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Navigating Change: Glyn Potts' Leadership Wisdom in Education
51 Plays11 months ago
Glyn Potts is the Headteacher of Saint John Henry Newman Catholic College in Oldham. Newman is a large secondary school serving a diverse community where 43% of students are in receipt of ‘Free School Meals.’
Glyn was awarded the ‘Inspirational Teacher of the Year’ award in 2010, has a masters degree in Catholic Educational Leadership and a second masters in Youth Leadership. He is an active member of the Army Cadet Force within the North West.
He is a serving Deputy Lieutenant in Greater Manchester, and he was awarded an MBE in May 2022 for Services to the Army Cadet Force and Education.
Topics we covered:
- Why retention is the new recruitment
- What leadership skills are most lacking today
- Why calling young people snowflakes isn’t accurate or fair
- The leadership theories Glyn is making a reality
- The first place to start if you want to implement change
The leadership books Glyn talked about are:
Brene Brown’s Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.
L. David Marquet’s Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
James Kerr’s Legacy: What the All Blacks Can Teach Us about the Business of Life
And here is more about Glyn’s inspiring story:
Recommended
Transcript
The Transformative Role of Teaching
00:00:00
Speaker
If they aren't coming into teaching to change the world, then what are they doing it for? Because every time they interact with a young person, every time they deliver a class, there's a chance that that will change the direction of the life of a young person for the better. And therefore they should be wanted to come into that. And I think that's that high aspiration, high ambition that we've got to come through.
Introduction to 'The Visible Leader' Podcast
00:00:20
Speaker
Welcome to The Visible Leader, the podcast that challenges conventional leadership and inspires you to create a workplace culture that empowers your team.
00:00:33
Speaker
Join me as I talk to thought leaders and changemakers about practical ways to apply new learning and rethink the status quo. Get ready to become a visible leader in your organisation.
00:00:50
Speaker
So my guest today is not normally somebody I'd encounter in my day job, coaching leaders and teams in
Meet Glyn Potts: A Leader in Education
00:00:57
Speaker
business. So I'm really keen to speak to him because I know he's got a lot to contribute to the subject of leadership. Glyn Potts is the head teacher of St. John Henry Newman Catholic College in Alder.
00:01:10
Speaker
And Newman is a large secondary school serving a diverse community where 43% of students are in receipt of three-school meals. And Glynn was awarded the Inspirational Teacher of the Year award in 2010.
00:01:25
Speaker
He's got a master's degree in Catholic education leadership and a second master's in youth leadership. And he's an active member of the Army Cadet Force within the Northwest. And not only that, he's a serving deputy lieutenant in Greater Manchester and he was awarded an MBE in May, 22 for services to the Army Cadet Force and Education.
00:01:50
Speaker
Thank you, Glynn, for taking time out of what looks like a pretty busy schedule to talk to me today. No, it's an absolute pleasure. And with that kind of introduction, I feel really good. So thank you for making me feel better in a day when schools are challenging them themselves.
00:02:07
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, if that's what we achieve, I'm happy with that. That's a good aim for me. Well, it is really, really good to be talking to you, Glynn. And I look forward to hearing a little bit about how things compare between school leadership and the type of businesses that I'm normally in front of. And I think my listeners will be super keen to hear your experiences.
The Moral Imperative in Education Leadership
00:02:29
Speaker
So let's kick off and from a leadership perspective, what's the key thing or things that keep you awake at night? Well, I think that the major one is the moral imperative to do right by the children. And that comes back to the selection and the maintenance of the aim for each individual school, which is difficult. And arguably this is where we can learn from business because it normally in the state sector,
00:02:57
Speaker
things are relatively stable. You normally get a good four to five years before there is a policy change. But more recently, we've been exposed to the very thing that business leaders have to do. I think people refer to it as the Volcker world. And actually, that's permeating education now, whether it be by policy or by circumstance.
00:03:19
Speaker
which means that if a school leader has not really clearly articulated the aim of the institution, regardless of external factors, and then can maintain that, then actually what we are doing each day is managing the school. You're not leading it. Yeah, yeah. It's such a comparison, isn't it? Actually having that clear vision. And where do you see that showing up? When that isn't clear, how is it showing up for your leaders?
