Browsing by Author "Kyllönen, Taru"

Teachers' well-being at work is a common theme in public debate as well as in the research field of well-being research. Despite numerous studies and development proposals, teachers' experience of well-being at work has not increased. The development of self-leadership skills has been proposed as a new solution to teachers' weakened experience of work well-being. There is a demand for research focusing on teachers' self-leadership skills, as the topic has been studied very little both nationally and internationally. The purpose of this study is to provide new information about teachers' self-leadership skills and their importance for well-being at work. In addition, the task is to find out what challenges teachers’ self-leadership. The research material consisted of interviews with five primary school teachers. The interviews were carried out as individual interviews using a semi-structured theme interview. A phenomenographic research sample was used in the analysis of the data. According to the results of the study, teachers understand that self-leadership skills consist of organizational skills, a solution-oriented way of working and taking care of one's own self-sufficiency. The teachers considered the challenges of self-leadership to be challenges related to the job description, ignorance of self-management skills, and the effects of the rest of their lives. Self-leadership was considered important for well-being at work and was seen especially as a promoter of well-being at work. Insufficient self-leadership skills were perceived as a factor that undermines work well-being. For example, a feeling of inadequacy, was described as one the causes of weak self-leadership skills. In addition, the work community and peer support were seen important to both self-leadership and well-being at work