September 7, 2025 • 38 mins
Nick Hart, Principal of Horizon English School in Dubai, shares his journey from aspiring footballer to educational leader and unpacks how school leadership must evolve beyond industrial models to embrace complexity and meaningful interactions.
• Nick's unconventional path to education began with a sports science degree and a semi-professional football career
• Horizon English School ranks among Dubai's top schools with exceptional academic achievement combined with happy children and staff
• Educational blogging became Nick's tool for clarifying thoughts and self-accountability in leadership
• Leadership has evolved from industrial "command and control" models to creating conditions where solutions emerge from interactions
• Schools should aim for coherence (aligned values with adaptable practices) rather than consistency (everyone doing the same thing)
• Effective leaders need extensive knowledge across multiple domains and an understanding of complexity
• New leaders should listen and understand before implementing changes
• School leadership teams benefit from diversity of thought, experience and perspective
Connect with Nick on LinkedIn or visit his blog at athttps://mrnickhart.wordpress.com/ to explore more of his insights on educational leadership.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast
connecting, developing andempowering educators.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hello everyone.
I'm donning my fan.
It's still hot here in theMiddle East.
Welcome to the Teach MiddleEast podcast.
Today I have Nick Hart with meon the podcast.
He is the principal of HorizonEnglish School in Dubai.
See, I didn't make the error.
I was there practicing withNick offline going.
Do not say the wrong name, Iwon't even call the other name
(00:38):
but Horizon English School,Dubai, and we are on the podcast
today to talk all thingsleadership.
Nick has been prolific inwriting about leadership.
I read his stuff on his blog,which, by the way, you should go
and check out.
It's mrnickhartcom and you canread all the stuff he posts
(01:01):
there, or you can follow him onLinkedIn.
I like to read stuff onleadership, especially from
people who sit in the seat andunderstand what it takes to
actually lead a school insomewhere like Dubai, which is
highly dynamic.
Nick, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Thanks so much, Lisa.
Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Thank you so much for , by the way, your contributions
at the Middle East SchoolLeadership Conference.
Really, I was looking back atthe Middle East School
Leadership Conference.
Really I was looking back atthe highlights and I was like,
yeah, that was a really niceworkshop.
I really really wished I couldhave sat in it.
But you know, on event days I'mlike running around like I have
no sense.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I was only mildly offended that you came to the
door and then walked away.
So no one next time.
So sorry Anyway sorry, anyway,leadership.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So I know you weren't , you know, I know you probably
were leading your parents whenyou were in nappies, but let's
not start there.
Let's start with your journeyinto education.
How did you get to the seat inwhich you now sit?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
so take us back a bit so all through school I had one
which was to play as muchfootball as possible.
So any decisions aroundstudying or subjects or even
university degree was all aroundhow can I play more football?
So I ended up doing a sportsscience degree with Brunel in
(02:20):
London with no intention otherthan play for the football team
brunel and try and get a job andtry and work in high level
sports.
But there was a moment with thecareers office, I think in my
second year of studying, where Iwent along and asked them you
get the standard meeting, don'tyou, about careers when you're
nearing the end of a degree.
And at the time the advice fromthem was you can.
(02:43):
They listened.
They listened to my kind ofwishes of trying to get into
high level sport and I said well, you can go and find any job
that you can with organizationslike the Football Association,
that kind of thing, and just getyour way in as whatever level
as possible, or you can go workin a gym.
But I thought, ok, I need to dotwo, three years of university
(03:03):
to go work in a gym.
And they said or you can teach.
So at the time I need to do two, three years of university to
go work in a gym and they said,well, you can teach.
So at the time I was alsoplaying football
semi-professionally and Ithought, ok, I want to be able
to play football evenings andweekends.
So I was looking for then a jobthat is nine till three every
day and nobody corrected me,nobody said, actually that's not
what teaching's like.
