Take Me to Your Leader(ship)

They Live... but do SLT understand them?

"And now I have another favour to ask." I looked at him, a bit worried. "Take me to your leader." The old cliché disturbed me... – George Orwell, 1984.

UNESCO claims "leadership is at the heart of quality education." Amen to that. If only every faculty lived happily ever after because no school would hire a leader who isn't all heart.

Back in the real world, a few minutes perusing the International Schools Review shows that many teachers are far from happy. While we can dismiss some as chronic complainers, there’s no denying the fine line a leader treads between maintaining a successful institution and a happy workforce.

I follow Principal Lamb on Instagram, who posts quirky content on protecting teacher wellbeing. It is depressingly telling that many of his tips are not already second nature to leaders. Example: what kind of sadistic junta sends a teacher an SLT meeting request on a Friday afternoon for Monday morning with no context, or even a tagline that it's nothing to worry about? I’ve been on the receiving end of that ambush – once – and it won't be happening again.

Teacher Retention Level: Grandmaster

We international teachers aren’t under any illusions that income is king. Without a healthy turnover of students from affluent families, we’re all headed for the international job centre. We also accept that those at the top must occasionally separate the wheat from the chaff. Make the tough decisions. Break a few eggs. Bada bing. However, when empathy and communication are missing from the equation, disillusion quickly filters down the chain of command and permeates our workspace.

I once worked with a perfectly affable SLT member with whom I could talk for hours about punk and metal. She claimed the Sex Pistols were a glorified boy band, for which I called her a clueless curmudgeon. Great banter. Unfortunately, she had a woeful aversion to professional communication. She treated teachers like chess pieces rather than employees who deserved consultation, delivering reassignments or demanding new curricula from scratch as one-way commands. Ours was not to question, but to get on with.

She wasn't a villain; she simply lacked the emotional intelligence to match the technical work she was doing. The resultant negativity also pervaded the staffroom, leading to clandestine huddles where teachers waxed lyrical about petty revolution. The real crisis, however, is when perceived injustice reaches the student arena. If a teacher feels they are being treated as substandard, they may start delivering a substandard effort. When that happens, the outstanding grades and world-class education pushed so highly on billboards and marketing brochures are compromised.

Following one autocratic decision too many, Miss Diaz took it down a gear

While low EQ hasn't stopped some of the world’s most successful people, school leaders cannot dodge the need for compassion when dealing with staff already worked to the edge of sanity. The aforementioned SLT member eventually took such a hammering in a 360 appraisal that she sent a brave but telling all-school email confessing she was taking coaching lessons to embed a side-order of empathy.

All this unpleasantness is avoidable through full transparency. Tell old Mr Hairtrigger why he’s being moved from the IB programme to Year 7. Ping a quick message to Miss Snarl explaining why she's being given an extra activity. It will pay off, dear leaders. A one-to-one with a few kind words — and even, gasp, an apology of understanding — keeps accusations of autocracy at bay.

Students, of course, are everyone's priority. That is non-negotiable: A1, underlined in red, with a ruler. But staff retention is also a business necessity. Letting good teachers slip away because they feel unvalued or replaceable is costly and taints a school's reputation.

Our lovely leaders hold the power to solidify that unified thinking by making teacher compassion an integral part of international school success. Quality leadership, from the heart.

Make an appointment with me for coaching and let's discuss the building blocks of ethos, pathos and logos that set the standard for outstanding communication and leadership.