Sir Dan Moynihan is CEO of the Harris Federation, a multi-academy trust that runs more than 50 primary schools, secondary schools and sixth-form colleges. Sir Dan is also the chair of the National Institute of Teaching and was previously a headteacher in London. He writes:

As a leader, the buck stops with you. I have learned that there simply isn’t any point in blaming other people if something goes wrong or if you fail in a particular aspect; the fact is, I should have fixed it before things got to that point, because that is my job.

We should learn as much from examples of people leading poorly as from the really excellent leaders. Historically, we have not done enough of that. We have not trained leaders well in this country. It is the obligation of current leaders to change that.

I have no idea how I made it out of school with any qualifications. Back then, no one would have given someone like me a hope of being successful. I guess, on some level, I knew that people believed that and I wanted to prove them wrong. I still do.

People want feedback, whether it is good or bad. People want to know the truth. And they want the chance to be able to fix whatever it is that is an issue. So, you have to be clear on any problems and clear on how you will help them fix them. You can’t let your own awkwardness or anxiety get in the way of that clarity.

Leadership goes through phases in an organisation and, in each phase, different things will be required from you. You need to be able to adapt or you will find you are no longer as effective as you should be. Those transitions can be hard. And sometimes you will realise you have shifted too late.

I never feel I am too far from what is happening in the organisation. The whole point of a leader is to make sure an organisation is more than the sum of its parts and that means knowing those parts well enough to bring them together.

I had an unusual childhood. My dad ran off licences in some extremely tough areas of London. I would be working in the shops in the evenings. You would see alcoholism up close, drug taking up close, violence, people in debt, homelessness - all the problems of the street were coming in. The area where I lived had all those challenges, too. That’s why I understand the challenges for the kids in our schools: I was one of those kids. And that’s where I learned to stay calm - it’s one of the most important parts of being a leader.

My dad’s endurance was something to behold. I don’t know how he coped in the situations he was involved in. He taught me a lot about sticking with it. And leadership is a lot about sticking with it.

It’s important to recognise when someone is better at doing something than you are and to support them to do that instead of you. When we had just 20 schools, I used to watch lessons all the time to offer feedback; now, we have so many people who are far better than me at doing that, so I support them to do that.

One of the most important lessons I have learned is to pay as much attention to what I shouldn’t say as to what I should say.

You need your senior team to be straight with you, and you need to create a culture in which they feel comfortable doing that. And it has to be reciprocal; there have to be frank discussions in both directions. Of course, criticism can sting but I will think it through when it comes, go for a run, talk about it with those I trust and make sure I have really understood what needs to change.

My wife has this ability to quickly get to the crux of a problem I am having. And it is usually something really obvious I have missed. You can get in a bubble of being too head down as a leader and you lose perspective. It’s important to have a way of popping that bubble.

The most important part of my role is to remind people what we are here for. And you can’t repeat it enough. It is our role as a leader to put our reason for being front and centre of everything we do. Never assume people get it, or that the job of outlining your vision is done. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

If you are taking over an organisation that is in a really challenging state, you should be able to effect meaningful change within two years. There should be signs of that improvement after one year. It’s hard - you are digging up the foundations while fixing the walls - but it is possible.

I am conscious that as one of the experienced leaders in our sector, there is a lot of weight to what I say sometimes - particularly politically - and there is a certain responsibility to not speak only from the perspective of our own schools, to instead be conscious of the wider experience of the sector. I am working hard to achieve that.

I want to leave Harris in such a way that the next person has the best possible chance of success but also the best chance to do things their own way. If they wanted me involved, I would of course support them. But if not, I would be fine with that. I could walk away.