(03:23):
So I ended up in the short termbeing a teaching assistant for
a term and then I did thegraduate teacher program to
study whilst teaching and thendid the usual worked through
some various middle leadershippositions leading maths, english
science, pe, and then assistanthead, deputy head and head
teacher in England for a coupleof years.
And then Dubai came calling andI had to teach in England for a
(03:43):
couple of years, and then Dubaicame calling.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Dubai came calling.
How did it call?
What happened?
What led to you leaving yourhome in England to sunny Dubai?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It's a funny story because for a long time I wanted
to live and work out here, buttiming was never quite right.
So we needed to time it to dowith kind of career and kid
studies as well.
So we came on holiday here.
It must have been three or fouryears ago.
I wanted to know what it waslike, what schools were like in
Dubai, because, although havingvisited Dubai, I'd never seen a
(04:14):
school.
So I used my social medianetwork and the deputy head here
at Horizon, martin we had beentalking over Twitter as it was
then, and I asked can I come andvisit?
So I came to visit the school,loved the school, met lots of
lovely people, and I remembergoing back thinking I don't just
want to work in Dubai, I wantto work at Horizon English
School.
But at the time there was novacancy, there was no
(04:36):
possibility for leading theschool, and then, as luck would
have it, ian, the previousprincipal, moved into a director
of education role and then theprevious principal moved into a
director of education role andthen the Horizon principal job
came up and got a phone call andvarious things went in motion.
And here I am, the principal ofthe school that I visited,
hoping that I would be able tolead one day, and I actually am.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
See how good that is.
It's almost like themanifestation malarkey that I
talk about sometimes, but Ithink it does work sometimes.
I'm not sending anyone outthere to close their eyes and
try to imagine yourself sittingin a principal's desk if you
haven't done the work.
I'm sure Nick did all the workbecause he rose through the
different ranks and levels andhad the experience.
(05:16):
But what's the experience beenlike now that you've got the job
?
What has it been at Horizon?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It is comfortably, comfortably the best school that
I've worked in and led.
It's incredible.
It has a reputation of being agreat school in Dubai, but I'm
increasingly of the opinion that, globally, horizon should stand
up there with some of the bestschools in the world.
The quality of education thatwe provide, the employee
experience, parent experienceit's a dream job.
(05:44):
It really is a dream job.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I don't want to linger on this because I want to
talk leadership, but you saidsomething there.
You said it should be among thetop schools in the world.
Give me some specifics, likewhat makes it such a standout
school?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So I mean lots of schools have a high academic
achievement, so you take that asgiven that the achievement is
there.
So I mean lots of schools havea high academic achievement, so
you take that as given that theachievement is there.
I mean it's hard to compareHorizon with all three schools
because we're a primary schooland you don't have the GCSE and
the A-level or the equivalentsto compare for academic
achievement.
But children attain reallyreally well.
The standardized schools, thevarious year groups are great,
(06:29):
but attainment achievement, lotsof schools do that, but lots of
schools also do it in a waythat is maybe unsustainable or
leads to kind of burnout.
So the way that we've managed tohave high academic achievement
but also have incredibly happychildren and incredibly happy
parents, it is really specialwhen people visit horizon.
They talk about the culture,they talk about the connection,
they talk about the communityfeeling and lots of people say
those things but backing it upwith kind of evidence around
what parents say in our annualsurvey, which is when we look at
(06:50):
net promoter score, is top 10percent of organizations in the
world.
The same with the voice of theemployee when we look at the net
promoter score for voice, theemployee our scores through the
roof.
You can look at maybe top fivepercent of organizations,
employers, not just in education, across all sorts of industries
.
The score is incredibly highand I think it's down to the way
that we work that we prioritizeflourishing and happiness,
(07:13):
because that is the route tohigh academic achievement.
It's not the short route, butit is the sustainable and
morally correct route to do that.
So I'm really grateful for mypredecessors in terms of setting
that foundation and I've beenglad to be able to take it on a
little bit further and nudge ita little bit higher in terms of
all those outcomes.
It's it really is a specialplace brilliant quick question
(07:38):
blogging.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yes, what led to that and when did it start?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know, you might remember.
