“The essence of great leadership is influence, not authority.”
I haven’t written a blog in a while but I found sharing my thoughts extremely therapeutic during lockdown because it helped me to clear my mind which meant I could sleep better. It was soothing to be able to stream my ideas onto a page rather than to allow them to float around in my head. But anyone in the education field will know how manic and chaotic life has been since returning to the workplace and I have barely had a second to breathe let alone to write something down.
However, I find myself at that point again where I need to share my thoughts. I am at an unsettling period of my life as I’m in my final term at my current school and about to commence a new journey as Head of English at a brand new school. Obviously, I am finding this both exciting and daunting. I am sad to be leaving a fab team of people at a place I have worked ridiculously hard to help to improve and I am also heartbroken to leave my beloved Deirdre behind. However, I am excited to join a different school and eager to experience building a new team. I’m definitely ready to make my mark somewhere new.
While I plan my initial priorities for January at my new school, it has led me to consider the true meaning of leadership. And this is what has got me perturbed:
“The boss has the title, a leader has the people.”
Far too many times, I have experienced leadership from a ‘boss’ and not a ‘leader’. I feel like the teacher’s pay scale is to blame because the pay is poor to start with. As an NQT, you are stretched beyond belief and work ungodly hours as you try to juggle the demands of a teaching timetable, but each month you take home a pay that is in no way measurable of the time you have committed to this job. Yet, once you start climbing the ladder and add TLRs, your pay starts to become something more worthwhile. And this is the problem: some people take on responsibilities for the wrong reasons. It might have been a natural progression in your department or pastoral area or it might have been simply for the attractive salary enhancement. Either way, if you are not in it for the right reasons then it shows.
What I have learned is that everyone deserves to be led appropriately. I want to look at my superiors and respect them, not resent them. The best leaders I have experienced are the ones who are truly passionate about the students and want to improve their own pedagogy in order to provide students with a better experience not just because it looks good on their CV or they like the air of importance it gives them.
I have been extremely lucky to work for some amazing leaders in my present school and previous school and it is true that it takes a good leader to highlight the poor ones. Where I have felt positive leadership is where I’ve been trusted to get on with my job but supported with appropriate professional development. Yet, I continue to see people who prefer to be the ‘boss’ and thrive on what they think are ‘important’ jobs while missing the key part of their role: inspiring others to dream more, learn more and do more.
You do not create anything alone. A true leader has a team beside them not behind them. My greatest success to date has been uniting an extremely fractured team and the only way this was possible (and it is cliched!) was to lead by example.
I strive to create and implement the best possible things but I always know they can be improved. My team always felt confident enough to share their ideas and to critique and discuss them in order to improve. Our shared goal always being that we’re here for the kids. The students sat in front of us; the ones we see more than our own children; young people that are someone else’s children – they are our priority.
Someone interested in being a leader gets that, but those who just want to be a boss don’t.
Recent Comments