Becks Boomer-Clark is CEO of Lift Schools. She has previously worked as a regional schools commissioner for the Department for Education and various roles in schools, including headteacher. She writes:

I love debate. I love being challenged. But I will acknowledge that I am often not the easiest person to challenge.

As a leader, you should recruit for potential. And then it is incumbent on you as an organisation to develop that potential into expertise.

One of the casualties of the vast array of exciting jobs in the trust movement is the devaluing of the status of the role of the headteacher in the profession. There is nothing more impactful and noble in teaching than a headteacher doing a proper stint in a community, staying for two cycles and really investing in that community.

I am the first to admit that idea generation is one of the things about me that can be a real strength, but that can also be a real challenge for those who work with me. When I was a head, my senior team would dread public occasions where I might spot a problem, decide on a solution off the hoof, and make an announcement meaning they had to quickly find a way of making it happen. I have hundreds of ideas every day. It would be a scary place if they were all articulated.

I am certain that if you finish a decision-making conversation and everyone in the room is happy, you have probably made a really safe decision that is unlikely to take you any further forward as an organisation.

I am self-aware enough to recognise that I am probably more comfortable being a leader than I was not being one. I put that down to eldest sibling syndrome. I am the eldest of three and I think that shines through. I also went to boarding school when I was 8, as my dad was in the Navy and I had been to three schools by that point, and that did not feel like a sustainable approach to my education. What going to boarding school at that age gave me was a self-sufficiency and single-mindedness that meant I could be very focused under my own steam.

I really, really struggled during Covid just having to be still. Being in one place. I am a physical leader. I need to get around the place and that gives me my energy.

I worry that in large organisations it is too easy to build a structure and hierarchy to serve the structure and hierarchy. So, for example, you introduce a layer of management simply to ensure someone does not have too many direct reports. I really try to resist that at all times.

One of the biggest issues with the academies movement is that it was meant to convey freedoms on schools, but instead, it conveyed freedom on trusts, which has eroded autonomy in schools - for school leaders and teachers. What we are trying to do is re-establish that agency for teachers and headteachers. We create the conditions for them to innovate. To create joy and surprise in the classroom. It has become too staid and predictable in many schools.

If I have come up with something new, whether that is something that has arisen through instinct or through a process, the question I always ask is: tell me why this is a bad idea. You may think I have temporarily taken leave of my senses, but can you actually list genuine reasons it should not be done? And if it passes that test, then I ask them to tell me why it is a difficult thing to do.

Leaders need permission to prioritise themselves and their development. But we have a fairly primitive understanding of what constitutes professional learning and development. We need to encourage leaders to look outside of what is typically available in education. You learn from immersing yourself in different contexts, different systems internationally, different sectors - and that does not have to be physical, technology is there to help.

I have a gentle respect for hierarchy. But I want every person in the organisation to be able to talk to me about anything. I don’t want people to feel they have to operate through chains of control.

I have spent the whole of my career embracing being different. In my first headship, I’d attend meetings and was always the youngest in the room, sometimes the only woman, and often the only openly gay person. Now I am getting used to having no hair. I am completely comfortable with being that person.