C to the Power of 3: Human-Centric School Leadership
As AI increasingly takes care of the process side of our leadership roles, it's time to focus our energies on the things it can't do. Here are 3 of them.
In my work with schools across the world I’ve come to realise that there are three vitally important skills that leaders at every level mustn’t ignore. The world is moving so fast, with AI accelerating the pace of change beyond anyone’s expectations. However, AI’s effectiveness sits at the process end of the spectrum. We still own the human side, and it will be those leaders who prioritise certain skills that will come out on top.
These are not about balancing the books, or strategic planning, or any one of a dozen important day-to-day functions school leaders have. They fall more into the Patrick Lencioni camp, as they focus on establishing and maintaining organisational health. I highly recommend his book The Advantage.
They are Communication, Consistency, and Care. Let’s look at them in turn.
1. Communication
Without exception, when I’ve gone into failing schools the one word that stands out more than any is a lack of communication. Governors not communicating their expectations to Principals. Principals not bringing the right voices into the mix at the right time, and forging ahead with bright ideas that fall flat on their face. Parents that are kept in the dark about the big ticket items like staff movement, curriculum development, and welfare.
The problem we have now is that there are rapid-fire methods of informal communication that will spin silence into misinformation and panic if you’re not careful. WhatsApp is the most insidious of these: every year group in every school has its own WhatsApp group, and some can be pretty toxic places, where a few outspoken parents can do no end of damage to a school’s reputation.
I’ve known of parents that have taken the skewed perspective of their 8-year-old child and presented it to the group as fact. One child told his parent that he had watched an adult-themed movie in class. The parent created so much heat in the WhatsApp group that eventually one of them set lawyers on the school. It turned out that the teacher had shown a clip from a Disney movie that showed two characters kissing. If the school had published a curriculum guide, showing the units of work and an outline of the resources used, the parent would have had the chance to query in advance and none of it would have happened.
There is no such thing as too much communication. Don’t hide things from staff or parents.
If a teacher leaves at short notice, update the parents with a plan for how you’re addressing this.
If there are concerns over how a class is behaving, put strategies in place and tell everyone that’s what you’re doing.
If you plan a big strategic shift in your school (such as bringing in AI), establish a working party so that everyone has a chance to have their voice heard.
It’s not about delegating all the decisions to parents and staff: you’re paid a higher salary to make those final calls. Just don’t forget to tell people what you’re doing.
2. Consistency
This is critical. The reason leaders are inconsistent is usually because they don’t do number one very well. If they don’t communicate, and listen, before making a decision, then as soon as this decision is executed they will often pivot in response to objections.
Consistency and credibility go hand in hand. If you blow with the wind you’ll soon lose the trust others have in you.
Consistency also means following through on your promises. If you say you’re going to meet or call a team member then don’t, you’re sending one message: your time, and your priorities, are more important than theirs.
But here’s the thing. Your role only exists to enable others to do their job as well as possible. If you’re a Principal, you succeed or fail based on how effectively your class teachers deliver learning. If you’re a group manager like me, you’re only as good as the Principals you manage. If they fail, you fail. The more senior you are, the more you must blame yourself when things go wrong.
So be consistent. Show up when you say you will. Start meetings on time (and expect others to abide by that). Stick to your guns once you commit to a course of action (unless it is clear that external forces make a plan of action untenable, then sometimes you have to pivot - just make sure communicate the reasons why).
Don’t be the leader who causes eye rolls in the staffroom when you announce your next big idea. There is such a thing as innovation fatigue.
3. Care
One of my favourite phrases is “I don’t care what you know until I know that you care.” Teachers won’t pay much attention to your brilliant new ideas if they know you’re only doing it to show off to parents or governors. Care is generated from the knowledge that you’re working in service of others. That’s all leaders do. Otherwise there’s no point in their existence.
Keep reminding yourself this: you are only as good as those you lead. Caring for them means caring for yourself. On the other hand, putting yourself first means privileging ego over organisational health. Ego kills schools, and it will eventually kill your career if you let it.
Genuine care underpins every effective interaction in a school. Without it, schools become filled with jobsworths who never go the extra mile. And because there are so many jobs in a school that cannot be fully covered by paid positions, you need to rely on goodwill. Losing that means having to do a lot more of those jobs yourself, or paying others to do them.
Caring for others is therefore not totally selfless.
This year, as we see machine intelligences increasingly able to do much of the process work for us, focus on these three very human qualities in your leadership interactions. You won’t regret it.