After my sudden departure from the National Strategies (described in the previous post) I took a short but important break before embarking on the most recent period of my career, as a consultant and coach,
working mainly in the area of education leadership. Here I have been using my own experiences
and skills to support and help individuals and organisations whilst at the same
time deepening my own understanding. I
have been very lucky and privileged to do a great deal of this work for and
with the National College for School Leadership (variously re-named over the
period).
For most of this period the College’s Chief Executive was Steve,
who I had appointed as one of my Assistant Directors in Blackburn. Of all my decisions as a leader, that may
have been my best and is certainly a good example of succession planning, to appoint the person who will eventually become your effective boss! Steve is the most talented leader I have ever worked with or
for. He encapsulates the phrase which became popular in education circles in
the early 2000s to describe the approach to school improvement, ‘support and
challenge’ – when you work with him you feel valued and supported and at the
same time you know you are being challenged to do more and better. He is a good listener as well as an
inspirational speaker, modest and self-deprecating and a person of real
integrity whilst being politically astute.
He can also be tough and is very good at having those ‘difficult conversations’
to get people to perform at their best or move on and yet always handled with
humanity. He has been kind enough to
say that he learnt some things from me but I can confidently state that I
learnt far more from him. Anyone who
worked for or with the College over the period of his leadership knows the
transformational qualities he displayed.
He paid attention to the purpose, the people and the processes of the
organisation. As a result he built an
organisation which was creative, dynamic, sometimes messy but ultimately very
successful and a pleasure to work for.
One of the major areas of my work for the College was
Succession Planning. At the time there was a real concern about whether there
would be enough people and of the right quality to become headteachers of
schools into the future. There is
considerable research evidence that leadership
makes a significant difference to school performance and student experience. (The only more significant factor is the
quality of teaching but this in itself is strongly influenced by the right
leadership). I began as one of the
consultants contracted to work on this issue and later was asked to lead the
work nationally. The approach which
Steve had skilfully steered through the politicians was known as ‘local solutions’ – that meant
bringing together at local and regional level a coalition of key partners to
identify potential leaders and devise support and development programmes for
them. The concern was that despite the
relatively high salaries, many prospective headteachers were put off by the perceived
pressures of the job, the apparent bureaucracy and the concern of ‘losing touch
with the children/students’. There were
also acute issues of recruitment in ‘church’ schools and a real lack of
diversity – in particular very few black and ethnic minority leaders. These
concerns all had some degrees of reality to them but we were equally convinced
that if we could work together to identify those with potential, expose them to
some of the best current leaders, give them rich leadership experiences with
support and articulate how rewarding the role could be (many headteachers
describe it as ‘the best job in the world’ with influence over the lives and
futures of many more young people as well as staff) we could turn the situation
around.
For me this required leadership which was exercised through
influence and building coalitions around a common cause, securing commitment,
providing incentives and keeping people on board and focused on making a
difference. My experience is that much
leadership is like this – rarely these days is it about direct power or even
‘given’ authority. It is about bringing together key players, some but not all
of whom do you directly manage, and maximising their talents to achieve a given
goal.
We had some real successes in this work and what had been
predicted to be a major problem became less acute (although this will continue
to be a challenge for the system).
However, most of us involved became convinced that whether or not there
was a crisis of recruitment this was the right thing to be doing. If education can’t be good at nurturing and
developing the next generation of leaders then something is wrong.
At the same time I became involved in 2 other interesting
leadership areas. One was supporting the
development of leadership of academies and chains of schools. In many ways the requirements for academies
were similar to those of other schools but the additional responsibilities,
independence and the political and media attention probably required extra
resilience, creative and entrepreneurial skills and political savvy. Leading in the context of a group or chain of
schools brings additional challenges and deserves a post in its own right. I am about to start working as a leadership
consultant with such a chain and hope to be able to apply some of what I have
learnt but also to learn more, so watch this space.
I was also involved, at the margins, in helping establish a
leadership programmes for serving and aspiring Directors of Children’s
Services, following a number of high profile cases of child abuse and neglect
which highlighted the need for improvements in the provision of social care and
an integrated approach to supporting children and families. I have commented in another post on how
challenging it was to take on the role of DCS, one of the most challenging in
the public sector in my view, and yet most directors took on the role with
limited or no specific leadership training.
The main 12 month programme devised by the College built on research and experience from
around the world and included a supported self-assessment leading to a personal
development plan, project work on real on-the-job challenges, network learning
groups, residential experiences and the provision of an experienced executive
coach. I ended up as one of the team of
coaches used on the programme.
Both as a coach and consultant I had the privilege, over
this period, to work with a number of headteachers, directors and those
aspiring to these roles. I also worked
with leaders in the private and voluntary sectors. All were different and the contexts they
worked in varied hugely. And yet the
same issues and leadership challenges recurred and the skills and qualities
needed to handle them were remarkably similar.
I will try to capture some of this in the final post of this
series.
As for the role of leadership coach and consultant, I do
believe that someone who has had the opportunity to work through many of these
experiences and developments themselves, particularly in similar contexts, is
in a powerful position to support and help other leaders, whether they are
aspiring, new or experienced. However,
it most certainly is not about telling others how to do it, rather to help
leaders reflect on what they are doing, ask the kind of questions that will
enhance decisions, offer occasional insights and support leaders' own
personal awareness and development.
Often in the day-to-day pressures of leadership, the ability to step back
and reflect on personal and organisational performance is hard. A skilled and trusted coach/consultant can
make a significant difference. But then
I would say that wouldn’t I!
I’d be interested in what you
think are the best ways of supporting leaders, in context, and your own
experiences of this.