00:03:47
Speaker
Well, I think in the most simple sense, it's when we just reduce education down to getting children the grade the government says they need to achieve.
Beyond Grades: A Balanced Education Approach
00:03:56
Speaker
And whilst that's arguably an important element of the overall package, if we turn out young people who are not articulate, who are not confident, who are not resilient, who are not able to go into the world and be successful, then regardless of what GCSE grade they got, we've actually failed in our job.
00:04:13
Speaker
And what we're seeing more so now from parents and maybe some inclination from government, but certainly feedback from employers, is that because of those period of two years where children didn't sit exams and they were given grades by differing views,
00:04:31
Speaker
the credibility of a GCSE grade has declined. And employers are looking for the X factor, there's something else. Your grades might get you an interview, but actually we're looking for something beyond that because we are probably going to have to invest in you anyway. And therefore for my leaders, yes, it's about the maintenance and the pursuit of good academic outcomes.
00:04:55
Speaker
but not to the extent that we turn our children into automatons or we forget that they are unique in their personalities and that they all need something slightly different. It's too easy for schools just to say, well, I've got the national benchmark for English, maths and science, aren't I doing well?
00:05:16
Speaker
I'm not so sure that they are. And we see that in places like Singapore, where whose educational outcomes are far in excess of what we have in the United Kingdom. But unfortunately, their suicide rate and their mental health crisis is far, far greater and far worse than what we've got in the UK. And we've got to strike the balance. And it's helping leaders to see the bigger picture.
00:05:39
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it feels like such a parallel to my last conversation with two people, Felix and Phil, who were working on building connection within culture.
00:05:52
Speaker
and that conflicting demands, or not really conflicting really, of building mental health. Actually thinking about that with employers, employees rather, and also achieving results. So it's getting both, isn't it? It's getting that balance right. And obviously with your children,
00:06:11
Speaker
getting that balance right so they come out with great education but also that they are very resilient and have got the kind of capacity to deal with life, especially after how tough things have been.
00:06:25
Speaker
It is. And there is that balance because there is equally, you know, one extreme of the argument is from those individuals and there are leaders across education who say, you know, children are snowflakes. I don't see snowflakes in my school. I see young people who've not had the same opportunities as perhaps other generations have had. But I also see them excelling in some elements that
00:06:47
Speaker
that were clearly nothing to do with my educational experience. Their use of technology and of communication via technology and their ease with which they adapt and consume new programs or new technology is hugely, hugely impressive.
The Challenges in Teacher Recruitment and Retention
00:07:05
Speaker
and yet perhaps they've not necessarily got those same skills of personal interaction or emotional intelligence and a good school will actually look at those and balance them out a little bit. So I don't buy into the idea that we've got snowflakes but nor do I purport that we've got to do just GCC exams and that's it.
00:07:26
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, it fits with my next question actually. So we've got these kind of parallels here with our conversation. We've got a bit about how children are equipped so that they are great potential business owners and employees and not all between. And also you've got your teachers that are leaders within the business. So when we've talked previously, I know you said that
00:07:53
Speaker
The phrase retention is the new recruitment is something that really feels right for you right now. So how, how is that true for you? Cause I, I hear that when I, when I talk to people in various different sectors about some really tough, challenging places to recruit. So you're feeling that too. So how is that showing up?
00:08:16
Speaker
I think it's showing in sort of three different categories. The first is that teaching is not the profession of choice with the vast majority of young people anymore.
00:08:25
Speaker
And that's a great shame, to be honest with you. That's a national scandal, because we are one of the few countries that face that significant challenge. This is the greatest job on earth, forgive me. I know business leaders will argue differently, but we get to craft the business leaders of tomorrow, the prime ministers of tomorrow, the people who will solve cancer. And out of 52,000 places for teacher training this year, only 23,000 have been filled. That should horrify business as much as it horrifies me.
00:08:55
Speaker
The second thing I'd say about recruitment and retention is that's been the case for a number of years and therefore in the past where we would have colleagues who maybe were not as effective in their practice as we wish them to be,
00:09:10
Speaker
we would go through support mechanisms or they might move on. Schools now are having to make decisions. Well, actually, that person might be better just staying because we will not get a replacement. That's not good for them. It's not good for the children. It's not good for schools or education in general. And the third is teachers generally are highly qualified people. They may well only be qualified in a particular field, but they've got a lot of transferable skills.