So back in I think it was 2011,something like that the London
riots were happening and this isa strange place to start for
them.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Right with my home.
So that's so funny because Ifelt taught no, don't try it,
nick.
What are you trying to say?
I'm joking.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Go on.
I remember back then trying tofind out what was happening in
the world because the news youknow how biased news things is
and back then Twitter was justtaking off, I think, and I
remember signing up to Twitterto just to find out some
different perspectives on whatwas happening.
And I quickly found out thatbeyond finding out about what's
(08:19):
happening in London riots, therewas a pocket of Twitter to do
with educationists who weretalking about education in a way
that I hadn't reallyexperienced before.
So when I was a teacher andmaybe an emerging middle leader,
I only ever spoke to theteachers in the school and the
leaders in the school aboutteaching and about kind of
emerging leadership.
And then I realised there's awhole other world of people
(08:41):
actually talking about evidenceand research and ideas that
wasn't really exposed to.
So then I started kind ofdelving a little bit deeper into
the education side of Twitterand then started contributing
and I thought, okay, I see someother people who are kind of
writing blogs.
Let's just make one and see whathappens.
And so I started just writingto basically think.
(09:02):
So I was using it to write downideas and capture them and to
share what we're doing in myschool at the time and it kind
of grew and grew and then Irealized actually this is a good
way of learning.
So I realized that when I writesomething down and I try and
put it into a format that isunderstandable to other people,
it made me understand it betterand I almost realized what I
(09:22):
think about something by writingit, communicating it and
sharing it.
So for me it's what it's turnedinto is a bit of
self-accountability for learning, for processing thoughts and
ideas and turning them intosomething that is hopefully
clear, communicable and helpfulfor other people, because if
(09:43):
nobody else reads it, I havefound so much value in writing
it in the first place.
So for me, blogging is figuringout what I know and being able
to communicate clearly.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, I do write a lot as well and I do encourage
educators to write, but now,with AI, people are writing less
and less and it really worriesme, especially as a former
teacher of languages.
I am very worried for, you know, the coming generations, that
their lack of skill inprocessing thoughts, putting
(10:15):
them on paper, making themcoherent and communicating their
point of view effectively.
I'm very worried.
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I mean, linkedin has become a bit of a strange world
where you can quite clearly seeAI generated posts and then AI
generated responses to that.
It's like nobody's actuallythinking.
And there are obviously thereare lots and lots of exceptions
to that, but it's too easy.
It's too easy to put a promptinto an AI and get it to create
content.
For me, it's not about content,it's about thinking.
You do the thinking in order toget the result.
If you kind of take away thethinking, what have you got?
(10:51):
You've got kind of an emptyshell of nonsense thoughts that
just get posted there for thecontent rather than to try and
actually contribute or toclarify our own thinking is.
It is really.
It's a risk, and something thatI think we'll have to figure
out over the next couple ofyears is to try and maintain the
thought processes that reallygo into good leadership and not
(11:13):
outsource it to AI.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, but I think we'll come full circle.
I don't think we'll come fullcircle quickly, but I think
eventually people will get sosaturated and so fed up with the
garbage not the garbage, fine,I'll say garbage that AI spits
out at you sometimes.
And then, once you get to thatpoint, once you hit that
(11:37):
saturation point, you will thenstart to look for quality among
the things that you read andeventually we'll become very
adept at spotting what'sauthentic and what isn't
authentic.
It'll take us a little while,but we'll get there, I think,
eventually.
But what's your writing processLike?
How do you start?
(11:57):
Because a lot of times teachersask me how do I start to do
this whole writing thing thatyou do on LinkedIn or that I
used to do on Twitter and on myblog?
How do you start your processand how do you carry it through?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Usually there's some sort of stimulus.
It might be a conversation withsomeone, it might be something
that we're talking about atschool, it might be something
I've read, it might be a studyor someone else's work, and
quite often what happens is I'lltry and translate something
that I've learning or thinkingabout in a form, in a graphic
(12:36):
organizer kind of form that Ithink then is useful.
