Some people think they can spot one across a playground. Some believe selecting one is an art form. Some think you just get lucky. But anyone who has ever sat on a headteacher interview panel agrees that picking a leader for a school is all about prioritisation: no single person can be perfect in every way for the job.

That’s mainly because the role is so complex and varied. For starters, you need to be a financial whizz: schools are being asked to do more with less, so an ability to stretch a budget to the final penny is a must. You need to be a master of teaching and learning, too, not to mention skilled in the arts of behaviour management and pastoral care. Then there’s compliance, HR, marketing, communications, project management, administration, logistics, policy interpretation, research - the list goes on.

On top of all this, you face intense scrutiny as your performance in each area will be closely monitored by parents, governors and your local authority or MAT CEO. Is it any wonder we are on the cusp of a leadership recruitment crisis?

“Once you’re a headteacher, it’s your neck on the block,” explains James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union and director of NAHT Edge. “When Ofsted is doing reports, it’s your name on the cover. It’s the headteacher who is ultimately held accountable.”

According to the NAHT, nearly half (46 per cent) of assistant and deputy heads aren’t currently willing to put themselves forward for senior positions, while a YouGov and Teacher Tracker poll found the same number have considered quitting owing to the stress of the Covid-19 pandemic.

How do we halt the decline in the numbers of those willing to lead schools? Fundamental changes clearly need to come from government but, in lieu of that, a great place to start would be to demythologise headship.

As mentioned, headship interview panels are not looking for someone to tick off every item on that long list of qualities, yet the perception is that you need to be the complete package, which puts so many off even attempting to step up.

What current senior leaders actually need to know is what, within that list, is a non-negotiable; what qualities do panels say are essential if a candidate is to be considered?

We spoke to a panel of school leadership experts to find out what would be on their list of key qualities and skills you need to be a great headteacher. Here’s what they said.

Clear principles, classroom experience, sweats the small stuff

Geoff Barton, general secretary, Association of School and College Leaders, says:

First, you have to know what you stand for. That sense of principles you get from working with other people, learning from them, deciding what you would do yourself and what you wouldn’t do.

Next - and not everyone would agree with this - is having credibility as a teacher. You don’t have to be the best teacher in the school but you have to have credibility, so that when you say to the staff, “you need to make sure homework is being marked” or when you’re asking questions, you are able to speak from a position of authenticity.

Also, I actually think sweating the small stuff is really important. This is about understanding the symbolism around headship. If you’re going to insist that everyone in the school is going to have their shirt tucked in and wear shoes instead of trainers, then you cannot afford - ever - to walk past a young person who isn’t doing that. Even if your own heart is saying, “Oh, I don’t want to tell another kid to tuck his shirt in”, you are the embodiment of that school’s values.

Frankly, I didn’t go to university to stand at the school gates, telling young people to put their shoes on. But what I was doing, as a head, was symbolising to the staff that we were going to do what we said we were going to do. And that made it easier to do the big stuff later on, like move to a three-period day or to change the curriculum. The small stuff is symbolic but it demonstrates to people [that sense of] “we can change things here”.

Sound judgement, tenacity, optimism

Emma Knights OBE, chief executive, National Governance Association, says:

I don’t think we talk enough in the school sector about people who have good judgement. Somebody may be a very good classroom teacher, very knowledgeable about their subject, but when they’re caught in a leadership decision, which you often are as a school leader, you need someone whose judgement is sound.

You need tenacity, that ability to keep on keeping on. I hesitate to use the word “toughness” but perhaps they’re two sides of the same coin. It’s that professional toughness and, boy, has this last year been an incredible test of leadership, tenacity and toughness.

Another quality that I haven’t necessarily seen on lots of job specs, but which we’ve needed in the past year, is optimism. It’s a way of being - it’s certainly a personal quality that I think you absolutely need at the moment, both in terms of your personal drive but also leading the school forward with a sense of positivity, even when the times are pretty tough, as they are now.

Clear values, commanding presence, moral purpose

Durell Barnes, head of governance and compliance, RSAcademics, says:

It’s still important [to have a commanding presence]. I did my training in a really rough industrial estate in Oxford; it was a pretty difficult place. We had a head who was about 5ft 3in, but he just had something about him. He walked into the lunch hall one day and said: “There will be silence!” And 600 adolescent boys stood up and were silent.

What we’ve seen in the really unique challenges that headteachers have faced in the past year - which have been about a complete transformation of what teaching and learning consists of in your school, with movements like Black Lives Matter and issues like those raised by Everyone’s Invited - [is that it’s] difficult for anyone to chart a path through it all unless they have an absolutely confident understanding of the values of their school.

If you look at the statements from lots of different schools, the ones that ring with conviction are the ones that say “as everyone knows, our values are this, we live this, we show this”. Nowadays, there’s a huge value in having moral purpose. It sounds old fashioned, but I don’t think it is; I think it’s very, very modern. Because, as these particular issues have shown, moral leadership is part of what we’re lacking in society.