00:09:36
Speaker
and business have recognized that some of that skill set is of use in their sector. So we have, particularly in the younger generation, a lot of teachers who will do one or two years who will leave for better conditions. So the pay isn't really the marker of whether they're going to stay in the profession because they will have
00:09:54
Speaker
a more corporate lifestyle, which is befitting to taking a young family through, or they'll have the ability of doing hybrid working, or they will just be in an environment where, yes, there's accountability, but that accountability is within a team ethos and is more around performance than it is around sort of what a 13-year-old child will do when they're on their own in a room. So those three factors mean
00:10:20
Speaker
that actually what should be the greatest job on earth is now a job that many young people do not see as a career and the few that do choose to come into the profession far more don't stay past year four. So we are in a bit of a crisis and I know that that's replicated in industry where recruitment is difficult for them too.
00:10:41
Speaker
But actually, we've got to understand that we can't solve the industry and business recruitment if we don't solve the educational one. And that can't be done by just simply saying we're going to pay teachers more, because forgive me, I do believe, yes, the starting salary is improved, but the majority of teachers are paid very, very well. And certainly at my level, pay is very, very good. But of course, it's the accountability and the pressure and the impact on health that's driving people out of the profession.
00:11:10
Speaker
Again, there's parallels with the pull away from different employers to different areas, different types of business subcontracting. I work with big IT companies and they are losing their firm staff to subcontract for that different lifestyle, potentially money, but maybe not. The graphs can look greener. Whether it is or not is another matter.
00:11:39
Speaker
So when you think about your leaders and that you are looking at retention and maybe you've not got all the skills they need in those leadership roles within the school, what key leadership skills do you think are absent most often?
Leadership Training for Teachers: A Gap in Education
00:11:55
Speaker
Well, I think the first thing to say is that teachers get a great deal of investment in terms of pedagogical practice, some cognitive understanding as well. But they get almost nothing in terms of leadership. And the majority of teachers have gone from school to college to university and back to school. So their experience of the broader world and their understanding of how to motivate a team to achieve a common goal is really limited.
00:12:24
Speaker
And whilst they're okay and can use great skill in the 30 children they look after in their classroom, the ability to do that with other adults is often lacking. So I'll give you an example. I've got young teachers who will think nothing of delivering an assembly to 300 children, but they will absolutely go to pieces if I ask them to talk to the staff about the same topic.
00:12:46
Speaker
So that idea that they are intelligent, which they are, they're well trained, which they are, but that they can then demonstrate some leadership capacity isn't as clear in education as it needs to be. And that's borne out by the fact that if you were to look on the Times Educational Supplement, which is sort of the industry leader for jobs, and you look at leadership positions,
00:13:09
Speaker
then there are 3,000 vacancies using the term leadership across the sector, which for secondary schools means one post per school. Yeah. So you're seeing this transferable skills not happening. There is this block with actually using that and there's an absence of that training and the development. I mean, that was so common. So many people I see have been promoted to
00:13:38
Speaker
leadership role, but actually never had any training. So you're seeing it, you've got your teachers that you're wanting to keep because you want to retain them. What have you done that has overcome this, this absence within the teachers and leaders?
00:13:57
Speaker
Well, I mean, the teaching fraternity is supported by what we call national program qualifications, which are in effect, skills based courses. And whilst they are useful and helpful, they don't actually support the leadership development. So one of the things that we do in our school
00:14:14
Speaker
is we've invested quite heavily in coaching and two types
Investing in Teacher Development
00:14:18
Speaker
of coaching. First, performance coaching in terms of the classroom, but then secondly, development coaching in terms of leadership. And that's now embedded across all levels of the school, regardless of your position as a teacher. The second element that we do is we've worked with external leadership providers and purposely chosen to go beyond education. So we don't want a former head teacher who's going to come and talk about leadership.
