Organizational building versus teachers’ personal and relational needs for school improvement

Organizational building is essential if school leaders are to promote school improvement, but it can be difficult to combine with school leaders’ requirements to satisfy teachers’ personal and relational needs. The the aim of this study is to explore critical aspects when combining organizational building with requirements to satisfy teachers’ personal and relational needs in efforts to strengthen improvement capacity. The paper draws on a 3-year collaborative research project between a research team at a Swedish university and a municipality. It is based on data acquired in 137 interviews with 535 respondents in 28 public school and preschool units. The results highlight the importance of combining organizational building with efforts to improve teachers’ understanding of, motivation to promote, and adaptation to, the goals of the school organization. The significance of the study lies in clearly distinguishing the need to link organizational building and requirements to meet teachers’ personal and relational needs. Continually telling the story of the school and thus enabling teachers to personally connect to the improvement history is suggested as an innovative school leader strategy.