The Unexpected Leader

Exploring the real nature of values, authenticity and moral purpose in education

Iesha Small, Ian Gilbert

• Publisher: Independent Thinking Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781781352991
• eBook ISBN:
  9781781353158
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Iesha Small's 'The Unexpected Leader: Exploring the real nature of values, authenticity and moral purpose in education' is for school leaders who want to make a difference but feel they aren't obvious leadership material.This is a book about people. A book that humanises school leaders and tells their stories. A book in which school leaders reveal their authentic selves and their journeys to leadership. Iesha set about writing 'The Unexpected Leader' as a senior leader who looked around and struggled to find role models whose experiences she could learn from. She wanted to speak honestly with like-minded individuals about being what others didn't expect in a leadership package - introverted, unassuming, open about their mental health. Iesha did, however, manage to identify and interview nine such school leaders - and in this book she relates their stories alongside her own, in words and photographs, to explore how thinking or acting differently need not be a barrier to school leadership, but can actually prove to be an invaluable asset. In doing so she shatters the myths and conventional ideas around who/what makes a good school leader, and champions a more humane brand of leadership which is true to the individual and still benefits the students and staff they serve. Furthermore, Iesha offers insights into themes such as imposter syndrome, integrity, failure and ambition, and frames them in relation to her own leadership journey in order to empower and encourage all leaders - including leaders-in-waiting - to step up and set out on their own individual pathways.Each chapter starts by inviting you, the reader, to consider your own circumstances and feelings, before Iesha's own experience is briefly outlined so you know you aren't alone. This is followed by an exploration of the leadership journey of the interviewed school leader, featuring key episodes that delve into how they have taken ownership of their professional and personal lives. The transferrable lessons and practical takeaways from their experiences are then discussed in order to guide you towards more effective leadership, while being unashamedly who you are. Finally, each chapter concludes with a final message or thought from the school leader in question.Suitable for anybody in or aspiring to school leadership.

PART I

CIRCUMSTANCES

CHAPTER 1

I felt like an imposter – Leah’s story

“It was partly the feeling of being thrust into the situation without any preparation. The worry and fear of doing the wrong thing.”

You

* Have you ever been asked to perform a role that you had no intention of applying for?

* Perhaps you have been asked to fill a role because one of your colleagues is on maternity leave?

* Perhaps somebody has left unexpectedly and you’ve been asked to step in until a replacement is found?

* Perhaps there was an expected departure but the vacancy has taken longer than expected to fill?

* You are the best available fit, or at least everybody else seems to think so.

* So you agree to do the role, but then what?

In these situations it’s easy to feel like an imposter because, well, you pretty much are. It’s not even your real job. Taking on a new role is always challenging but it’s especially tough if you’ve been asked to step up suddenly or before you feel ready and skilled enough to do so. I know because this has happened to me. It’s not the same as when you’ve actively applied for a job. In those situations there is often a preparation period, even if only in your own head. You know that you’ll be doing something different, so you start to mentally prepare yourself and possibly gather advice from other people in similar roles. If you are really lucky, you may even get a formal handover period.

Whatever the circumstances, the point is, the job needs to be done and you are expected to do it. Sometimes, just to keep things extra fun, you may even have to do your normal job at the same time. If you are anything like me, you won’t just want to be a caretaker, you’ll want to do it well, to prove to yourself that you are capable. Will it be stressful? Initially, yes. Feel like grappling in the dark? Absolutely. However, acting or temporary positions can be an excellent learning experience and a real chance to test your capabilities. You can come out stronger, wiser and a better professional. You could even come out with a permanent promotion or a new role.

Me

Early in my career, I never wanted to be a leader. I was a maths teacher and really enjoyed my subject. Two or three years in, I thought I was getting pretty good at teaching, or at least being less crap! The kids were understanding what I was teaching. I was more confident. I was becoming trusted. I’d even helped to train some other teachers and had taken on some extra responsibility. This was in my very first school, a large comprehensive in Islington, North London, where I trained as part of the Teach First scheme, which was then in its second year.1 I was part of a wonderful department with an innovative and creative head of subject who seemed to love her job and led a very happy team.

Moving to a new school, I found things a little different. I looked around at the heads of department and they seemed, well, how can I put it? Stressed. And under pressure. Especially those leading the core subjects: English, maths and science. If middle leadership looked like this, I wasn’t sure it was what I wanted. Being an SLT member wasn’t even on my radar. When I did see them, they seemed pretty stressed too and there appeared to be cliques within the team which got in the way of what the school seemed to need. I looked at what I was meant to see as my next step and was distinctly underwhelmed.

