Teach Secondary Issue 14.8

Getting the team TOGETHER Hannah Carter breaks down the process of honest chaos that goes into to assembling an effective senior leadership team T he building of a senior leadership team is a task of such absurdity and complexity that it can feel less like a professional endeavour, and more like trying to assemble a successful dinner party from a collection of eccentric, opinionated and perpetually stressed-out guests. The common – and hilariously naive – misconception is that a successful SLT is simply a collection of the most individually brilliant educators. You know the types. The teacher whose lesson observations are so flawless they could be sold as a masterclass. The spreadsheet wizard who knows the school budget down to the last paperclip. The pastoral guru who speaks in reassuring platitudes. This, however, is a recipe for disaster... The teamthat gels An SLT composed entirely of all-stars isn’t a team; it’s a collection of virtuosos all trying to play lead guitar at the same time and inevitably producing a cacophonous mess. The true art of headship lies not in finding the best at everything, but in assembling a group of wonderfully flawed individuals whose skills and personalities somehow, inexplicably fit together like mismatched pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The headteacher is less a conductor of a symphony, and more the ringmaster of a chaotic circus. The perfect SLT isn’t a collection of clones but a glorious, shambolic mosaic of unique quirks and a range of essential functions. The team that ‘gels’ is that magical, unquantifiable thing that emerges when a group of adults can sit in a meeting and respectfully disagree without anyone throwing a stapler. It’s the shared, silent understanding of an inside joke that only people who have survived the same school trip can truly appreciate. A team that gels is one where you can have a full-blown, passionate debate about the merits of a new behaviour policy, only to find yourselves laughing about it minutes later over a terrible cup of instant coffee. Subtle social dynamics Getting there requires more than professional competence, however. It demands the kind of emotional intelligence that can’t be taught in a training course. It’s about knowing when to push, when to pull and when to simply let the HR director vent for a bit about their cat. A good headteacher will have a keen eye for these subtle social dynamics, and be capable of assessing not just a candidate’s professional expertise, but their potential to fit into a pre-existing culture. So what happens when the jigsaw pieces don’t quite fit, and the gelling turns to clashing? That’s the point at which the headteacher must assume the role of reluctant diplomat, driving the school’s agenda forward while simultaneously somehowmanaging the interpersonal friction that threatens to derail it. Youmust listen to both sides of the argument, without taking a side, and validate each person’s perspective while steering them back towards a shared goal. The art of this is to separate the person from the problem . Youmust be able to say, “ I hear your concerns about the budget, and you’re right, it’s tight. But I also hear that our pastoral lead is worried about the mental health of our students. How do we find a solution that addresses both? ” The goal is to get your team to stop seeing each other as adversaries, and start seeing problems as collective challenges. This requires the headteacher to be a master of de-escalation, a professional redirector and someone who knows when to insert a well-timed, pleasantly distracting joke to break the tension. “Theheadteacher is less a conductorofa symphony,and more the ringmasterofa chaotic circus” 40 teachwire.net/secondary