Mohsen Ojja is CEO of Anthem Schools Trust, which runs 16 schools across primary and secondary phases. He has previously worked in leadership roles across a number of large multi-academy trusts. He writes:

We tend to judge leadership on outcomes, but outcomes are the collateral of things that happen a long time before. Outcomes are important, but we need to get better at judging leadership more holistically and be better able to spot good leadership when results are not yet good.

I am a very functional leader. My best ideas are other people’s ideas. If it serves my purpose, I will gladly use it. And the same goes for ideas of mine that other people use - if you are trying to do the best thing for your pupils, my door is open, you can have whatever I have.

When I was a deputy at a very successful school, I felt like a head, I looked like a head, I was extremely confident that I should have been leading a school. But I went for five headships and I fell at the final hurdle for each one. I told myself it was their loss, I shook it off, I didn’t change what I was doing. But then I worked with Matt Jones at Ark Academy as an associate head. It was an epiphany moment watching him: I realised I was operationally very good, but unlike Matt, I had no idea why I wanted to be a head or what type of head I wanted to be. That’s why I wasn’t able to convince interview panels because I hadn’t convinced myself, I hadn’t worked out answers to those fundamental questions.

Both my grandparents’ parents were involved in Morocco’s struggle for independence. The stories I was told by my grandparents about that period meant I grew up with it being normal to challenge power, and I am very confident in doing that. You have to be like that to lead well.

I am really happy to prove people wrong. People have a certain idea about me from afar, about how I might lead, and within 15 minutes of spending time with me, they discover they are wrong. I don’t mind that - I am a confident person; I can deal with it.

Good leaders play the hands they are dealt. They don’t spend their time arguing about the cards they wish they’d had. There are too many leaders who say: “We don’t have this - or we can’t do this - because of X or Y.” I don’t buy that. You have to work with the system you have. Good leadership is about adapting to the reality.

You can’t have the same recipe for every context: you need to change to match the context of the organisation or even the moment. Nothing should have to change to meet your style.

I consider my network of fellow leaders very carefully. It is important they have the same aspirations, that they are credible, that they have a good track record. I will take challenge from these people, I can learn from them, and I hope I can give something back to them, too.

I am aware that I look different to the vast majority of trust CEOs. While I am passionate about diversity in leadership, I’m also acutely aware there is no “typical” story for non-white CEOs. I have no legitimacy to represent the voice of people who have experienced things I have never experienced. And yet, when people want the “minority ethnic CEO” view, they come to me as if there is a common experience and as if I have experienced all those challenges. I haven’t.

It’s OK to be ambitious. It drives you to take the necessary risks and make the necessary sacrifices. And it pushes you to build the right networks.

You have to do what you say you are going to do. Your authenticity as a leader depends on it. So how you pitch your objectives is key. You have to look at, say, what the optimal teaching outcome is and how far away you are from it - two years, three years etc. You have to be honest about it. Then you hold yourself to account to hit the optimal outcome in that timeframe with no excuses.

The quality of a school is the total sum of the pupil experiences in that school. What that means is every child has someone in front of them who loves them, cares for them, supports them and helps them to be better every single day. As a leader in education, it is your job to ensure that happens.

Sometimes you have to be autocratic. Sometimes you have to say: this is what we are doing, go and do it. But sometimes you have to appreciate the model needs to be tweaked and that others need to take the lead.

My mum and dad come from two very different socioeconomic backgrounds. Traditionally, they would not have come together. But they did. So throughout my life, I have always had a life of two halves - and that has made me acutely aware of my privilege and very good at code-switching. I am the product of that combination of lives. That has, of course, played a role in how I lead.

There is no element of my job that I dread. You can’t be uncomfortable doing certain parts of your role because that comes through. That’s not about ego, it’s about the reality of the role: confidence is key.

When I applied to Anthem, I had my first ever in-depth psychometric test. It was really fascinating. You do the test and then have a session with an occupational psychotherapist. I was extremely nervous as I had never opened up to anyone professionally. It revealed a side of me I did not consciously acknowledge, around service and altruism. It made me cultivate that side and better recognise it - I was much more aware people needed to see that service part of me.

In many ways, I have had a really privileged upbringing. I recognise that and there is a type of guilt associated with that, one that drives me to want to make other kids’ lives better and that, ultimately, has driven me to get where I am now.