over significant numbers of staff had either left over the summer or were considering leaving. While it is not unusual for staff to move on, the key issue was their reasons for moving.  Most had not left for promotion or positive career moves, they just wanted to get out.  This left the schools with serious gaps in the skills of the team that they were finding hard to fill. Not a good position to be in when already struggling to improve.  In any school, high staff turnover could indicate low morale and motivation in the team.

So, how can leaders improve morale and motivation whatever the circumstance of the school? If budgets are tight or even in deficit, how can staff be encouraged and rewarded for their efforts? Through establishing clear vision and direction, good communications, visible leadership, valuing and developing people and through establishing a positive culture.

For example, our first activity as a whole school team in both of the schools I took over was to review and establish our vision and values.  What are we trying to achieve? What do we believe in?  High levels of morale and motivation can be established even in the most challenging circumstances and it is through the words and actions of leaders that this can be achieved.  

Get this right and the quality of relationships along with the effectiveness of the team will improve, making it easier to meet challenges and take advantage of opportunities.

Phil Spurr was a headteacher in Worcestershire for 17 years, leading 2 schools out of special measures. He is now a school improvement and leadership development adviser and works as a facilitator on National College leadership development programmes. Phil blogs at www.positiveeducationsolutions.blogspot.com and you can email him at philspurr@btinternet.com.