Several studies have shown that health promotion in schools and sustainability are linked (Mannix-McNamara & Simovska, 2015; Samdal & Rowling 2015) and that principals’ health and sustainable leadership are keys to succeeding with school improvement. The overarching aim of the project described here is to improve school leaders’ work environment. According to Hargreaves and Fink (2006), a key ingredient of leadership is the ability to handle complexity and constant change. They state, “Sustainable educational leadership and improvement preserves and develops deep learning for all that spreads and lasts, in ways that do no harm to and indeed create positive benefit for others around us, now and in the future” (Hargreaves & Fink, p. 17). This paper reports on findings from the research project School Leaders’ Work Environment: A Project on Organisational Conditions, Stress-related Psychological Illness, Mobility and Potential for Improvement. In particular, this paper investigates school principals’ perceptions of factors and conditions at the school and the municipal levels that support sustainable leadership and identifies possible factors that are lacking. Findings from a survey conducted among Swedish school principals in 2019 for this project point to several problems linked with principals’ health that might affect the entire school organisation and the health of teachers and students. One problem is that 25% of the study population (n=2317) had stress or exhaustion warnings that might lead to poor health if sustained (Persson et al., 2021a). High levels of demanding organisational conditions were linked to role conflicts, role demands, resource deficits and having to manage co-worker frustrations (Persson et al., 2021b). With this as a point of departure, this paper reports on the content analysis of the qualitative data provided by the school principals in the open-ended questions (n=1992). Preliminary findings indicate that being in a leadership team, having shared leadership with colleagues and a distributed leadership model are key factors mentioned by many principals. Well-functioning routines, systematic work to improve the quality of the school and division of labour and responsibility are also mentioned. One of the most common factors contributing to sustainable leadership is the commitment of the teachers. Problematic issues that prevent sustainable leadership seem to be a lack of time and resources. One consequence might be that principals are being drained, and the link between sustainable leadership and health promotion in schools is broken.

Hargreaves, A., & Fink, D. (2006). Sustainable leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Mannix-McNamara, P., & Simovska, V. (2015). Schools for health and sustainability: insights from the past, present and for the future. In Schools for health and sustainability (pp. 3-17). Springer, Dordrecht. Persson, R., Leo, U., Arvidsson, I., Håkansson, C., Nilsson, K., Österberg, K. (2021a). Prevalence of exhaustion symptoms and associations with school level, length of work experience and gender: a nationwide cross-sectional study of Swedish principals. BMC Public Health. Persson, R., Leo, U., Arvidsson, I., Nilsson, K., Österberg, K., Håkansson, C. (2021b). Supporting and demanding managerial circumstances and associations with excellent workability: a cross-sectional study of Swedish school principals. (Submitted Frontiers in Education) Samdal, O., & Rowling, L. (2015). Implementation strategies to promote and sustain health and learning in school. In Schools for health and sustainability (pp. 233-252). Springer, Dordrecht