00:14:43
Speaker
we want to talk to business. And the argument I talk about with my leadership team is if the best businesses get hold of the best leadership providers, why can't we? And actually, with the exception of perhaps some financial restriction,
00:14:59
Speaker
we are choosing some phenomenal leadership support programs external to education, which gets our leaders of the future and our current leaders to think far bigger than what they were originally perceived to be. And that includes some very detailed 360 reviews from their peers. But more importantly, I go back to those things about mission. Every school has a mission statement.
00:15:24
Speaker
But not every school revisits it, and not every leader can articulate it or demonstrate it in their work or their impact. And that's the kind of space we're in. And we've been very lucky to find a leadership support external to the school who brings it back to this agenda all the time. Alongside things like, you know, teaching is a challenging profession, but we don't want to upset each other. And it's trying to get them to understand that disagreeing does not mean you are going to upset
00:15:54
Speaker
You can't be responsible. If you articulate a concern in good faith, in a polite language, and someone is upset by that, that is their issue. That's not your issue. And if it's in the best interest of achieving the mission, then you have a duty to express it. That we are just starting to push on, which leads to some of that change curve challenge that you would expect.
00:16:20
Speaker
but I know we will be better for it because it's about trying to get all of my leaders to understand that it's not about them individually, it's about the institution, the benefit we bring to the children and how we live out our mission. And if we're not able to disagree politely and then find solution, then we're likely to very, very slowly go further down into inadequacy.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Having those conversations. How far along the line do you think you are? Have you got any stories of things that didn't get talked about and the shift that you've seen?
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, I've got sort of three phases and I think it's a six phase plan that we've got. And phase one was exposure. It was making sure that leaders understood what my expectations were, where I wanted to take the institution and therefore their role in it, but equally for it to be unthreatening. And one of the people that I read quite widely and I have great admiration for is Brené Brown and trying to share that information in an unthreatening way.
Leadership Team Dynamics and Effectiveness
00:17:23
Speaker
The second phase of this was
00:17:26
Speaker
You know, I started at this school in 2004, the teaching assistant. When I started in 2004, four members of my leadership team were still on the leadership team then. So, you know, whilst I've gone through sort of nine different sections of promotion, they've stayed static. There's nothing wrong in that.
00:17:43
Speaker
But I do want to know that they are in the right seat on the right bus contributing, not that they're just holding on to a position and stopping what could be a more effective process. So that did lead to three members of a leadership team of 12 moving. One stepped off leadership. Two moved into different leadership posts where they're thriving. So it was sort of moving musical chairs, moving people around to be in the right positions.
00:18:09
Speaker
The third phase of it then, which is what we started last year and we're going to continue this year, is around that professional conflict, which is a word they don't like in education, conflict. No, no, I can understand it as connotations, but professional conflict should not and does not mean personal conflict. I'm not going to talk about whether I like what you're wearing.
00:18:32
Speaker
But we are in education so very polite with each other rather than being equipped to be able to say what is needed to be said. And we're in that stage now to be able to sort of equip people and we've done everything from
00:18:49
Speaker
using anonymous sort of screen shows to get people to put comments up about where they feel the school is and that was very telling because there was a consensus amongst the leadership team that we were not as good as we thought we were and yet that wasn't being articulated in meetings.
00:19:05
Speaker
through to where we are now, which is about to undertake a bit of a review of leadership, because whilst we've done 360 reviews in terms of emotional intelligence interactions with peers, as a leadership team, it was almost the unspoken thing. We don't talk about whether we're effective, it's about what other people are doing. Well, actually, no, that's that next stage now. You cannot lead
00:19:26
Speaker
in a school if you're not an effective practitioner in your own classroom and you are effective at leadership because actually then you are contributing to that weight that stops the school moving forward and so we are about to engage in a review of are we as a leadership team individually and as a team effective.
00:19:48
Speaker
Lovely. So many interesting directions you've taken that from getting that alignment to really focusing on the things that matter and getting the right people in the right places. Sounds like.
00:20:03
Speaker
You've added things in as a leadership team, but it must be that you've realised some of the stuff that's leaders that were happening were not adding to that picture.
Meaningful Work vs. Being Busy in Leadership
00:20:16
Speaker
What things do you think people have stopped doing to enable them to be able to do more of the stuff that you've just talked about? We were at a brilliant school at being busy.
