Leadership

If there is anything that I have learnt in 25 years of school leadership, it is that the importance of emotional intelligence cannot be underestimated. Having started my career in a primary school over 30 years ago I quickly began to feel that I had made a terrible choice and that teaching really wasn’t for me. The school I worked in was run by a Headteacher who had worked her way up from NQT to headship in the same setting. The school was her baby and there was no room for competing views or ideas.  The views of staff seemed [...]

I have recently attended the Compassionate Leadership conference in Birmingham. The day was full of inspirational participants, speakers, provocateurs and facilitators guiding us towards a greater understanding of how to develop compassionate leadership in ourselves and in the organisations we work for and lead. There are so many reflections from the day, but my key takeaway will be the importance of self-compassion as a foundation of being able to show compassion to others. Speaker after speaker quoted research showing that self-compassion is a fundamental part of developing a compassionate organisation and yet participant after participant confirmed that they find this [...]