In staffrooms and system meetings across the country, one word keeps surfacing: resilience. When principals are stretched by compliance demands, parent conflict, staffing shortages and endless reform cycles, the quiet advice is often the same. Dig deeper. Stay strong. Push through.
But a growing number of leadership voices are warning that this well-intentioned mantra may be missing the point.
Brad Gaynor, an education leader and executive coach who works alongside principals navigating mounting pressure in modern schools, believes this to be the case. A former burnout survivor and author, he now helps leaders build clarity, resilience and sustainable practice in high-stakes environments.
In his recent blog post, Gaynor points out that the constant call to “bounce back” risks reframing exhaustion as a personal shortcoming rather than a systems issue. The bigger question, he argues, isn’t whether leaders can keep absorbing pressure, but whether they should have to this often — and what sustainable leadership really looks like in 2026.
Below, The Educator speaks to Gaynor about where principals should begin redesigning unsustainable workloads, which hidden cultural norms are eroding staff wellbeing, where schools are misfiring on wellbeing investment, and how leaders can make it safe for staff to admit they’ve reached capacity.
TE: In your recent blog post ‘I’m Not Against Resilience. I’m Just Tired of How We Use It’, you distinguish between resilience and accumulated load. If a school is serious about change, what does redesigning the work actually involve, and where should a Principal start?
Most schools don’t have a resilience problem. They have an accumulation problem. That’s where the unspoken measure of commitment is how much someone can absorb without protest. Schools drift into it over time. Priorities accumulate and very little comes off the list. Leaders don’t create it deliberately, but they reinforce it when they never subtract. Start with subtraction. Look at the principal’s calendar and the school calendar. Both are cultural documents. If something new is added, something else must come off. That’s where redesign begins.
TE: Drawing from the work you’ve done with leaders, what unspoken norms in schools are quietly undermining staff wellbeing, even in places that claim it’s a priority?
We quietly reward what I would call the resilience trap. The staff member who absorbs everything without complaint is seen as strong. The one who names limits risks being seen as struggling. Over time, coping becomes the measure of commitment. That’s the trap. We celebrate the people who manage heavy load rather than questioning why the load is so heavy. Availability becomes loyalty. Endurance becomes virtue. Most leaders already know the pressure is high. The harder conversation is whether the culture rewards coping instead of redesign.
TE: Australia’s schools are investing heavily in wellbeing initiatives. In your view, where are they getting it wrong, and what would meaningful support look like in workload and expectations?
Wellbeing cannot sit on top of accumulated load. A workshop at the end of a long day does not offset unrealistic expectations during it. Meaningful support is about culture as much as workload. It means narrowing priorities, sequencing change, protecting planning time and setting clear limits on after-hours communication. Capacity is not fixed. It expands when clarity increases and decision clutter reduces. But until workload is addressed structurally, programmes become compensation rather than change. That’s not a wellbeing strategy. It’s a veneer.
TE: Reports show that pressure on teachers and leaders only seems to be increasing in 2026. How can principals make it genuinely safe for staff to say, “I’m at capacity,” without being judged as lacking resilience?
Safety grows when capacity is treated as data, not weakness. If someone says they are at capacity and nothing changes, staff learn quickly what honesty costs. Leaders need to normalise visible trade-offs. If this comes on, what shifts? In my upcoming book Not One More Teacher Lost, due June 2026, I explore what it takes to build schools where sustainable practice is the norm. Saying no professionally only works when leaders receive it without judgement. Resilience should never mean silence. Capacity is shaped by the environment as much as the individual.