After that I'd use that toelaborate.
So the process tends to be findout something interesting, turn
it into diagrammatic or graphicorganizer form and then use
that to elaborate and writesomething so I can get into the
model a little bit and into theframework to make sure I can
communicate something clearly,because I found that school
(12:59):
leaders, the ones that cancommunicate ideas really clearly
, are typically the ones thatare successful.
And if, if we can't explain ourthinking behind something, if
we can't justify our reasons forasking people to do stuff, then
they quickly kind of fall awayand easily lose credibility.
So it's the graphic organizersection that is probably
invisible to a lot of people,because I try and represent it
(13:19):
first and then write somethingthat elaborates on it.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, apart from your own personal benefits of
writing, have you had anyexternal benefits that's come to
you as a result of putting yourwork out there?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, so I get various inquiries through the
blog to do training days inengland, multi-academy trusts or
conferences, and actually oneof my books was because of a
blog post.
So one of a publisher saw apost I'd written, announced me
to elaborate and turn it into abook, which is great, and I
think I have social media andblogging to thank.
(13:53):
So a lot of that hascontributed to the situations I
found myself in as a leaderwhere opportunities have come my
way.
So you said at the beginning,the hard work goes in, but then
you're generous and you share.
Hopefully it comes back as well.
So that's been.
My approach is to freely sharethings because it may come back
around one day and that's great.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah.
So you write a lot aboutleadership and I talk a lot
about leadership just becauseI'm a student of the subject,
because sometimes you know, Ican see where I did it really,
really wrong.
You know, it's weird because Ileft school leadership in 2018
and now that I'm looking fromthe outside in sometimes I feel
(14:36):
like a tinge.
I'm very open, I feel a bitashamed of some of the
foolishness I did.
I really like I'm thinking Imean, luckily for me, some of my
colleagues they still reach outmy former teachers and stuff
from my school.
They're gracious, they haven'tkind of excommunicated me
completely, but I look back atsome of the ways I did things
(14:59):
that now I would not have doneand I wondered and you've
written something about how theindustrial models no longer suit
what we are trying to achievenow as it relates to leadership.
So talk me through howleadership in your view,
especially school leadership,has changed and evolved over the
(15:19):
years or over the decades.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah.
So I mean, I think that there'sa general pattern that when
people started writing andthinking about leadership, it's
come out of what the dominantorganizations and models were.
And so in that industrial area,when post-industrialization,
when there's lots of factorywork and lots of organizations
working in that way of simplecause and effect or production
(15:42):
line style kind of organizations, then leadership was about
pressing buttons to get theoutcome that you want.
It was pull that lever, getthat thing.
And sadly I mean sadly now theapproach to people in that way
people don't work like that.
Production lines may work likethat, but people don't work like
that.
And so when we're progressingout of an industrial era into
(16:05):
this knowledge era of complexityand free, quick sharing of
information, those models ofcommand and control or a heroic
white man in a blue suit,middle-aged, that's not what
leaders look like and that's notwhat leaders do.
The shift is towards complexity.
The conditions that we work inin schools are nothing like
those industrial models.
(16:25):
There's a beautiful complexityabout a school where hundreds of
people interact every day inways that we can't predict, in
ways that we can't control, inways that we can't control in
ways that we can't imagine.
And so the shift in leadershipis about understanding those
conditions, I think, andcreating those interactions,
because those interactions arethe things that enable the
(16:46):
emergence of solutions toproblems or to innovations in
how we teach, and therefore ourjob isn't command and control,
it's to understand theconditions and encourage
interactions for people who areclosest to problems, to solve
them.
One of my pet peeves is schoolsthat dictate how teachers teach,
and one thing I like to talkabout is how we shouldn't be
(17:09):
aiming for consistency, becauseconsistency is everyone doing
the same thing.
We should be aiming forcoherence, where we've got
aligned values and aligned waysof working, but teachers have to
adapt what they're doing to thechildren in front of them.
