We’ll lead again - why it’s time to start leading your school again

If there’s ever been a time to understand the difference between leading and managing your school, the past two years have been it, as will the year ahead.

In this blog post, former HT, Sarah Creegan gives her advice on how you can move back into really leading your school, rather than just being stuck managing it in operational mode.

Having to manage

When the pandemic hit, schools’ strategic plans went out the open, well-ventilated window. Leadership teams were forced into reactive, operational mode, dealing with everything thrown at them. 

As far as the wonderful world of education was concerned, when Dame Vera Lynn’s wartime song was re-released in April ’20, the lyrics could have been tweaked to, “We’ll lead again, don’t know where, don’t know when. But I know we’ll lead again some sunny day.” 

Covid hasn’t gone yet. We know that. In fact, I’m seeing the positive (forgive the pun) of still having a faint line on my lateral flow test this morning. Who wants to go out for a long, lazy lunch with friends when, instead, they can use their weekend more productively to write a blog? 

Over the past two years, we’ve got used to our plans being kiboshed by Covid - sometimes with warning and sometimes without. The eagerly anticipated visit to a relative we hadn’t seen for months. The fully-paid-for, non-refundable weekend away. The long, lazy lunch with friends – yep, still not over it.

The school improvement plans leaders and their teams were excited to implement in September 2019 were, in most cases, put on hold when we first locked down in March 2020, for a few weeks, ‘until this pandemic has gone…’

Since then, you’ve seen your rellies, you’ve had a cheeky trip away, but that improvement plan? It’s still frozen in time because you’re still in operational mode. No, Covid hasn’t gone away and you’re still going to have to:

• Deal with staff sickness absence
• Work out what to do when half the kids who are taking exams go down with it
• Continue to write more risk assessments than Downing Street had parties

But it’s getting to the point where you’ve ‘managed enough,’ right?

Why you need to be leading your school again

Of course, your school needs to be ‘led’ again; it’s what the kids and their families need, it’s what your team needs, but it’s also what you need. 

TES research shows that, currently, only 30% of school leaders would recommend headship as a career goal. So many have told us they’re struggling to see the joy in their job. That’s because you didn’t go into it expecting one of your main roles to be overseeing handwashing! 

You didn’t imagine you’d be confined to seeing pupils via an online assembly or from a distance, in the playground, as they floated in their bubbles. You hadn’t thought the main communication from parents would be from behind a mask or an email, some of which have been especially unkind and unfair during this time. 

You’ve dealt with all of the above, and rightly so. It was your responsibility. And let’s face it, advice from on high was often slow in the coming and outdated by the time it arrived. How many times did you mutter, or scream, “Don’t bother Boris, Gavin (remember him?), Nadhim … we’ve got this!” And you had.

But now, that ‘sunny day’ Dame Vera was singing about is here. It’s time to start looking forward to being the visionary leader you want to be again – or for the first time, if you took up a new headship post during the pandemic.

For your own mental health and happiness, as well as the school’s success, you need a purpose, hope and plans for the future. 

How to lead again

In every staff survey ever conducted in schools, ‘communication could be better’ comes out as a thing. Sometimes this is because people feel they need to know things they don’t (you know who I mean). But more often than not, it’s because communication could, in fact, be better.

Great leaders communicate exceptionally well, which is why our Positive Communication Skills workshop is so popular. So, before you surge ahead with your ideas, priorities and target setting, make sure all lines of communication are up and running, and the best they can be. Here’s how:

Have regular little chats

As we haven’t been able to have as many off-the-cuff chats with people over the past two years, there’ll be some relationships that have either suffered or not got off the ground. Maybe with the parents of children who have joined during the pandemic or new members of the team? 

Because we’ve been so aware we shouldn’t be too close to others, lots of our conversations have ‘cut-to-the-chase’ rather than meandering gently towards it. We build and rebuild relationships through discovering we have a shared interest, being able to have a laugh together, and/or empathising with each other. It’s time to be more sociable and start chatting again.

Ask the right questions and listen to understand

With so much going on over the past two years, it’s not unusual for leaders to feel slightly out-of-the-loop. This can feel stressful, particularly if you’re a control freak, which you probably are! 

To ensure you’re up-to-speed, now is the time to get back into classrooms and the staffroom, ask the right questions and listen to understand. Having been in your own head and office for so long, active, focused, observed listening might be a skill you need to practise. 

And remember, you shouldn’t just be waiting for the other person to shut up, so you can say what’s on your mind!

Avoid shying away from big chats

During the pandemic, there will have been bigger conversations that just haven’t been had. 

Maybe a teacher wasn’t doing a good job, but you needed someone in front of that class. Harsh, but that’s how you’ve ‘managed’. Now though, every child deserves a fantastic teacher and every teacher who’s struggling needs a kind and constructive conversation about the future. One where everyone comes out of it feeling okay. 

Good luck and, in the words of Dame Vera, 

‘Keep smiling through

Just like you always do

‘Til the blue skies 

Drive the Covid clouds away.’