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My Biggest Influence

Since leaving my school, as mentioned in a previous post, I have been writing a book. As well as it being a manual for headteachers, it focuses on my leadership journey, and the development of my leadership style, which I have called CULTIVATIONAL LEADERSHIP.

In my book I refer to my leadership influences, and to one person in particular, but I do not go into much detail about them, so I thought that my blog entry today could remedy that.

Having worked for a frankly terrifying head teacher in my first, thankfully short term, position, I then moved to a school much nearer to home, where I was to stay for the next ten years. A first school, for those of you who have never heard of one, is a school which takes pupils up to the end of year three. That has its pros and its cons, but the school has since changed to a full primary, so they take children up to the point where they transfer to secondary school.

The head teacher of this school is the subject of todays post, and definitely my biggest influence as a school leader. Although I worked for him at the start of my career I remember thinking that I would like to be thought of in the same way by my staff as we all did of him. It has been around 18 years since then and nothing has changed, so what exactly is it about him that struck such a chord with me and has stayed with me for such a long time?

There are two main aspects of his leadership style which resonated with me and have become central to the way I have acted as a head. I believe that they were already inside of me and that I have been authentic as a leader, but that it was seeing how he conducted himself that made me understand that this was the kind of leader that I wanted to be.

The first aspect of his style was the fact that, although it was a huge school he retained a really close relationship with the children. I think he probably knew the names of all 450 of them, to be honest! The children loved him and he never forgot that above everything, he was still a teacher. Although my school was much smaller than his I definitely knew everyone's names, and working in a smaller environment I am proud to say that I was able to actually get to know all of their personalities and stories too. I have been in lots of schools where there isn't that kind of connection between the head and the children, and believe me, you can feel it.

The second aspect of his style which has remained at my core throughout me leadership career was his kindness. He believed in looking after his staff and supporting them fully, which is something I have endeavoured to do. If anyone needed him, he was there for support, and I like to think that the same could be said of me.

When I left my school recently, in my letter to the parents, I stated that if there was one thing I would like to be remembered for it was being kind. I also used this letter as a reminder that kindness seems to be in relatively short supply at the moment, in society and also in schools. Kindness and relationships are two of the key aspects of the style of leadership I have developed since I last saw Bruce (his real name), who is long retired now, and I will discuss CULTIVATIONAL LEADERSHIP more in upcoming posts.




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