You can have two classes rightnext to each other teaching the
same curriculum to the same agechildren, but the approach needs
to be entirely different,because the children are
(17:29):
different, because the teacheris different and therefore the
interactions are.
So that pet peeve is one that Itry to make sure that we don't
do.
We're not going to tell youexactly how to teach.
We'll help you to identify theproblems that you're
experiencing, and we allexperience problems and have to
solve them day by day, and ourjob as leaders is to try and
help people to interact in a waythat solves those problems and
(17:52):
we find a way to get the mostout of every interaction with
children in the classroom,rather than following a cookie
cutter and a set of routines orstructures, which sadly does
happen in a lot of places thecookie cutter.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Is that there because that level of consistency is
easier to measure?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
yes, and it's arguably a quicker way to
success if you've got chaos or Isay chaos in a manner that
explains the kind of lack ofstructure.
So some schools are in chaosbecause they don't have systems,
they don't have routines, theydon't have expectations, and if
you're in a school that needswhat david carter talks about
rescuing and putting systems inthat's the easiest way to do.
(18:34):
It's the quickest, safest.
Actually, the most common senseway of leading a school that is
in crisis is you make people dothe same thing that you know at
some point will give you astarting point.
So there is an argument forthat as a leadership strategy
for a particular situation, intimes of crisis, in times of
where stability is needed.
(18:54):
But you can't do in crisismanagement and stability for a
long period of time.
Eventually it settles and theyneed something else.
So there is a time and a placefor it, but it's not a long-term
sustainable approach.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I get that, but the argument is that the consistency
helps to meet the standardsstipulated by the regulatory
authorities so that you can thenattain the rating, which then
means that you can then raiseyour fees and do all the bits
(19:29):
and attract to the parents.
How do we counter that, nick?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And that's a frustration with the regulation
system and it's good that it'schanging.
The regulation system that wehave had in Dubai for the last
few years in our relativelyimmature school system is that,
and the regulation system isthat way to quickly raise
standards.
But when you talk to schoolleaders about and I'm sure you
(19:54):
do about their experience ofinspection and regulation, then
it's not easy.
It's a lot of time bound, timepressured, numerical based
things to chase rather thandoing the work that in our
hearts we know is right for acommunity and a group of
children.
So in some ways it's a bit of aprivilege to have a good
(20:14):
grading in order to step awayfrom the treadmill and step away
from the conveyor belt that isrequired to get to a certain
stage.
So I completely understand whyit is an approach in some places
.
But I suppose the leadershipangle is we need to know when to
change the approach and to bebrave enough to do it.
(20:35):
And if we get that opportunityas a school leader then I think
we should take it with bothhands.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I love to make analogies and I think you're
very right.
You know, the kind of forcethat is needed to push an
aircraft off the ground is notthe same that is needed to take
it and smooth it out at certainaltitudes.
And I get that we might needthose structures and that sort
of consistency in place.
(20:59):
But when you get to a certainaltitude we can work for
coherence in leadership and itcan be smooth with the
occasional bumps because youknow there are air pockets
everywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But I mean you're ready to jump back into crisis
mode at some point because youcould lose 40 of your teachers
through normal internationaltransients and attrition, in
which case you can't then do thesame things you'd always do.
So in international schools weare at the mercy a little bit of
transient teachers, because ifyour teaching kind of profile
(21:34):
changes, you can almost have tostart again.
And this is I've had thisproblem a couple of times in
england where you get to acertain point with teachers and
their training and then, forwhatever reason, they move on
and you almost start again withnew people and to recognize that
is an important part ofleadership and to act
accordingly yeah, let's changegears a bit.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
debunkunk the myth.
For me, hierarchical leadershipmeans strength and relational
leadership could potentiallymean weakness.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Debunk that myth hierarchy, person in charge,
strength, and we're conditionedto probably think that
relational leadership may becozy and warm and
non-challenging andnon-judgmental, for example.