00:20:28
Speaker
Brilliant, we're olympically good at being busy, but not necessarily focused on the right thing. And that goes back to the selection and maintenance of our aim. So there was a number of colleagues who would bring countless reams of paper, you know, and come into meetings with folders and all sorts of evidence of how they'd been busy, but they were neither leading nor doing what was effective for the school or for our direction of travel. So we have a phrase now, which is how are we working?
00:20:58
Speaker
and any member of the leadership team is allowed to just voice that if they think there's a concern that we're either not meeting that aim or we are becoming good at being busy and therefore managing then we would ask you know how are we working how are you working and it's that it's that doorway for
Providing an 'Unfair Advantage' Through Education
00:21:14
Speaker
people to try and reflect so we we've had to build that into our common parlance because
00:21:19
Speaker
Again, this is not going to change overnight and the majority of people will always go back to their position of comfort. And their position of comfort is likely to be that which they've always done. And that's not really where I see the school going. The second element is when we talk about the selection and maintenance of the AEM, I've made it really, really clear to leaders what my vision is for the school.
00:21:41
Speaker
and I'll share it with you now, but it's worth to give a little bit of context, you know, so it's a 1512 state secondary school with Catholic denomination in Oldham, 43% of my children on free school meals, we have the highest number of children with special needs and children in the care system in our school, so we really do serve a very challenging community, but equally we have children turning up in Porsches and then we have children who
00:22:06
Speaker
parents we have to feed before we can speak to them about the challenges they face and that that means we've got that real breadth and I wanted to be able to articulate our mission in such a way that I instilled it in both but everyone from the you know the lollipop lady all the way through to the deputy heads but then it could be challenged back and almost never be achievable it's got to be just out of reach
00:22:28
Speaker
And so our vision, we call it our North Star, is that we use our vocation of teaching to give an unfair advantage to our community, ensuring that no door is closed.
00:22:38
Speaker
That's really wordy, but in essence, regardless of your role in school, you are a teacher. Every interaction between an adult and a young person in this school is a chance to change them for the better. And we know that people who come into education are never going to be millionaires, and therefore it's a vocation. They don't just do it for the salary, because if they did, let's be honest, they'd probably move on. So it is vocationally driven. And then that unfair advantage is a lot of my young people
00:23:05
Speaker
don't get some of the experiences that their peers get, perhaps in more affluent areas of the country or private schools. And I challenge leaders to say, why not? Why don't they? Because actually, that's our problem. It's not their problem. It's our problem. So things like they didn't, I should say, get to go to the theater. They didn't go to museums or visit cultural sites. Well, that's now embedded across the school as an expectation that they will do that, and not that that cost is pushed to parents.
00:23:34
Speaker
And then the no door closed is the most contentious one of these because regardless of who you are, your GCC results will give you a platform for what you can do next.
00:23:47
Speaker
But that will mean sometimes, for some children who don't do particularly well, that doors close to them. And my argument to the staff about this is, it's our job to say, where is the path you want to go? And how do we make sure that those doors are open for you? Because for many of our children, they will not have the all doors are open.
00:24:08
Speaker
but they will have an understanding and ambition and aspiration of what they want to achieve. And it's critical therefore that the doors that relate to that individual's pathway are not closed to that young person.
00:24:19
Speaker
What I love is how ambitious it is and how plain speaking it is. You know, it's not jargony and it's not, doesn't sound sound bitey. And that aligns to thinking about the businesses I work with and the visions they have that are beyond the boardroom, you know, beyond the bottom line, it's more than that. It's about.
00:24:42
Speaker
how we're going to impact that wider environment. So it's great to hear your ambitious vision and hear how you're trying to make it happen. And given that you are doing things differently, really.
00:24:58
Speaker
You've talked about Bernie Brown, and I know when we spoke, there were a couple of other names that have influenced the approach you're taking. So what have been the key books or theories that you've been implementing in your work?
