This article was originally published on 17 January 2023

Do we overcomplicate educational leadership?

It’s a question I could not but help ask myself as I undertake a master’s degree in Educational Leadership following on from a National Professional Qualification for Middle Leadership and National Professional Qualification for Senior Leadership.

Clearly, these courses have much to offer - hence why I have done two and am completing a third - but I also can’t help but think that, sometimes, there is a rigidity to what is presented in such courses and the forced “real world examples” they use do not match with reality.

“Use this leadership style in this situation, and this style for this situation, and never this style for this situation”, was a common evaluation, while questions read along the lines of “evaluate leadership style x for the provided case study”.

Time after time, it seemed like I needed a plethora of leadership styles ready to deploy at any given moment in a variety of situations. This just seemed too complicated. Surely there is a simpler way?

This was something that became particularly clear to me after I took on the role of head of faculty in September - when I was suddenly faced with having to make numerous quick and effective decisions - and needed an approach that could suit all situations.

As I worked through this, I found myself developing my own leadership style to create a system for dealing with whatever came my way - an irony I’m aware of, considering my own complaints about the plethora of theories already in existence.

The 3 Ps

Yet, rather than a style, my own development was more of an approach to successfully navigate a range of situations through a simple, easy-to-remember rule-of-three approach, that I termed “The 3 Ps of leadership”. They are pragmatism, patience and prudence.

That sounds simple perhaps, but how does it work in practice?

Let’s begin with this idea of pragmatism. I like to think of pragmatism as the middle ground - the realistic option that no one is perhaps delighted about, but no one will kick up a huge fuss about.

1. Pragmatism

Pragmatism places a focus on what you can actually get done considering your structure (time, staff, money and so on), over what you might be able to get done in a utopian world.

This may sound somewhat defeatist, perhaps, but having a focus on finding a solution that is workable, without spending too much time complaining about what ought to be is a much better use of time and energy.

What’s more, it is also a great way to appease two different stakeholders, especially where you are a subject leader and need to keep your team on board, but also follow the path set out by your senior leadership team.

For example, I would love to have a collaborative planning session with my new team once a week. But for my team, this would be two “lost” periods a fortnight and for timetabling, finding one - let alone two - slots would have been difficult. Therefore I settled for one a fortnight; a compromise, but one that has worked.

2. Patience

Secondly is patience. This is key, especially when starting out in a role. A common (or perhaps universal) question in teaching and learning responsibility interviews is around goals and aims for a position. If you got this job, what would you like to do?

Here, you imagine all the grand plans that you have, the opportunities that you would put in place and the changes that you would make.

But actually, in reality, and edging back to pragmatism once again, this just is not possible. In time, it may be possible to implement your grand plans, but not all at once - so patience is needed.

Even if you have been in your role for a while and have a long history of making the right decisions, you still need to be patient about what changes you make next. Make too many significant changes all at once, and things can come crashing down like dominoes.

3. Prudence

Lastly is the idea of prudence. Prudence helps bring together the previous ideas of pragmatism and patience by recognising the reality that everything is governed by limited resources and opportunity costs.

For every decision we make, we are not making another (opportunity cost). For every decision we make, we are (very likely) reducing our capacity to do other things elsewhere.

Therefore we must recognise as leaders - at any level - that decisions are not made in isolation but are, instead, a small move in a game that can have numerous knock-on consequences - both good and bad - and that we must be mindful of these.

An obvious example is the use of CPD time. Do you provide staff with time to mark papers after a full set of Year 11 mocks, or do you carry on with your CPD programme? These choices have consequences.

One may make staff happy and reduce stress, but it interrupts teaching and learning developments, while the other allows for the teaching and learning developments to occur, but doesn’t help to reduce marking stress. A prudent decision is needed.

As such, the next time you have to make a decision, ask yourself this: “Are the choices you are taking pragmatic, patient and prudent?”

Nathan Burns is head of maths at a school in Derbyshire

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