But when you talk aboutrelational leadership, the
language of it, I don't thinkit's helpful.
(22:26):
So you hear the word relationaland you think, okay,
relationships, you think warm,caring, that kind of thing.
But actually relationalleadership is is more the
encouragement of interactionsbetween people, and what we can
do is take the best of both.
Do you need hierarchicalleadership?
Yes, you need someone who isaccountable for something
(22:46):
happening.
Simon can be.
Our group ceo talks aboutsomeone.
You have to have someone tocatch the ball.
At the end of the day, youcould pass it around, but
someone has to catch it and sowe do need that.
People need clear roles,responsibilities, but one of our
responsibilities isinteractions.
So you can go about relationalleadership and be all about
(23:08):
interactions but have nosubstance.
So you could get people beingreally nice to each other.
You can get people being kind,you can get people being really
nice to be around, and one ofthe problems with that which I
kind of used to illustrate thepoint is in one year group.
So they were all lovely people,so kind, so nice, so nurturing
(23:40):
their children loved them.
The parents loved them.
But when you put them togetherin a year group and they talk
about teaching, they were alltoo nice to challenge each other
and say I don't think thatshould happen.
I think we should do it likethis so they would sit in their
team meeting and they wouldshare their planning, and I know
that they'd be thinking I don'tquite like how that's done.
I think we should dodifferently and they'd all go
(24:01):
away, make the changes thatnight, all of them doing the
same thing, and then not sayanything to each other.
They're tripling their workloadand yet they're burning
themselves out to make thechanges that they all know
should happen, but they theydidn't want to say it to each
other.
And that's where relationalleadership can, in that myth, be
weakness, because we need goodrelationships, but rooted in
(24:21):
substance.
You need people who are expertsin their jobs, like they were.
But to be able to challenge, tobe able to feel like, yes, I
can say to this person that Ilike this bit, I like this bit,
but my class needs somethingdifferent.
I think they should dosomething else without feeling
like they're going to offendsomeone, and have the trust and
the mechanisms to be able to dothat, which then raises
(24:44):
standards.
So although they had in thisexample, they had good
interactions on a personal level, they didn't have good
interactions on a professionallevel, and that's part of our
job if we're going to attempt tolead relationally is to make
sure we've got expert people butset up the systems to be able
to challenge and to have goodconversations about the
(25:04):
substance of what they're doingso that the standard rises.
And I think that's a reallygood way.
A sustainable, long-term way ofraising standards is getting
teachers to talk more andgetting leaders to talk more
about the substance of what theydo, creating a situation where
they are challenging and settingup systems to make it work so
(25:25):
that the bar rises, rises, risesover a period of time and then,
before you know it, thestandards have risen over.
It's over six months and thenagain then six months later and
and habits change.
So the strength doesn't comefrom having a person telling
them what to do in ahierarchical model.
The strength comes from theinteractions that people have
that enable great conversations,great learning and therefore
(25:45):
great teaching yeah, I agreewith you, but I know that could
be a myth.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
So, yeah, well done in debunking that.
But my other is there is alittle bit of a complaint around
this region, in particular inthe UAE, about inexperienced
leaders being promoted tooquickly, rising way too fast and
not being able to handle thenuances and challenges that
(26:12):
school leadership brings, and Iwanted to find out, apart from
years of experience, which noteveryone will have, what are
some traits of a good leader,particularly a good school
leader?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I think it's good to differentiate between experience
and expertise, because you canbe a 20-year veteran of
leadership but you could do thesame year 20 times.
But you could also be a leaderfor two or three years and learn
an incredible amount of kind ofregional approach or strategy
in that time and be a moreeffective leader.
So for me it's not necessarilyexpertise, it's not experience
(26:50):
that matters, it's expertisethat matters.
But what does a successfulleader look like?
So I've got opinions here thatare very much rooted in some of
the work done at AmbitionInstitute in England where for
me fundamentally, if you haveany chance of being a successful
leader, you have to know a lotof stuff.
