Seven strengths of great teachers

Teachers support young people over many years, guide their learning processes, and foster their personal development. They play a central role both within the education system and in the development of students. However, the demands they face are steadily increasing (Robert Bosch Stiftung, 2022). According to studies, despite the high workload, teachers perceive their profession as meaningful and socially relevant. To what extent teachers’ human competencies are essential for effectively practicing the profession – and what role time plays in this context – is explored in our blog article.

The tension in everyday school life: motivation meets bureaucracy

Today, teachers find themselves caught between two realities. In the German School Barometer conducted by the Robert Bosch Foundation (2022), the majority of teachers reported a high workload. More than three-quarters of teachers work on weekends, and over half report experiencing physical exhaustion. According to the German Philologists’ Association (2025), one possible reason for this is the large number of non-teaching duties and bureaucratic tasks. Taking attendance, communicating with parents, and sharing information – such as details about the next class trip – are just a few examples of the many tasks teachers handle in addition to their teaching.

A significant portion of teachers’ working time thus takes place outside the classroom, which in turn affects both the quality of instruction and teachers’ private lives (GEW, 2022). Administrative workload represents a considerable burden for teachers (OECD, 2025). In fact, more than half of the teachers surveyed in the OECD’s international TALIS study (2019) expressed a desire for a reduction in administrative tasks in their daily work.

Despite the increased workload, job satisfaction remains high according to the Robert Bosch Foundation (2022): 74 percent of teachers report being very or somewhat satisfied with their profession. This is also confirmed by the TALIS study (OECD, 2025). Overall, this can be seen as a positive indicator for the quality of teaching, as teachers’ professional engagement is strongly linked to their job satisfaction (Wang & Shakibaei, 2025).

Insights from practice – Coach Lydia Clahes on the reality of the profession

What does this look like in practice? Lydia Clahes, a coach who works closely with teachers, observes this tension on a daily basis. Many teachers come to coaching with a similar feeling: they love their profession – but their day-to-day work leaves them with less and less room to focus on it.

Recurring themes in conversations with teachers include:

• Too little time for students

• Too much organizational and administrative work

• Constant mental strain caused by juggling multiple tasks

There is a strong desire for more pedagogical work instead of managing processes. Time and again, Clahes’s coaching sessions reveal that teachers’ true strengths lie in the human dimension, not in administrative systems. She supports teachers in consciously leveraging strengths such as empathy, relationship-building, and motivation – and in finding ways to reinvest their energy in working with students.

The true value of teachers – which human strengths matter today

Research clearly shows: effective teachers are distinguished not only by subject knowledge, but also by a set of human competencies that make education truly impactful.

The most important strengths include:

Teaching skills & enthusiasm

Teachers do more than convey knowledge—they bring passion and enthusiasm for their subject. Santana-Montagas et al. (2025) show that enthusiastic teachers are more likely to use empathetic forms of communication, which positively influence classroom interactions and learning processes. Wei Liev et al. (2017) also demonstrate how teacher enthusiasm boosts students’ motivation, positive emotions, and learning behavior. Teachers don’t just have to keep their subject knowledge up to date – they also need to inspire their students to learn every single day.

Communication & trust

The quality of the teacher-student relationship is central to learning success (Hattie, 2009; Marzano & Marzano, 2003). Teachers build strong connections through closeness, clarity, and trust. They listen closely and communicate in ways that help students find direction. Supportive communication, for example, can strengthen students’ sense of belonging and their motivation to learn (Xue, 2024).

Empathy & responsibility

Empathy is now recognized as a key competency for effective teaching (Cornelius-White, 2007). Empathetic teacher-student relationships improve trust, classroom climate, and learning effectiveness (Yi et al., 2025). Great teachers lead with respect and empathy – and stay calm when it matters most. By truly understanding their students, they can provide the right support and help them thrive in the classroom.

Organization & overview

All teachers know the feeling: the last lesson is about to start, and everything seems chaotic. Good structure is essential. Hattie (2009), in his synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses, identified “teacher clarity” – including clear organization and explanations – as a key factor affecting student performance. For example, it is important that teachers clearly communicate both the objectives of the lesson and the steps needed to achieve them. Creating a reliable structure in the school day through planning and organization is therefore essential to effective teaching.

Reflection & development

Another key competence is the ability to reflect, which enables teachers to consciously evaluate their own actions and continuously improve. At the same time, they help students understand the importance of critical thinking and self-reflection. Heng & Chu (2023) showed that teacher self-efficacy and reflection influence teacher engagement. Lidvall et al. (2025), in their meta-analysis, also found that participation in professional development is linked to teaching practices and student outcomes.

Composure & confidence

Maintaining calm and optimism in a classroom full of students can be challenging—but it pays off. Multiple studies show that teacher resilience and well-being are associated with greater emotional stability, higher teaching quality, and improved student learning outcomes (Balica, 2026; Zhang, 2023). Resilience is understood as the ability to cope with stress, change, and pressure, and to remain calm even in challenging situations.

Creativity & curiosity

Finally, teachers’ willingness to experiment and openness to new ideas is essential. Kim et al. (2019), in their meta-analysis, found that openness, expressed as creativity and curiosity, positively impacts teacher effectiveness, including student performance. Creative teachers create moments of surprise and can inspire their students.

The role of technology – support in the background

But how can teachers still leverage their strengths amid all the administrative and bureaucratic workload? The key factor here is time. Teachers have too little time for what really matters: teaching and interacting with students. This is where technology comes in—not as a replacement for teachers, but as support working quietly in the background. This creates more time for what only humans can do.

This effect is also confirmed by numerous studies. Digital solutions enable fast and transparent processes, support seamless communication, and reduce the workload of routine tasks through automation. The growing importance – and at the same time the challenges – of digitalization in schools are also reflected in the DigitalPakt of the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry of Education, under which more than one billion euros have been allocated for the digital infrastructure of schools.

A key focus in this context is the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Gallup & Walton Family Foundation (2025) show that teachers save an average of 5.9 hours per week through AI tools. Seventy-eight percent of surveyed teachers report improved work-life balance thanks to AI support. A “Teacher‑AI Collaboration” pilot project demonstrated that AI helped create lesson plans, generate administrative documents, and ease bureaucratic tasks (Dennison et al., 2025). All of this reduces the time teachers spend on routine tasks, leaving more room for creative work and the application of their pedagogical strengths.

The future of education does not lie in replacing teachers with technology. The real task – and challenge – is to relieve teachers of tasks that are not their core competencies.

With the smart features of Seven Education, teachers can, for example, create appointments and schedules quickly and easily, view absences at a glance, and access existing teaching materials instead of creating everything from scratch.

When systems work quietly in the background, teachers can focus again on what truly shapes education: guiding, supporting, and inspiring people.