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Educator Well-Being

Building Supportive Relationships With Colleagues and School Leaders

Teach This Way! editorial · Last updated · 9 min read

Strong working relationships help educators grow and stay. Practical ways to build peer support, collaborate on real problems and work well with leaders.

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Ask educators what got them through a hard year, and many will name a person before they name a strategy: the teacher across the hall who covered their class in an emergency, the team that problem-solved a difficult schedule together, the principal who backed them up with a parent. Professional relationships are not a soft extra. They shape how educators grow, how they cope and whether they stay.

This article is for K-12 teachers, special educators, school counselors, related service providers and school leaders. It looks at what research says about collegial support and professional environments, and offers practical ways to build relationships that actually help, including some that are less obvious than "be friendly in the staff room."

A note on responsibility: good relationships are partly built by individuals, but schools also make them easier or harder through schedules, shared planning time and leadership practices. If your school gives you no time to collaborate, that is a working-conditions issue, not a personal shortcoming.

What Research Says About Professional Relationships

Supportive environments help teachers improve

In a 2014 study in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Matthew Kraft and John Papay analyzed about a decade of data from a large North Carolina district. They found that teachers working in schools with more supportive professional environments, measured through teacher surveys that included peer collaboration, principal support and a culture of trust, improved more over their first ten years than teachers in less supportive schools. The gains accumulated over time rather than appearing immediately. The study measured effectiveness through student test score gains, which captures only part of teaching, but it supports the idea that the people around you shape your growth.

High-quality collaboration matters, not just collaboration

A 2015 study in the American Educational Research Journal by Matthew Ronfeldt, Susanna Farmer, Kiel McQueen and Jason Grissom surveyed teachers in a large urban district about their instructional teams. Schools with stronger collaboration and teachers who reported better collaboration were associated with greater student achievement gains, and teachers improved more in schools with better collaboration. Collaboration that spanned several instructional areas, rather than just one, was the strongest predictor. The lesson: meeting time is not the same as useful collaboration. The content and quality of the work together matter.

Administrative support is a retention issue

The Learning Policy Institute's 2016 report Solving the Teacher Shortage identified school leadership and administrative support among the working conditions that most consistently shape teachers' decisions, noting that administrative support is often the top reason teachers give for leaving or staying.

Stress can spread through support networks

Here is the less obvious finding. A 2022 study in School Mental Health by Chelsea Kaihoi, Jessika Bottiani and Catherine Bradshaw asked 370 educators in 17 elementary and middle schools whom they turned to for stress support. Educators tended to name colleagues in similar roles, grades or subjects. An educator's burnout was positively related to the burnout of the colleagues in their support network. The study cannot show cause and effect, but it suggests that stress and burnout may be shared within collegial networks. Support relationships are powerful, and that power can work in either direction.

Key Insights

Venting is not the same as support

Talking through a hard day with a trusted colleague can help. But a relationship built mostly on shared complaints can leave both people more drained. The research on shared burnout is a reason to balance empathy with problem-solving: "That sounds awful. What would help this week?"

Widen your circle beyond people just like you

The same study found that educators mostly chose support partners in similar roles. That is natural, but it can narrow perspective. A school counselor, an SLP or a veteran teacher in a different grade may see a problem in a way your grade-level partner cannot.

Leaders are people you can build a working relationship with, not just evaluators

Many educators interact with principals mostly during evaluations or problems. Brief, regular, low-stakes contact (sharing a student success, asking for input on a plan) makes harder conversations easier later.

Small reliability beats big gestures

Many experienced teachers find that trust grows from small, consistent actions: replying when you say you will, sharing materials without being asked, covering for someone once and remembering they did the same for you.

Practical Strategies

With colleagues

  • Offer something useful early. Share a resource, a seating chart template, or a routine that worked. Generosity starts reciprocity.
  • Turn venting into problem-solving. After acknowledging the frustration, ask one forward-looking question: "What's one thing we could try?"
  • Use structured collaboration. Look at student work together, plan a common assessment, or observe each other's lessons with a specific focus. Ronfeldt and colleagues found that collaboration across several instructional areas was most predictive of gains.
  • Build cross-role connections. Invite a special educator, counselor or related service provider into planning when it involves their students. Our Teaching Ideas & Strategies library includes collaboration approaches you can adapt.
  • Agree on norms for team meetings. Start and end on time, have a shared agenda, and decide who follows up on what.