I was, however, somebody who wanted a challenge and wanted to grow. Some may see it as a strength, others as a character flaw, but standing still has never really been an option for me. In fact, it can feel like going backwards. Disillusioned with what I’d seen of leadership, I decided that I wanted to be an advanced skills teacher (AST). A governmental education improvement strategy, the idea was that great teachers who wanted to remain in the classroom could earn nationally recognised accreditation. They would still teach but with a reduced timetable which would allow them to spend time helping other teachers – both within and beyond their school – to improve. It sounded like the perfect fit for me: challenge, teaching the subject I love, and time to work with and develop other teachers. Sign me up!

A year into role in my second school, I was doing fine. I’d had some opportunities to develop professionally and was still planning my route to AST-dom. I had been really happy at my first school but it was a comprehensive for 11- to 16-year-olds, which meant only teaching up to GCSE. I really wanted the opportunity to teach A level, which is why I had left. That’s where the proper maths starts, I thought. Calculus to the left and right, my friends. One evening I bumped into a deputy head from that first school. She had since moved on somewhere else, as had our former head teacher, who she said I should call. Like the curious young woman I was – I am now slightly less young but just as curious – I did. He told me that he was now running a school in challenging circumstances and could do with a deputy head of maths. Would I like to join his team?

Still curious, I said yes. However, when I started, things were a bit more challenging than I’d realised I was letting myself in for. The head of maths, to whom I’d just become deputy, was under siege because GCSE results had been very low for some time. The SLT wanted fast improvements and he appeared to be under a lot of pressure. I say appeared to be because I didn’t really get the chance to get to know him. I can’t remember the exact timescales, but within probably about half a term of me joining the school he suddenly went off sick. One day he was there; the next, without warning, he wasn’t.

So I became acting head of maths. With less than two months’ experience as a deputy, I would be leading a subject in which the results were expected to jump significantly – by double-digit percentage points – that summer, in a department that had been historically underperforming in a school regularly at the bottom of the borough’s league tables. I had no idea what I was doing. But I didn’t have time to think about that. I had to lead the department, provide stability and ensure that every single one of the hundreds of students at the school got the best maths education my team could offer them. At least until a replacement head could be found.

When writing a book called The Unexpected Leader, I knew that I had to have a chapter that took the title literally – for people who, like me, had not initially set out to take on a role but were forced to due to circumstance. This is an experience shared by Leah, currently a deputy head teacher in a large inner-city primary school. Leah is a family friend who also happens to be a teacher. We’ve known each other for about fifteen years and we started teaching at roughly the same time. Her story takes us to when she was working as an assistant head and quite suddenly, due to a number of unexpected factors, found herself as joint acting head. Like me, she found a way to inhabit this imposter role and became a better professional as a result. I hope Leah’s story offers anyone who is suddenly acting in a leadership positon many actionable points to take away, as well as the knowledge that you are not alone in how you feel.

Leah

Even before becoming acting head, Leah had moments of feeling like an imposter as an SLT member:

“I think when I first started, I felt kind of buoyant and cheered on by the fact that I’d got the job in the first place. I had lots of energy and things I wanted to try. There are times as well when you start in a leadership position and you feel like a bit of a fraud. Like somebody’s going to come and knock on your door and say, ‘Um, what are you doing? Get out.’ Especially as people don’t trust you innately, just because you are an SLT member. It took a long time, at least a term, for others in the team to believe that what I had to say was worth listening to or to respect me, and rightly so. You don’t just respect somebody who walks in and says, ‘I’ve got this label.’ That’s fair enough. So in the beginning, I felt like I had to fake it till I made it. I wanted to do well, I wanted to learn.”

The initial support of the then head made the process easier:

“My boss was very skilled at helping to grow people. I’d never experienced that before. In my previous setting, everyone was lovely but there was very little leadership support or development in that sense. Right from the word go, in our one to ones, I’d leave feeling inspired. She knew a lot about leadership. She’s read a lot, she introduced me to books that I should read and straight away I was learning new things. She’s quite an inspiring leader herself; done a lot in her life and changed a lot in the school. I started right at the bottom of the leadership scale. I had no experience, so every year she’d build up my appraisal process and give me something new to try, even if it was just dipping my feet in.”

Having enjoyed this structure and support within the school previously, suddenly being thrust into the joint head role without warning was all the harder:

“Although we knew the head was sick, we didn’t know when she was coming back … there was no information coming from the top down. There was an awful lot going on in the school; it was an Ofsted window, and we were dealing with some quite contentious parental complaints. Because there were no other layers of leadership to take things to, that was very challenging. I think our whole problem with it was not knowing. We ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: Circumstances
• Part II: Humanity
• Part III: Beyond
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Resources
• About the author
• Copyright