Understanding the Emotional Systems in Schools

There is a hidden dynamic in schools that is potent, pervasive, and impacts all aspects of a school’s function. This dynamic exists among those within a school and has the power to propel or thwart improvement efforts, include or exclude new staff members, and be a help or hindrance to the mental well-being of our educators. Revealing this hidden world and understanding its impact is key to moving schools forward. What follows are examples of how our school used a conceptual framework known as Resilient Leadership, based on Bowen Family Systems Theory, to help our team better understand this hidden world as we moved forward. Our school needed a framework to help everyone navigate the emotional tumult that inevitability occurs through the process of improvement.