Rachel Kitley – Imperfect Leadership

Rachel was asked to contribute to Steve Munby upcoming book which is a sequel to ‘Imperfect Leadership: A book for leaders who know they don’t know it all’. In 'Imperfect Leadership’ Steve Munby eloquently reflects upon and describes a leadership approach that is strong on self-awareness and positive about the importance of asking for help.

When asked to describe his own leadership style, Steve uses the word imperfect . This is not something he apologises for; he feels imperfect leadership should be celebrated. Too often we are given examples of leaders who are put on some kind of pedestal, lauded as superheroes who have it all worked out and are so good at what they do that nobody else can come close.

This book is the antidote to that flawed perception.

'Imperfect Leadership' is an honest reflection upon leadership. It is about Steve's journey, covering his highs and lows and, ultimately, how he learned to refine and improve his leadership. It is about messy, trial-anderror, butterflies-in-the-stomach leadership and about thoughtful and invitational leadership and the positive impact it can have.

At the heart of the book are edited highlights of the 12 keynote speeches delivered to increasingly large audiences of school leaders between 2005 and 2017. These speeches, delivered at the Seizing Success and Inspiring Leadership conferences, form the structure around which Steve's story and insights are wrapped.

Steve's account covers some fundamental shifts in the English education system over this 12-year period and describes how school leaders altered their leadership as this context changed. Furthermore, it delves into how his own leadership developed as his personal context changed, and explores how the notion that a leader needs to be good at all aspects of leadership is not only unrealistic, but is also bad for the mental and physical health of leaders and will do nothing to attract new people into leadership positions.

Ultimately, Steve hopes that as you read this book you will see the value of imperfect leadership and of the positive impact it can make. For those reading it who have yet to step up into leadership, his sincere wish is that it will encourage and empower aspirational leaders rather than discourage them.

Below is a preview of Rachel’s contribution to Steve’s next book. Ma k i n g p u b l i c p r o m i s e s. R a c h e l K i t l e y : C o we s E n t e r p r i s e C o l l e g e , I s l e o f W i g h t , U K

When I began my headship at Cowes Enterprise College, a secondary academy on the Isle of Wight, I stepped into a very challenging scenario – the school had been judged “inadequate” by Ofsted and was in special measures. The community reputation was poor, staff morale was low and the school’s new sponsor, Ormiston Academies Trust, had only just taken on the school. There had been numerous short-stay head teachers across a sustained period of over seven years and a couple of years earlier the entire student body had gone on strike, essentially about a lack of trust in the school leadership. This issue had been reported in the national media.

During my first week, a member of staff (and union rep) came unannounced into my office and said with no preamble: “We’re not going to do a thing you want us to do because you’ll be gone by Christmas”. I needed people to believe in me as their new headteacher quickly and I had to build immediate trust across all stakeholders, if I was to achieve any worthwhile change. I made a public promise to all stakeholders that

I would stay as the principal, earn their trust, be resilient and make the school everything it could be,

quickly. I promised the Regional Schools Commissioner, a senior education official at the Department for 257

Education, that I would be the ‘arm of the community’. I promised the students I would put them at the centre of every decision I made. And I promised my own family that we would never regret relocating from London to the local community or moving the children from an outstanding London school to join what was then a special measures school. I promised the community that if the school was going to very quickly be good enough for my own children, then it would be good enough for everyone’s children. I managed to fasttrack a year’s worth of trust building into one term and when we had an Ofsted inspection just three weeks into my headship, I believe I was able to also instil trust in the promise of my future headship during the twoday inspection.

What key ingredients enabled me to condense gaining trust and credibility into such a short space of time? I believe I am a very warm, sincere and genuine person – what you see is what you get, and I don’t have frills. I think that all this comes across loud and clear when anyone interacts with me; they pick up my characteristics quickly and so are willing to take a chance on me. If you couple all this with the fact that I “promised and talked out loud” to staff, students, parents/carers, and the community on numerous occasions in my first term, then it is clear that I made myself wholly available for people to believe in me and my key messages.

I spent time relationship-building, I listened, and I was open, honest and worked to create a sense of team. I focused on culture and ethos in every moment of the day – for instance, being pleasantly uncompromising in resisting pressure from people who believed they were entitled to special privileges. I began to win trust through promises – a huge breakthrough was when one influential parent said to me “I’ll give you a try”. I showed calm, decisive, child-centred leadership, modelling expectations in every conversation I had. First term quick fixes were about valuing people - introducing free tea/coffee to the staffroom and a weekly parent surgery and sending personally written thank you cards, for instance. I was eternally optimistic but also realistic about where we were.

I am now in my fourth year as head teacher. We have a very strong reputation in the community and are hugely oversubscribed, showing that the community has real faith in the school. I believe that I have met those public promises (of course we have much more to do and I continue to make promises). We are now rated “Good” by Ofsted, our GCSE exam results are the best on the island and more than half of our sixth form students are applying to Russell Group universities or to read Medicine.

Making public promises can be a really effective thing for an imperfect leader to do. They provide a level of accountability which can be far more powerful than the accountability you feel to an external body because you commit emotionally and whole heartedly to a personal promise. The public nature of a promise means others will believe in it too. A promise is simple and can also therefore help to keep something complex like the management of change simple. The school’s strength can come from the headteacher without you being a ‘hero head’ but by making authentic, honest pledges. I also know that you can get nowhere on your own –I’ve had great support from the whole staff team, from parents and from students, and from the leadership of Ormiston Academies Trust.

It’s easy to make promises, of course, but it also needs extraordinary levels of resilience to deliver on them and this comes from knowing yourself well and having good support networks. Most of all, you need to be totally committed to your promises at a moral purpose level.

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Crossfield Avenue Cowes Isle of Wight PO31 8HB Email: info@cowesec.org