Influences on Education Leadership: Books and Theories
00:25:15
Speaker
So I'm a big fan of Brené Brown, and I do believe emotional intelligence and emotional leadership is a big part of that. And I also feel that, you know, the book on difficult dare to lead about brave, work tough conversations whole heart is where education needs to move and move more rapidly because of these challenges. And so, you know, put really simply, you know, on Saturday, I'm going giving a conversational conference to I think about 400
00:25:43
Speaker
people who are joining teaching profession from industry, so usually a little bit older than the normal teacher. And really, if they aren't coming into teaching to change the world, then what are they doing it for? Because every time they interact with a young person, every time they deliver a class, there's a chance that that will change the direction of the life of a young person for the better. And therefore, they should be wanting to come into that. And I think that's that high aspiration, high ambition that we've got to come through.
00:26:09
Speaker
Equally, I want to change some of the culture within education. So we're very hierarchical. Titles mean a great deal to people. There's a huge sort of market around labels and titles. And for some people, they will move a job for a better title, even if it's not for better conditions or pay. And that resonated with me with the David Marquette book Turnership Around, because
00:26:34
Speaker
That's education in a whole.
Empowering Staff Within a School's Vision Framework
00:26:36
Speaker
The head teacher saying, we need to have assemblies. And then the deputy head saying, we need assemblies on this. And it sort of goes down this chain and just becomes leadership through management and its management in proxy. And actually, what we want to have is to change that system so that people feel equipped and empowered to make the changes they need to make within the confines of the vision that we set for the school. And that's a really difficult one for us. And I'm not suggesting for one minute we're anywhere near solving that.
00:27:03
Speaker
But why should the head of geography feel the need to justify buying 25 new textbooks to my head of finance? It's their budget. Let's think about why you're doing it, what the impact is. Argue that. Don't argue permission to have that signed up, and yet education's full of those kind of
00:27:22
Speaker
issues, so very much around David Marquette. And then a chap that I think you've spoken to called Neil Jurd, who is one of the, his book on leadership, plain and simple, is important to us because some of the pictures and some of the techniques in there are now embedded in our schools. In particular, change, curve, that's something we talk regularly, but equally the sort of transactional leadership, you know, parent, adult, child, those kind of elements.
00:27:49
Speaker
whereby we use those tools to put a lens on our work and where we're going. And those three are sort of the trinity, if I can say that as a Catholic school leader, the trinity of our leadership work as a school. And yet for myself, I'm now moving into
00:28:08
Speaker
broader work and broader reading particularly around business and goal setting and how you create cultures of high performance. So there are things that traditionally education may not be involved in but certainly I read Atomic Habits because I thought that that was a good way of looking at my own leadership and saying how do I retain my resilience but then of course looking at James Kerr's book Legacy on the All Blacks and how
00:28:37
Speaker
they created a culture because I think again in education
00:28:42
Speaker
you get it across the board in a staff room, the certain teacher sits in a certain chair, and they get the certain mug. That cultural knowledge may well be important to individuals, but it's not important to the institution. And it's about sort of saying that time served does not mean you get better chocolate or you get better brews. Time served means you should be putting into the next generation to improve the system even more. So that's where I'm taking legacy as a bit of a
00:29:12
Speaker
a stab at myself to say, what am I doing to give back and to make that apparent? And just coming back to some of the leadership theory that you've been putting into practice.
00:29:24
Speaker
Thinking about people that might be listening to this, people in business that have read Turnership around and they think, yeah, I like that in theory. It makes sense to me. What would you give tips on where to start? Think about what you've done over there, however long you've been trying to make that happen and getting success with it. What would you say is a good starting point? Well, I think I'm a big fan of sacred arts, know thyself.
00:29:53
Speaker
So certainly, I was a reluctant head teacher. I was a really, really happy deputy head teacher. The head who was here last in 2017, 2018 left. And it became about, do I want to work for someone else? Or do I want to lead this team that I've invested all this time in and who I believe are the hardest working team in education? And I decided I wanted to do it, but I didn't know what I didn't know about my own self.
