Practitioners/Teachers 

This dissertation is a narrative account of a self-study undertaken with the primary aim of positively influencing the morale of colleagues in my school department. It addresses an area of personal and professional concern where my values were being denied in my practice. As a Head of Department, I was worried that the low morale of my colleagues would negatively impact on the quality of teaching and learning at school, and on their own mental health. Situated within self-efficacy theory, my study reflects the values I attach to human dignity, respect, fairness, honesty perseverance and caring. These values were applied as the living standard by which I judged the quality of my leadership practice. I describe how I used an Action Research methodology as a living transformational process to reflect on my own leadership in terms of how I could influence the development of positive morale in the department. My findings offer new conceptualisations about how teachers can take action to improve the emotional climate of the school. I am claiming that the significance of my research is grounded in my ability to facilitate an improvement in the low morale of myself and my colleagues in order for us to ultimately contribute to self and school improvement.