With school leaders

  • Bring solutions with problems. "The new duty schedule leaves third grade without coverage at dismissal. Could we try rotating?" is easier to act on than a complaint.
  • Ask for clarity about priorities. "Of these three initiatives, which matters most this quarter?" helps both of you.
  • Share good news. A two-line email about a student breakthrough builds a positive connection.
  • Request feedback directly. Asking for input on a specific practice signals openness and makes evaluation less one-sided.
  • Raise concerns collectively when appropriate. When an issue affects many staff, a team bringing it forward with examples is often more effective and less risky for any one person.

How to Put This Into Practice

  1. Map your current network. List the people you turn to for advice, emotional support, materials and problem-solving. Notice any gaps (no one outside your grade, no connection to leadership, no one who helps you problem-solve rather than vent).
  2. Pick one relationship to strengthen. Choose a colleague or leader where a small investment could help.
  3. Make one useful offer this week. Share a resource or offer help on a specific task.
  4. Propose one structured collaboration. Suggest looking at student work together, or co-planning one lesson.
  5. Schedule a brief check-in with a leader. Bring a success and one question about priorities.
  6. Review in a month. Which relationships feel more supportive? Which still drain you more than they help?

A Realistic Example

This is a composite scenario, not a real person or school.

A second-year high school science teacher, Ms. K., felt isolated. Her department met monthly, but meetings were mostly announcements. Her main source of support was a colleague who shared her frustrations, and their lunches often left her feeling worse.

She decided to try something different. She asked a veteran teacher in her department whether they could look at one set of lab reports together to compare how they gave feedback. It took 30 minutes and gave her two practical ideas. She also invited the school's special educator to a planning conversation about a student who was struggling in her class, and came away with specific accommodations to try. And she kept her lunches with her friend but started ending them with one question: "What's one thing we want to try this week?"

At her next check-in with the assistant principal, she shared the lab report collaboration and asked whether the department could use part of one meeting each month for similar work. The assistant principal agreed to pilot it. Ms. K. still had hard days, but she no longer felt alone with them.

What to Do When It Doesn't Work

"My colleagues aren't interested in collaborating."

Start smaller. One person, one task, one short conversation. Offer to do the initial work. If your school offers no collaboration time at all, consider raising that with leaders as a structural issue.

"My relationship with my principal is strained."

Focus on clear, professional communication and specific requests. Keep a record of key conversations. If there is a serious conflict, consider involving a mentor, an instructional coach or your union or professional association representative. Our sibling article on difficult professional conversations offers guidance.

"My support group has become a complaint group."

You don't have to leave. Try steering toward problem-solving, or add one support relationship that is more forward-looking. It is fine to name the pattern gently: "I notice we feel worse after these talks. Want to try ending with one thing that went well?"

"I'm the only one in my role in the building."

Counselors, school psychologists, SLPs, OTs and specialists are often isolated. Look for peers across your district, regional networks or professional associations, and build cross-role relationships in your own building.

Adaptations for Different Roles

  • Elementary teachers: Grade-level teams are natural partners. Consider vertical connections too (the grade above and below) for planning transitions.
  • Middle and high school teachers: Departments can be siloed. Interdisciplinary connections around shared students can be especially helpful.
  • Special educators: Co-teaching relationships benefit from explicit agreements about roles, planning time and communication.
  • School counselors and related service providers: Build relationships with teachers by sharing practical, classroom-friendly strategies and making it easy to reach you.
  • School leaders: Your actions set the conditions. Protect collaboration time, make meetings substantive, follow through on commitments and treat staff concerns as useful information.
  • New educators: Ask a mentor to introduce you to two people outside your immediate team. Early connections make later requests easier.

Try This Tomorrow

  • Send one colleague a resource or idea you think would help them, with no request attached.
  • In your next conversation that turns to venting, ask one forward-looking question.
  • Email your principal or team leader a two-sentence note about a student success.

Quick Takeaways

  • Research links supportive professional environments and high-quality collaboration with teacher growth.
  • Administrative support is a major factor in whether teachers stay.
  • Stress and burnout may be shared within support networks, so balance empathy with problem-solving.
  • Widen your circle beyond people in your exact role.
  • Small, reliable actions build trust faster than big gestures.

Reflection Questions

  • Who do you turn to when work is hard, and do you usually leave those conversations feeling better or worse?
  • Which colleague outside your role could offer a useful new perspective?
  • What is one thing your school could change to make collaboration easier, and who could you raise it with?

Sources & Further Reading

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