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In this introduction chapter, the authors first offer a brief overview of the theoretical underpinnings of the notion of wellbeing and flourishing from the positive organizational scholarship literature. The authors, then, provide an overview of the chapters in this handbook, guiding the readers through key aspects that each chapter contributes to the handbook’s collective perspective of efforts, initiatives, and programs that promote wellbeing in the higher education settings.

In this concluding chapter of the handbook, the authors first revisit the conceptual focus of this handbook with a brief overview of research literature on wellbeing, using a common conceptual approach that identifies the dimensions of wellbeing and then provide an overview of literature that both addresses and imagines the wellbeing with students, faculty, staff, leadership, and institutional levels in mind. Finally, the authors will proffer that there is a need for agentic moral imagination to sustain and progress the cause of wellbeing in higher education.

This chapter explores perspectives on the role of leaders in higher education to promote wellbeing that strengthens capabilities and capacities and provides means for sustainable achievement and flourishing. The author discusses perspectives on health and wellness and approaches to wellbeing, flourishing, and thriving to find and create work–life balance and addresses training and development to enhance knowledge on the importance of wellbeing. The chapter is based on a qualitative interview study on practices of wellbeing, flourishing, and thriving in educational organizations with a purposive sample of six higher education leaders in the USA, Canada, and Jamaica. The findings revealed that promoting wellbeing in higher education demands qualities promoted by leaders such as capability, capacity, and sustainability for success. The chapter concludes with a theoretical framework on educational leaders’ wellbeing, flourishing, and sustainability that can create opportunities for leaders’ to understand health and wellness in their institutions effectively.

It is well known that trust is an essential, yet a fragile part of organizational life. Because trust sometimes has to be placed without guarantees, it will inevitably be broken, violated, and damaged when parties involved in trustworthy relationships let others down. When trust-destroying events occur, trust is shattered and its level plummets quickly into the domain of distrust. The speed with which trust can be destroyed depends on the magnitude of damage from the act of untrustworthiness and the perceived intentionality of the untrustworthiness. Moreover, if seen as intentional, the destruction of trust is particularly severe, as intentional untrustworthiness reveals malevolent intentions that are seen as highly predictive of future untrustworthiness. Often, leaders are the ones responsible for improper handling of, destroying, or violating trust in their organizations. In this chapter, we explore the consequences of leaders for violating trust and examine how trust changes over time as a function of different types of violations and attempts at restoration. We argue that because distrust may irrevocably harm organizations, leaders as moral agents need to consciously work to rebuild relationships, restore broken trust, and instill hope.

This chapter explores the critical relationship between doctoral faculty advisors and their students. It examines the varying interpretations, historical significance, roles and responsibilities, and structural and psychological factors that affect this relationship. Understanding these elements is essential for creating an environment that supports positive outcomes and wellbeing in doctoral faculty advisor–student relationships. The recommendations outlined in the chapter could serve as enablers or guidelines for purposeful advisement or mentoring in doctoral faculty advisor–student dealings.

Leadership as hosting is a leadership practice that shows promise of positively impacting the wellbeing of stakeholders in higher education organizations. This chapter examines this leadership practice and its effect on the wellbeing of stakeholders of higher education. Using the methodological design of grounded theory and an appreciative inquiry (AI) lens, this study involved 54 educators, who occupied a wide array of roles in post-secondary educational organizations, participating in two iterations of an electronic Delphi, a set of semi-structured interviews, and expert interviews. Findings revealed that those educators who hosted well-created, inviting educational environments that improve stakeholders’ wellbeing were competent at building positive relationships, managing vulnerabilities, creating a culture of support and care for constituents, and displaying high levels of emotional, social, and cultural intelligence (CQ) which enhanced the wellbeing of stakeholders.

Research shows that most faculty do not receive training before being promoted into administrative and leadership roles. This lack of training and awareness of what their new role entails can lead to feelings of anxiety and reduced confidence, which can also negatively affect their wellbeing. The chapter details findings from a case study in one Canadian university setting regarding the factors and practices that contribute to success and flourishing of academic leaders in the higher education (HE) contexts. Data analysis demonstrated that having positive perceptions of the academic leadership role and experiencing mentorship and positive role modeling were crucial factors to the effectiveness of leadership development and a sense of academic leaders’ flourishing in their work. Upon describing the pertinent literature on academic leadership development, the authors detail the case study methodology, discuss the findings, and offer implications for further research.

It has been long understood that there are expectations that leaders support the wellbeing of their followers but when it comes to followers’ support for the wellbeing of leaders, this is less appreciated. This chapter offers insight from the research into wellbeing practices focused on faculty colleagues in the higher education. Using a sample of 254 faculty members with distinguishing administrative and non-administrative roles, as proxies for leaders and followers, the authors conducted a study on how higher education administrative faculty and non-administrative faculty members supported each other in terms of wellbeing. Based on this study, the authors present a chapter that explores the relational aspects of workplace wellbeing, how people feel at work, what worries them, their perceived marginal value from relationship with colleagues, marginal wellbeing issues and their mood state conditions, the minimization of distress, and the optimization of workplace wellbeing. The premise was that colleagues in these two role sets need to support the wellbeing of each other despite their roles and the authors set out to learn from both what this looked like in the lived experiences.

This chapter highlights the close relationship between the wellbeing of faculty and students in higher education and the quality of teaching and learning. Improving teaching and learning is crucial for promoting the wellbeing of both faculty and students. As such, instructional leadership, an approach that focuses on enhancing teaching and learning, should be a priority for higher education leaders. However, the involvement of higher education leaders in instructional leadership is often limited. Therefore, a customized version of instructional leadership that considers the unique priorities, characteristics, and norms of this specific educational context should be implemented in higher education to prioritize the improvement of teaching and learning and, consequently, enhance the wellbeing of faculty and students.