In this reflective piece, seasoned school leader Rob Ford, emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and vulnerability, offering advice to incoming leaders while expressing gratitude for the lessons learned through a challenging summer of recovery and family moments
I’ve noticed a lot of posts on social media from school leaders taking up new posts, first headships this autumn, all asking for what advice would experienced school leaders give to think about over the summer break. I think I am going to recommend to any school leader the need to be aware of your own fallibility from time to time. I would even go as far as to say being very aware of your own fragility. We all need the 21st-century equivalent of the slave riding in the chariot as we make our own individual triumphant journey along whatever constitutes our personal Via Sacra whispering in our ear “memento mori” frequently.
Two things; firstly, it is very good to read that there are still plenty of educators who want to take on the challenge of school leadership and haven’t been put off yet. Secondly, and I write this approaching nearly a decade as a school leader, we do need to remember, even the strongest and wisest of us, that we are mortal and that much as the wonderful role is the best job in the World, we do have to look after ourselves. We are not good to anyone, least of all our school communities and our families, if we are not our best self.
In my own career, I don’t think I have been any different from any other teacher or school leader when I have ignored feeling ill and run down and ploughed through until the break appears for a vacation. That time is then not spent with one’s family but recuperating ready to get back to the grindstone and school.
This summer, I have had no choice having stupidly broken my right shoulder at the end of the academic year and spent a very painful, limiting and debilitating amount of time convalescing. It is quite a jolt to go from feeling herculean, or the educational equivalent, to not even being able to brush one’s hair, use the bathroom or even sleep in a normal position. Life throws lots of lessons at us, often without us realising it and this summer there have been many thrown at me.
One of the most obvious lessons for me has been just how incredible healthcare providers and organisations are. My colleagues at MedPark Hospital in Chisinau treated me as soon as this happened, reassured me and got me home. The NHS staff at the fracture clinic at Southmead Hospital in Bristol have looked after me all summer and helped me get better as well as the physio at Cossham Hospital. It is the 75th anniversary of the NHS being established in the UK as a unique health approach literally from the cradle to the grave and free at the point of use that in my mind and experience still makes it the envy of the World. We have been visiting Llanidloes Hospital throughout the summer to see our dear family member Les, who at 90, is still going strong. I am very appreciative of the care he is given there. Age is a lesson for all of us and at 50, I am very aware of where I am in my life career-wise and personally.
I have always appreciated the brilliant teams I have worked with and my colleagues at Heritage are one of the most exceptional groups I have had the privilege of working with, from the Founders and Board to my immediate leadership team and heads of schools. One of the best bits of advice I would give to any incoming new Head/Principal is to build a good team. Don’t surround yourself with friends, people who laugh at your jokes or tell you what you want to hear. But really skilled professional people, people who will challenge you, who will go the extra mile and will know (and should know) more about their strategic area than you will know but that is not your job as Head/Principal or CEO. Your job is to let them do their job. And model that. Especially around wellbeing and humility.
I am very proud and grateful to the teams I work with at Heritage and they are the best of Moldova. I would also say to future school leaders that you are not going to please all of the people all of the time and nor should you try because it is impossible. My career has taught me many things, especially the stark fact that not every educator or parent will want to align with your values and school mission. Nothing will ever shift them from here and you can spend a lot of wasted time and energy convinced you can shift them. This decade is a very fraught, tough, uncertain and emotional time to live and people hit out with anger frequently.
The ones worth engaging with will have at least the decency to take it directly to you. The cowards will remain anonymous and hide in social media. The advice I would give here to anyone in leadership and in the frontline is don’t take it personally, it’s not you, hard as that can be sometimes. Always make sure your organisation is the best it can be and if a ball is dropped, don’t ignore it and pick it up. Work on it constantly as school improvement. That’s your leadership.
“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have also had the lesson of making sure we spend as much time as we can with our families when we can. It is very easy to take people for granted and get lost in work and especially our technology. This isolationism is the one thing I really still fear in our social interactions as this decade progresses and the more we can keep our societies based on human interactions, the greater the best of humanity will combat all the negative side effects of being too digitally dependent. My wife Gen and my children, Evie, Annie and Gwen, plus Dylan the dog and the cats, have made sure I haven’t become too withdrawn and we have enjoyed lots of great moments together from simple family meals to visits around Bristol, Somerset and Wales.
As with every summer, these past four years of working in Moldova, Heritage HQ shifts to the bottom of my garden in Bristol and into my cabin where the wonders of technology allow me to continue to hold weekly meetings, speak at conferences, attend webinars and continue working on the self-evaluation analysis of the academic year just gone, the school improvement priorities and plan for the coming year, the August training and of course interviews as we continue to recruit colleagues globally for our schools.
I would say that this summer, as my damaged arm gets more function back, the pain recedes and I am left feeling very fortunate to be healing as well as I am, I am appreciating more the professional and family lives I have and that it is ok not to be heroic and herculean all the time. I am human. I am really looking forward to the promise of a new academic year at Heritage, seeing staff, students and families and how we can continue to build and grow as a learning community together. A legacy to pass on to those coming next, asking what they need to prepare for in turn, as we all work to find our best selves.
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