When headship palls

I do know what it's like to lead a failing school out of special measures, and I understand completely that those staff who do not 'get it' may not have a place in the school's future. But I am appalled and saddened at HM Chief Inspector's latest charge, that 5000 headteachers are no good. A non-teaching friend said to me this morning, 'people don't want to be heads, do they?'  Is it any wonder, with leadership like this?

Of course, there are some headteachers who probably need to move on. I was recently part of a team of colleagues supporting a school where we identified all manner of improvements that were needed urgently. We made suggestions, wrote reports but were met by a blank silence and we are very aware of the price being paid by the children at that school for the headteacher's blind recalcitrance.  Is this a perversion of the 'hero head' that HMCI proclaims as the answer to school's woes. Leadership is a team business and the trouble with hero heads (or whatever the perverted opposite may be) is that they can lead without opening their ears and minds to their colleagues.  But this is the exception, not a 5000 strong rule.


In the most recently published 'Primary Headship eBulletin' (Optimus Education), I wrote about sensitive leadership, not one where low morale meant 'you are doing something right'. as HMCI had suggested in his last harangue. To my surprise I was deluged with emails from headteachers, some from outstanding schools, who did not believe in management by belligerence but by compassion. Compassionate leadership does not mean weakness and it is high time Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools recognised that there is room for a range of leadership styles, not just his.

Frank Knowles HMI once told me, 'behaviour can be sorted out quite quickly; standards take a lot longer'. One presumes that is still true. Some of our heads are truly heroes; and many of them are turning the educational equivalent of a super-tanker. They are, for the most part, good, successful leaders and they deserve to be treated with greater respect.