The Art of Being a Brilliant Middle Leader

(The Art of Being Brilliant series)

Gary Toward, Chris Henley, Andy Cope

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781785830235
• eBook ISBN:
  9781785830617
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Whether you're already leading or you have it on your radar, this book's for you. Don't expect a textbook full of highfalutin theories though, this book is rammed full of practical ideas that you can use instantly to help you in your current role or to get the position you want. How do you create a brilliant team? What is needed to establish an awesome ethos? How do you do those difficult personnel things? How do you make an impact? Answers to all of these questions and more are based on the combined 100 plus years of the authors' leadership experience in a wide range of educational settings. You'll find a cornucopia of pick and mix tips, strategies and stuff that really works and will make your leadership brilliant!

Leadership doesn't come from formulae or from the latest list of government standards. Neither does it come from the school handbook or a 'values' poster in the staffroom. If you pick up 100 different leadership books you'll find 100 different nuanced definitions. Fundamentally, brilliant leadership is inspiring people to go the extra mile. There's a difference between 'outstanding' and 'brilliant'. Brilliant is self-made, inside out, creative and beyond the bounds of any simple description. Brilliance is a calling and brilliant practitioners go well beyond the call of duty.

Middle leaders are the backbone of any school. At their best they challenge, manage, plan, develop and inspire colleagues to make learning brilliant for kids. Middle leadership covers a broad spectrum of roles and titles: curriculum leader, pastoral leader, key stage coordinator, subject coordinator, head of department, school leader, head of year, school leadership, head of house, head of faculty, subject leader. This book is aimed at anyone in middle leadership, regardless of job title, whether long in the tooth, new to leadership or wanting to get into it. Dip into this book and you'll find a wide range of tools, strategies, advice and top tips to help you be your brilliant best.

Gary, Chris and Andy cover the myriad of issues facing middle leaders with their customary mix of good humour and solid, experience-informed advice. Topics covered include: starting a new role; whether in a new school or following internal promotion, what your colleagues and the kids will expect of you, identifying personal strengths and areas for further development, shifting your focus from your to-do list to your to-be list, having an impact, building rapport and a team ethos, planting seeds of positivity across the school, tips for holding effective meetings, how to plan improvement which works for your team and meets the expectations of senior leaders, planning, implementing and evaluating change, dealing with negative colleagues, overcoming issues and personnel problems, understanding and owning your thinking, celebrating successes, modelling and sharing best practice and developing a brilliant team.

The Art of Being Brilliant series was a finalist in the 2017 Education Resources Awards in the Educational Book Award category.

Chapter 1

THE STRUGGLE

It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.

Elinor Smith

Before we begin in earnest, we would like to doff our metaphorical hats to you. In fact, consider this a tug of the forelock: you are amazing. Holding down a school leadership position, at whatever level, means you inhabit that dichotomous position of having the most important and the most difficult of all jobs. You are truly all things to all people, as well as a master juggler, keeping several balls in the air while spinning plates with your feet. It’s not surprising that you’re exhausted!

Throughout history humans have been living with scarcity. But now the only scarce thing in our lives is time. The chances are that your lifespan of 4,000 weeks is zipping by in a blur. All this fast stuff means that we’re living life beyond the legal busyness speed limit. If there was a busyness traffic cop, he’d be clocking you and doing a double take at his speed-gun. You’d be pulled over for the offence of ‘living life way too fast to the point of being a danger to yourself and other people’.

If you follow the busyness police analogy through, you’d have to go on a speed awareness course and learn to live your life safely. And then, just like a real speed awareness course, you’d sit there grumbling that it was unfair that you’d been pulled up for racing through life. And then some smart alec trainer would come in and show you some gruesome PowerPoints about folk who’ve lived their lives too fast – burned out wreckages who have coronaries and several failed marriages behind them. And you’d all look at your shoes and think, ‘He’s got a good point but it won’t happen to me.’ Perhaps, for a few weeks after your life speed awareness course, you’d actually slow down and be more mindful. You might even savour a sunrise and your marriage, but gradually you’d get caught up again and, before long, you’d be clocked above the limit once more.

The opposite of busyness isn’t slowness. As we’ll see later, it’s pure unadulterated attention to the moment. It’s pondering, thinking, musing and wondering. These are all the things that are absent when you’re speeding through life.

We meet a lot of school staff who are close to exhaustion, crawling towards the next half-term that will provide an all too brief pit stop before they re-enter the race. The relentless pace is particularly full-on for department heads, middle leaders and head teachers. But in true trooper style, you soldier on as before, victims of what science calls ‘learned helplessness’. There are several horrible examples of animals being subjected to electric shocks to see how they respond to stress. (Before we go any further, we’re absolutely with you on this: we’re all for reversing the procedure and subjecting these scientists to e...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Sir Tim Brighouse
• 1: The Struggle
• 2: Big ‘L’ and Little ‘l’
• 3: Spaghetti Junction
• 4: Meetings, Bloody Meetings!
• 5: All Change
• 6: Playing Nicely
• 7: The Game Changer
• 8: House of the Rising Sun
• 9: The Adventure of a Lifetime
• Bibliography
• About the Authors
• Copyright