As human beings we are often pushed into choosing one side over another.  When I was growing up in England in the 1960s you were either a Beatles fan or a Rolling Stones fan. The recent USA presidential elections have shown that the USA is more divided than ever in terms of its strong support for or absolute dislike of Donald Trump.

But I have been reading Barak Obama’s new book A Promised Land and one of the things that has come across really, really strongly in the book is his ability to manage the tension of duality; to see things from two different perspectives. 

I think there is something really important here.  If we are to be effective and sustainable leaders, then we need to be slow to condemn or dismiss groups of people who genuinely seem to have a different view from us. To be curious rather than oppositional towards those who may see things differently.  And to ask: ‘What’s really going on here?’  ‘I wonder why these colleagues have such a different view from me?’ ‘What can I learn from them?’

Of course, we need to have strong values and beliefs, of course we need to be committed to evidence-based approaches, but we also need to be able to walk in the other person’s shoes, to see things from their perspective, to combat intuitive bias.  To have an approach which, as Viviane Robinson says, is more about “truth-seeking” and less about “truth-claiming”

Four Paradoxes

As leaders in education there are very real tensions that exist for us that we have to navigate.  Paradoxes in education where, for different reasons, we want both aspects but there appears to be a tension or indeed a conflict between them.  For example:

1. should we develop future school leaders by focusing on domain-specific leadership development (teaching and learning, curriculum design, whole-school behaviour management) or by focusing on developing generic leadership skills (building trust, holding challenging conversations, leading meetings)?   
2. Should we give more autonomy to individual teachers in a school and to individual schools in an education system so that they can make their own decisions and use their own professional judgement or should we focus on ensuring consistency in what teachers and schools do, based on evidence of what has worked? 
3. Should we put all our trust in standardised tests because they are more reliable and less open to bias and keep teacher workload low or should we look to assess in a more valid, authentic and on-going way the wide range of learning and achievement that young people demonstrate? 
4. Should we focus on academic excellence and set a high bar for all or should we focus on equity and on trying to ensure that each child gets what they need?

Let me say a little more about this fourth paradox.  In recent years there has been an increasing focus on academic excellence and on high expectations.   Schools and districts and regions have been set targets for attainment.  There has been a determination by governments to attack complacency, to demand high standards.    Those who have tried to use poverty as an excuse for low attainment have been called out for failing to believe in what children can achieve.  Mediocre practice has been challenged.   It has been emphasised that it is very important for young people have qualifications when they leave school – without them the road ahead is likely to be very challenging. 

But we are paying a high price for that focus on academic excellence.  Across the world in too many systems social mobility is stuck, and it is the disadvantaged and the marginalised that are losing out.

The focus on market forces and on accountability has pushed comparison between schools to new limits.  In many systems the children who need the most support and who are the most vulnerable are becoming the least welcome in our schools, as they will bring down a school’s overall attainment score in standardised tests.   At the same time, too many young people are being disempowered and disenfranchised as a result of a narrow curriculum that has little connection with their reality.  Leaving school with qualifications is important but so is leaving school feeling positive about who you are and with a strong sense of self-worth. 

We should be wary of lowering our expectations.   It is important that all young people have access to powerful knowledge that their other, more privileged peers may take for granted.   We know that having high expectations and having great teaching that challenges and inspires and opens minds is crucial; and that children often respond to lower expectations from teachers by lowering their expectations of themselves.

But we also know that people respond well to learning when they can see that their voice is heard, that their identity is recognised, when the learning has meaning, perceived value, usefulness and connectedness.   We know that it matters how a society recognises and celebrates identity, how we value community roots, how we find ways to recognise and celebrate a wide range of achievements.  A focus on equity is about accountability systems that incentivise inclusivity, that reward progress for each child, not just rewarding those who reach a set standard, that recognise the importance of student engagement and on-going learning, that incentivise partnership and collaboration between schools rather than the opposite.

Leading on the Edge

Thinking and leading our way through these paradoxes can be tough for school leaders.  Holding the tension between important and apparently conflicting issues can sometimes feel lonely.   Sometimes it feels like walking along a narrow ridge looking down on both sides to the safe camps below.  Taking sides alienates as well as inspires and if as leaders we want to take most of our colleagues with us then we need to be wary of setting up camp on one side or the other. 

Being an open-minded leader who knows they don’t know it all is not about being a weak leader.  Far from it.   This is not about wishy-washy leadership or mediocre leadership.   It is about taking what is good and right from what appear to be opposing ideas and making something even better.  

Near where I live in Manchester there is a place called Alderley Edge.  As you approach you can go one of two ways – along the flat and into the woods or take the more challenging route to the edge. 

That’s a good image for the choices that face us as school leaders.  Do we head for the woods and sit comfortably in one of the camps surrounded by people who agree with us but failing to include or engage others who don’t share our view and perhaps missing out on even better strategies that would improve our schools and improve our leadership?  Or do we choose to spend some time walking along the edge, even when it is uncomfortable, because we know that is where the really interesting and powerful decisions can be made.

Let’s lead on the edge.

Professor Steve Munby is former CEO of the National College for School Leadership in England.  His latest book “Imperfect Leadership -a book for Leaders who know they don’t know it all” was published in 2019.