A leader is a dealer in hope Napoleon
Good leadership and bad leadership
Context clearly has a big impact on the exercise of leadership: leadership in a crisis requires different qualities from leadership in normal times – hence the almost universal recognition Winston Churchill has received in this country for his effectiveness as a war-time leader, alongside his typical characterisation as a mediocre peacetime leader. Same person, different context. At least in modern times, schools in the UK have been rarely in crisis – until the pandemic, which has created a regular sense of crisis that is thankfully now abating.
Here is my take on some of the qualities of good leadership and bad leadership in schools in normal times (I’m aware that ‘leadership’ is a huge and complex area, and that this blog only scratches lightly at its surface).
Bad leaders
- Tend towards authoritarianism; they often mistake this for decisiveness, and ‘getting stuff done’; authoritarian leaders don’t listen enough to the people they are leading – or worse, they tend to ignore them, thinking they know best by dint of their role
- Lack flexibility; they can be unwilling, or unable, to turn from a chosen path, even when it appears to be taking them in the wrong direction
- Struggle to see what matter most; as a consequence, they try to get a hundred things done at the same time, which results in other people running around trying to get those hundred things done at the same time – for a glimpse into this tendency, Google School Development Plans and you will find many weighty tomes
- Criticise too much; they don’t think of it as criticism, they think of it as being rigorous, and holding people to account
- Are not clear; they talk a lot, but clarity is always a casualty of too much talk
- Lack sound judgement at times; other people would say they make regular wrong calls; I’ve said before that I think good judgement is the handiest leadership quality because of the large number of decisions school leaders make
- Struggle to follow things through; often don’t do what they say they will do; forget to do important things
- Are often cheerless (I remember one boss I had a long time ago who thought there was gravitas in grumpiness), or unpredictable in their mood, or panicky (everything is done in crisis-mode)
- Are fickle – ‘I saw this on Twitter, it must be good!’
Good leaders
- Share leadership; they instinctively involve other people in decision-making, and choose the right time to exercise their own decision-making authority – there is admirable confidence in sharing leadership
- Focus on a small number of priorities at once; as well as helping with workload – which is crucial – this dramatically increases the chance that people will be able to achieve the chosen priorities
- Focus on the right things (back to good judgement) – no point in focusing on your fiddle skills while Rome burns
- Are clear; they are good at ‘cutting to the chase’; they are careful not to talk a lot – one of my favourite quotations is ‘It takes a long time to say so little’ – and they are zealous about getting others talking
- Praise far more than they criticise, and support far more than they challenge. There is a place for criticism, (a very small one), and there is absolutely a place for sensible accountability
- Empathise; they listen a lot, and they respond to what people tell them (this last is harder than it sounds, because leaders often get conflicting messages from different constituencies)
- Exercise sound judgement in decision-making; other people would say that they get the vast majority of calls right
- Do what they say they will do – you can trust someone who does what they say they will do
- Are ceaselessly optimistic; optimism, and its close sibling, cheerfulness, help to create a positive environment; they are contagious; they smell of happiness
Of course, people aren’t all one thing; we may well be stronger in some things, and weaker in others – it’s a best-fit thing (like the old National Curriculum levels!). But bad leadership corrodes morale and drags an organisation down; whereas good leadership gives you wings.
