A culture of high morale

In a workplace, morale is the level of happiness and job satisfaction felt by those who work there. It also indicates how well the values of employees and students match those of the workplace culture.


From the human motivation theory of David McLelland, Yvonne Willich and Karen Stammers developed a diagram depicting the three main impacts on morale. While each person needs all three to thrive, each also has a dominant need for one of them in particular. Knowing which dominant needs people in the workplace have helps leaders to keep them motivated.


For high morale to thrive, each employee and student needs to experience

  1. A sense of achievement

  2. A sense of influence or power, and

  3. A sense of affiliation

The following link leads to practices that maximise morale in a school.

A Venn diagram of high morale