ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Leadership in Education
Reframing "staying power" as an organizational construct: implications for teacher retention and sustainable quality in education
Provisionally accepted
- Mittuniversitetet - Campus Ostersund, Östersund, Sweden
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Purpose The world-wide crisis of teachers and principal retention highlights the need for new perspectives to understand what contributes to 'staying power' in schools for sustainability of education. The purpose of this paper is to reframe the concept of staying power as an organizational construct using quality management as a theoretical lens, which relocates the dialogue on recruitment and retention from human resource development to leadership and organizational development. Method A thematic synthesis was conducted using findings from a systematic literature review to explore "staying power" as an organizational construct. Quality management was used as a theoretical lens to identify the interplay between individual and organizational attributes as part of the construct of staying power. Findings and implications Staying power is a multi-faceted phenomenon that reflects the organization's ability to create a positive, sustainable, and attractive working environment. It is about nurturing a culture that values, supports and retains its workforce, leading to enhanced productivity, innovation, and long-term success. Retaining educators is more than creating incentives for teachers and principals based on a model of fit. Staying power is based on the interplay between people, processes, and outcomes. Organizations can adopt a proactive, long-term approach to "staying power" as opposed to "retention" by prioritizing and combining employee engagement, development, and well-being.
Keywords: Education, Educational Leadership, Organizational sustainability, quality management, Staying Power
Received: 16 Oct 2025; Accepted: 23 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Smith Rouse, Snyder and Hedlund. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kathryn Smith Rouse
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