We use the phrase ‘open door policy’ fairly glibly these days. Many leaders want to be visible, approachable, accessible, and certainly not remote.  This is all good,… Read more “Leaders: think about your ‘open door’ policy”

Recently, my eldest brother read my book: Making the leap – Moving from deputy to head. He is far outside my target audience – now retired, he… Read more “Defending your choices – or being defensive?”

In the 22 March 2019 edition of tes, I was interested to read a piece by primary head Nicola Forster entitled ‘Vacating the middle ground’.  In the… Read more “The power of Middle Leaders”

I’ve kept a diary since 1972, in which I record what happens each day, and how I feel about it.  I’ve always found the experience of writing… Read more “Mid-way through your career – how do you sustain yourself?”

This post is based on an after-dinner speech I gave at the Ambition School Leadership all-women NPQH final residential at Loughborough University on Friday 1st March 2019. … Read more “Making the leap to headship – the possibility of joy”

Friday 1st March 2019 was a very interesting day for me.  I travelled to London to speak at a conference on headship and diversity, ‘Breaking the Mould’,… Read more “Headship and diversity”

In my last blog post I wrote about tidiness, and about how imposing order and systems might make both your personal and your professional life calmer and… Read more “Managing email”

Confession: I am a tidy person. Reading Emma Kell’s recent piece on tidiness in tes, the link Adrian Bethune included in a Twitter comment about Emma’s article,… Read more “How tidy are you?”

Yesterday I was pleased to lead a workshop at the John Taylor MAT conference held at the John Taylor Free School in Tatenhill.  The (wonderful) head there,… Read more “Receiving feedback: How can we do it better?”