00:30:20
Speaker
because there had been no opportunities in my educational career to be surrounded or tested in a way whereby my qualities and skills I had to defend or demonstrate. It was all around achieving results. And so I think as a leader, if you don't know yourself and know your own vulnerabilities, then you are
00:30:41
Speaker
pretty much just preaching an approach rather than living it. So I know full well, for rightly or wrongly, I can be quite an emotional chap. I have highs and lows, and I have to work, therefore, on trying to stay within a narrower band of emotional demonstrations, really. And it was really important. I shared that with the team and said,
00:31:05
Speaker
sometimes I can struggle. But I also say that leaders set the weather. If the leaders are laughing in the rain, then everyone just thinks it's okay. But if the leader is all glum and angry, then it has impact on others. So the ability to know yourself was the first challenge for me. And it's one that I will never really complete
00:31:27
Speaker
But I know now I am stronger and more resilient than I was previously. On the days now where it feels like the impossible is here, it is about stepping back and finding, OK, where do I need to find my inspiration from? And connecting with people, particularly those who are not in education, who achieve so much, that is a motivator. And it allows me then to engage with my leaders in a way where
00:31:53
Speaker
I have empathy for them, but equally I have examples of where I've been in a similar position and can advise on what they might want to look at differently. Lovely. Really good place to start having that humility to
00:32:09
Speaker
reflect on yourself and your own practice and I love that you shared it. I sometimes have people do work on themselves and they may well get results from some sort of psychometric or 360, but that next step of being able to share so that they can see what you're working on and what you struggle with, it's the best way to take it forward, isn't it?
00:32:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, it goes back to one of Brennan Brown's points about the armour that we all wear. And certainly, as a head teacher, you are heralded by the parents and the children, and there's got to be an air of mystique about you. You hear it every day, staff will say, the head teacher will speak to you, or you need to go to the head's office.
00:32:55
Speaker
And I didn't want to erode that because I know that's culturally important to education and to our school. But I do need and did need to be expressive with my own team that I do feel that I'm not enough. I do have imposter syndrome. I do feel areas of vulnerability.
00:33:14
Speaker
And actually, you've got no reference point to be able to take that other than an offstead grade, and that's flawed massively. So I have to be honest with my team about what's happening with me, and I hope that they are replicating that with their teams, because it certainly builds those emotional bridges. And as I say to them, if we're not able to do that, then everything that's in your head will not go via your heart, and then what will be in your hand will be just this very, very flimsy idea.
00:33:43
Speaker
What a lovely place to arrive. Anything else that you think about that people might be listening to this, people that are trying to put things into practice and, you know, they're listening, they're feeling inspired. Any other pieces of advice or wisdom that you would think would be worth them looking at?
The Importance of Professional Networks
00:34:04
Speaker
There is, actually. And actually, this is something that education is really, really good at, which is how we connect with other people, usually through social media or with things like podcasts. We form what we call either teach meets or learning groups. And so for me, there is a group of about 3,000 head teachers, and we will share podcasts or we will share articles, and it will generate
00:34:31
Speaker
30 or 40 comments, and it'll generate people saying, why don't you come and see me, because I'm doing it that way. And therefore, you are always having access to someone who has got a better version of the problem that you're trying to solve. And that generates a little bit more confidence, but equally,
00:34:50
Speaker
Well, that comment about being vulnerable and being an imposter, I'm yet to meet someone who doesn't say, yeah, yeah, I feel that way as well. So listening to podcasts is great for you. It's great for the individual. But I'd really say you've got to contribute as well.
00:35:05
Speaker
Sharing about a podcast or an article, whether it be LinkedIn or Twitter or whatever it's called now, generates discourse and it's that discourse that the golden moments come from. Your own reflections and learning and listening to a podcast might be great, but it's how you turn that into a positive action and you really get more traction from that when you involve other people in that conversation.
00:35:29
Speaker
Lovely.
Impostor Syndrome Among Leaders
00:35:30
Speaker
That peer support as well. I think it's great what you're signaling about embossed syndrome. I wouldn't like to meet somebody that didn't have embossed syndrome at some level. I think they wouldn't probably be the type of person you'd want to have much to do with. I think it's a bit of a quality really. Obviously it can be a bit overplayed, which isn't great, but when it's used as a positive
00:35:50
Speaker
I think it's really valuable. But the peer support thing is really important too, and doing something with it so that other people can benefit is a great message. Thank you, Glyn. It was great talking to you. A real pleasure. I got lots of inspiration and ideas from you, and I'm really glad we got to speak. No, thank you. Thank you for having me.
00:36:26
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Visible Leader podcast. To stay up to date with the latest episode, hit the subscribe button. And I'd love to hear what you think, so please leave me a review. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to me.