Lost in leadership

2022 was a year I caught myself being lost in thought or losing hours lost in doing, rather than being. Looking back January 2022 was summed up by the daily cover saga of no supply staff available, which year groups needed to be on remote study and throw in an imminent inspection looming. The year ended with public health guidance about how school leaders needed to manage strep and scarlet fever outbreaks - gratefully similar to health risk management we had become adept at since 2020. As a school leader looking back 2022 was the year I realised that humble leadership is the way ahead. 

Sitting in a meeting hearing an experienced colleague saying that headship shouldn’t be lonely in the rise of multi academy trusts made we think about the word help. Humble leaders ask for help and are happy to have a sage on the stage mentor or a guide on the side coach to support as required. We are in an era of such complexity that we can feel lost as leaders and that’s a lonely place. Networking within or beyond MATs, counties and even countries enables leaders to have a different viewpoint on the thoughts they get lost in. 

We’re leading at a time of huge volatility and changes to society as we move through the (post)-pandemic landscape. Creating and surviving at the same time as leading our schools, staff, students and wider stakeholders. Yet old success criteria are still being used to monitor educational leadership success and school leaders are often being led by those whose own school leadership experience was pre-pandemic. 

There is very little clarity around a roadmap out of the complexities that children are bringing into school from their pandemic experience. There is, however a great risk of being pulled into the tyranny of the immediate rather than planning systematically as a cohort of school leaders for what success will look like in 2030 or for system leaders to be looking towards 2040 as civic duty moves towards being a root purpose that multi-academies are increasingly filling. Our horizons have shrunk to the micro-level with pessimism grounded in our daily realities.

Basically we become consumed with lurching from day to day crises, yet we need to carve out time to think big.

With a macro approach to the society we are co-creating over a longer period we can make a huge difference. School leaders have a phenomenal impact on future generations. It makes me think about the positivity and brave decisions school leaders made after the last pandemic. Significant changes in the 1920s and 1930s were made during an economic crisis. To create time and capacity for change at difficult times requires us all to consider how  we can scale up a can do attitude across the educational sector. 

Permacrisis was chosen as Collins word of 2022. Dictionaries define permacrisis as ‘extended period of instability and insecurity’.

Survival driven sub-conscious minds prefers the perceived habits of our familiar habits. Being predictable is preferable to the potential threat of the unknown. As school leaders we know the ebb and flow of a school year and the expectations for our children. We are seeing huge issues with recruitment and retention of education colleagues. We are all finding it hard to reconcile the familiar with how the euros has and continues to change. We can flourish as we see many around us who are able to think big in a positive way.

People who are thriving and are effective leaders in today’s complex world are calm, humble, tolerant, have capacity for fun, are open to not knowing, curious, challenge the status quo, pay attention to self-care, encourage others, are empathetic, good listeners and have a host of human qualities ie emotionally intelligent. Authentic in their own restless pursuit of making a difference.

Authentic leaders resonate with where they work, how they work and who they work with. What would it look like and feel like to be truly authentic? In agreement with national and local decisions that we as leaders are duty bound to bring in to our schools effectively and efficiently? Is it the external push to ensure the status quo is maintained a big issue or is it the pressure to continue improving with ever decreasing budgets? It could be jumping through the expectations of a yesteryear being pushed by higher authorities or the sense of not having agency to make the decisions that are right for our own settings?

Getting comfortable and effective in a landscape of constant change is a key area to develop in leadership programmes across all schools. It’s less about resilience skills and more about our psychological approach/ awareness of what we have inherited since the pandemic began. We need to engage with the reality of what we need in our own school settings. 

Permacrisis can feel like we are in survival mode but we have expanded our ability to feel at home with the complex. We are capable therefore of having agency to make sense of these new complex issues. Agency is power - we are not victims or bystanders. With power brings capacity to take action. Action enabled us to bring hope and to be hopeful leaders for our schools. 

For me 2023 is a year of authenticity - being restlessly comfortable with the uncomfortable and challenging the status quo. Just a small leadership challenge.