inDEPTH


Amanda Melton, principal and CEO at Nelson and Colne College, says she is similarly committed to maintaining staff development. Melton is one of 170 graduates of the ETF’s leadership programme for principals.


things outside your comfort zone, but that’s when you can come unstuck,” she warns. Amanda Wayling, head of professional development


at Brooklands College, Weybridge, a SET Corporate Partner, says: “Teaching and learning remain a priority but we have to be imaginative in how we provide professional development with decreasing budgets.” At Greater Brighton Metropolitan College, chief


executive Nick Juba, who also took part in the ETF’s strategic leadership programme, says: “I have been in the role three and a half years and we have not reduced the budget for staff development in that time.


challenges have not had an impact on the way CEOs operate. “It has brought to the fore the need to really


teaching and learning.” Following the incorporation of colleges in 1993 there was a trend for transplanting corporate management processes from the private sector into FE. It’s a move that Sir Frank thinks has been


largely counterproductive because overly corporate leadership styles tended to focus on income streams and bottom lines while paying too little attention to supporting high quality teaching and learning. Sir Frank, the former principal of City and


Islington College, uses the pendulum as a metaphor. On one side there is the traditional principal role (the educational leader) and, on the other, the chief executive role (the business leader). “There is a sweet spot in that pendulum swing,”


Peter Rook


is a freelance journalist and journalism lecturer at University Centre Peterborough, part of Peterborough Regional College.


he says. “Making the institution work well as a business is all about supporting its primary purposes. You cannot divorce the two.”


from more leaders with business acumen and Shelagh Legrave, CEO of the Chichester College


Group and another graduate of the ETF leadership “I’m not suggesting every leader has to have a


is certainly not the only model. “As long as someone in your senior team is looking after teaching and learning, you can get on with running the business side. “I spend less time than I used to on teaching and learning. It is all about effective delegation.”


KEYS ATTRIBUTES OF EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP FE is wrestling with an unprecedented period of transition and overseeing it is the key to successful management. This is the view of Steve Mostyn, programme director of the


ETF’s Strategic Leadership Programme for Principals and CEOs at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University. “The most important dynamic is managing transition


successfully. When things go wrong it is because people overplay their strengths,” he says.


“The best CEOs recognise three things. First, clarity of purpose, but developed collaboratively with staff. “Second, obsession with performance management and, again, it is not top-down. “Third, the need to grow more leaders that you can rely on and be the next generation of leaders.” Mostyn insists: “Leadership can be taught. It’s about having


the tools to understand management, and research backs this up.” He says that the ETF programmes, including programmes


managers, have created “a community of influence”. “Geographically colleges may see their neighbour as


competition but leadership is not a capability owned by individuals,” he says. “So one CEO can phone another for advice, for example,


‘how are you getting on with T Levels?’. We have developed a dialogue between leaders.” For more information about the leadership programmes


offered by the ETF, visit the website. Or, if you are reading your inTuition digitally, simply click on the following live link bit.ly/ETFLeadershipProgrammes


Melton, at Nelson and Colne College, says that the


pace of change in policy has changed the traditional job of a principal. “Leaders have to be entrepreneurial, but they shouldn’t have to be,” she says.


role, and it leads to questions about what the college is meant to be.”


to many providers, especially large FE colleges, becoming very “generalist”, with FE managers adopting a short-termist approach. “Underfunding prevents longer-term thinking,” he says. “In order to flourish you have to have an idea


future, and identify your core purpose rather than being all things to all people. “This then helps you decide what aspects of staff development are important.”


SUPPORT AND RESOURCES FROM SET The Society for Education and Training (SET) offers support and resources to support you in your professional development bit.ly/SETProfessional


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