Does the head have to be a really good teacher? Probably not, because you can find a really good deputy headteacher to take the lead on that. But if you aren’t a really good teacher, you’re going to have to have somebody who is. If I were a governing body, I wouldn’t want to have a headteacher who couldn’t teach.

Communication skills, courage, optimism

James Bowen, director of policy, NAHT, and director of NAHT Edge, says:

You need to be able to communicate really effectively with young people, which is a distinct skill in itself. But beyond that, you’ve also got to communicate with a parental group, you’ve got governors, your staff and the local authority.

It isn’t just about speaking, though; it’s about listening as well - that ability to listen to what your staff are telling you, what the parents are telling you.

There are so many incoming things; there’s always a new government project. One of the things you have to be really good at is staying focused on the pupils; to be prepared to be quite brave in saying, “no, we’re not going to jump on the latest government scheme because we have a clear sense of what we want to do”. Sometimes, as a head, you have to shield your school from the outside noise.

You also need relentless optimism. The headteacher needs to be the one to say, “yes, things are tough but they can get better and they will get better”. If you don’t project that optimism for your school, no one else will. The past 12 months have tested that to the absolute extreme but the last thing anybody wants is a pessimistic headteacher.

Resilience, adaptability, energy

Julie Robinson, chief executive, Independent Schools Council, says:

I would start with resilience. [Being a headteacher is] such a full-on existence. It’s a roller-coaster of ups and downs. Everyone gets tired by the end of term but the head has to keep going.

You’re leading a community, so you have to like people, otherwise how would you cope with dealing with all your stakeholders? Linked to that is optimism. It’s so important to be a model of positivity and to ensure that the pupils and the staff look to you to lead positively.

And then you need to be interested in small things. One minute, you’re setting up strategy with the governors; the next, you’re dealing with the fallout from a playground argument.

In terms of dealing with people, I think it’s really important not to hold a grudge. To be the kind of person who can do the telling off, and it’s all very serious at the time, and then just leave it and move on. It’s all the qualities of a great parent that a head has to exhibit across the whole school community.

In terms of personal qualities, it’s about being the leader of a community and being very adaptable, having good energy, being able to cope with small things as well as the sit-down strategy. You’re expected to be able to turn your hand to everything, which makes it both very challenging and very rewarding. Often, it’s the head who’s picking up rubbish in the corridors or helping to fix things, alongside doing admin and the bigger backroom jobs.

Commitment to inclusion, emotional intelligence, teaching and learning experience

Alison Wilcox, education director, Nasen, says:

It’s important for leaders to demonstrate their strong commitment to inclusion and building an inclusive culture. It’s a process rather than a destination, but that commitment is what supports ongoing strategic decision making.

Emotional intelligence is really important here, working with all staff to be able to share an inclusive vision but also to demonstrate an understanding of everybody on an individual basis. This extends into understanding what’s important for children and young people with special educational needs and disability (SEND), for example, recognising individual strengths as well as needs, and celebrating diversity, including neurodiversity.

We believe that “every leader is a leader of SEND and every teacher is a teacher of SEND”. As a leader, it’s being able to model that in terms of the values held, the vision created and how this translates into every part of school life. Being committed to inclusive ways of working, such as a strong partnership approach to education, using co-production with families, and hearing and acting upon the voice of children with SEND.

Having leaders in place with a really deep understanding of teaching and learning is crucial. This can help all staff to have confidence in developing their provision for SEND; demystifying high-quality teaching for SEND by enabling a culture where teachers can adapt approaches and use their foundational understanding of how children learn, on an individual basis. Headteachers, in particular, support this through investment, over time, in good quality continuing professional development for SEND.

So, what does all this tell us about the qualities a headteacher truly needs to be able to do their job?

Communication is certainly important. Whether it’s holding attention in a rowdy room or explaining the intricacies of a new project to governors, headteachers have to be heard when they speak. In many cases, a head is the glue that ties all the complicated, disparate elements of a school together - and keeping everyone informed is no small part of that role. As Barnes puts it, a headteacher needs to have “something to say”, and be able to “say it and be heard”.

Though it might not suit every leader’s personality, a head is also a school’s figurehead, responsible for motivating staff. They need to have (or at least project) an unshakeable sense of optimism, particularly in trying times - something that the past 12 months have made abundantly clear.

On a related note, any prospective headteacher should keep in mind that they are the living embodiment of the school’s values. As a school’s single most visible member of staff, every tiny action a headteacher takes will be noticed and scrutinised. Symbolism, rituals, daily practices that seem insignificant - all hold immense importance.

But doing any of the above effectively seems to rely on one particular quality: a thorough understanding of your school’s principles. Pupils and employees are now arguably demanding more from their schools in terms of transparency and taking a stand on issues such as racism or sexual harassment. Without a detailed and coherent understanding of a school’s values, it is hard to imagine how any headteacher can meet those demands while also putting their vision for teaching and learning into practice.

In other words, if you want to succeed as a headteacher, figure out what you stand for.

Jacob Moreton is a freelance journalist

This article originally appeared in the 14 May 2021 issue under the headline “Head hunters”