10
sector LEADERSHIP
It’s time for a reality check
Leading a 21st century school is no easy task – even for the most skilled educators. In this excerpt from education leadership book The Reality of School Leadership, author and headteacher RICHARD PARKER looks at the rewards and challenges of leading a school and reassures us that even the best have bad days
T
o explore the reality of school leadership you need, more than anything else, to have first-hand insights into the challenges and complexities of the role simply because there are aspects of headship that can only be learned and understood if you are actually doing the job.
If I’m honest, I learned far more about the demands of the role
from doing it myself and talking to people who were doing it well than I did from reading research into school leadership. It was, therefore, no surprise to me that when I first floated the idea of writing a book on coping with the challenges of school leadership, the words ‘reality’ and ‘practitioners’ came into my mind. I felt instinctively that if I were to stand any chance of pinpointing exactly what, for me, makes the job unique, I needed to talk in depth and with great honesty and clarity to school leaders who had already proved that they have what it takes (whatever that is!) to run a school effectively.
september 2013 \
www.edexec.co.uk Having carried out a large number of headteacher interviews for
my book, I do believe I have a deeper understanding of school leadership. There was, unsurprisingly, a large measure of agreement from my interviewees about being a school leader. For example: you must be passionate about learning you must be able to handle pressure well and relish multitasking
emotional intelligence and people skills are prerequisites, as are written and verbal communication skills
you need to be able to sift information quickly and accurately and have the courage to put rubbish in the bin
you have to be an instinctively intuitive sponge you need to be a risk-taker and a maverick if and when the occasion demands
you need to have or acquire a thick skin, be able to sleep well after a hard, taxing day, maintain a healthy work/life balance and learn rapidly from mistakes.
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