Author Name: – Geetanjali Rawat Date:- 25 September 2026
The teaching profession has long been recognized as one of the most stressful occupations in the world, especially because of the unique social, technological, and administrative pressures it entails. These occupational stressors have serious ramifications for both teachers and students. Today, educators face chronic occupational stressors, including increasing administrative load, demands of interpersonal interactions with students, high-stakes assessments, and constantly shifting pedagogical mandates (Kyriacou, 2001). This has led to alarmingly high rates of burnout, emotional exhaustion, and attrition (Maslach et al., 2001). Teacher burnout not only affects teachers’ personal welfare; it is also directly correlated with a teacher’s ability to provide a successful, high-achieving education to students, which carries enormous social and financial costs (e.g., re-recruitment of burnt-out teachers). Under the standard organizational psychology framework, these issues have been addressed through a deficit-based approach. In other words, school systems and administrators address these issues reactively. Stress-reduction and wellness programs are typically implemented after the negative outcomes, such as absenteeism, cynicism, and exhaustion have occurred. However, the field of Positive Psychology, and more specifically Positive Organizational Behaviour (POB), has advocated for a paradigm shift. Proactively building and strengthening internal resources is seen as a more viable option for addressing organizational health issues in the long run (Luthans and Youssef-Morgan, 2017). Focusing on optimal positive functioning in the organizational environment aims to identify conditions that promote individual, group, and organizational flourishing. This review paper examines Psychological Capital (PsyCap) as a highly relevant framework for not only addressing the harmful effects of burnout, but also enhancing a flourishing work environment for teachers. Bringing insights from organizational psychology into educational leadership is an important avenue for future research. In this paper, I will argue that shifting the paradigm from a deficit to a strength-based one is crucial to improving the quality of the educational workplace. The review will discuss the literature in depth to show that educators who have higher levels of capital are better placed to manage and overcome the stressors associated with the profession.