You've got to know so muchabout curriculum, pedagogy,
(27:12):
assessment, safeguarding healthand safety and increase it in
Dubai and at internationalschool, the marketing side of
things, the admission side, thegrowth side.
You have to know so muchbecause decision-making without
a basis of knowledge is just ona whim.
So the way that we makedecisions, I think, sets leaders
(27:32):
apart.
So Neil Goodbride does somereally interesting stuff on
leadership, decision-making andour ability to appreciate the
complexity, and I think there'sa real fruitful area of
leadership development whereNeil talks about ego development
, ego being the place in ourpsyche where the outside world
and the inside world collide andwe make sense of the complexity
(27:55):
around us.
And what Neil talks about inhis research is that for years
we thought, perhaps, that egodevelops up until adulthood and
then it stays the same, whateverlevel of ego development you
have at 18 or 20, then stays.
But no, there are stages of egodevelopment you have at 18 or
20, then stays.
But no, there are stages of egodevelopment into adulthood, and
that we can progress throughstages of ego development
through having disruptiveexperiences where you think, oh,
(28:17):
I didn't notice that, I didn'tsee it.
From that point of view, hisresearch is really interesting
that a leader's stage of egodevelopment greatly influences
our ability to make sense ofcomplex situations and therefore
make decisions that affectthousands of students, thousands
of parents, hundreds of staff.
(28:37):
So for me, what does a goodleader need?
What does a successful leaderneed?
It's an understanding ofcomplexity, an understanding
that you can't just press thatbutton to raise attainment there
, that there's going to be allsorts of unintended consequences
, there's going to be all sortsof near and far cause and effect
that we can't possibly imagineand it's not just a case of okay
(28:59):
, I'm coming in as a leader, I'mgoing to make everyone use this
one PowerPoint and then we'regoing to fix reading.
Or I'm starting a new school,as a leader, I'm going to make
my mark by introducing Pobble orwhatever.
It is that understanding thatschools are complex places and
you can't just transplantsomething that has worked
somewhere else here, because theproblems are probably different
(29:22):
and therefore the solutions aredifferent.
I think at the heart of it isleaders' understanding of
complexity, their stage of egodevelopment, and at the heart of
it is leaders understanding ofcomplexity, their stage of ego
development and, at the heart ofthat, knowing loads of stuff
yeah, and I think also when itcomes to I think you've covered
it, but I think it also comes toyour willingness to be a
(29:44):
learner.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yes, because if you think you know everything coming
in as a leader, you're going tolearn some things that will
definitely humble you.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
When I started here at Horizon, the school had been
outstanding for several yearsgreat kind of results, great
kind of stakeholder feedback andeverything.
I remember thinking what can Iadd?
What can I add to this, this?
And so I was very deliberate incoming into the school of
saying to everyone before I eventhink of doing anything, I need
to learn how this school works.
(30:15):
I need to learn the history.
I need to learn what's workedand what hasn't.
I need to learn the reasons forthe success that we've had,
because I could quite easilyinadvertently undo all sorts of
success by just coming in andletting my ego get the better of
me and try and implement thingsthat I think work before really
understanding the school.
And it's only really afterabout maybe 18 months where I
(30:38):
actually probably did anythingsignificantly different to what
was already existing.
I saw my job as I remembertalking to the CEO about this.
My job in the first period oftime was all about aligning,
like me, inducting myself into avery successful organization
before even thinking abouttrying to affect any change.
(30:58):
Because how can I possibly knowwhat this school needs without
spending time understanding itand understanding the people?
So I think that's a massive onethere, which is to listen first
, to watch first.
Don't act too quickly.
Yes, act if there aresafeguarding health and safety
issues.
But when it comes to kind ofthose more complex things, just
try and understand what'shappening first before you go
(31:19):
wading in and trying to solveproblems with your off-the-shelf
solutions.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, very much so, and I think that's what trips up
a lot of people when they gointo a school.
Very much so, and I thinkthat's what trips up a lot of
people when they go into aschool.
If I'm honest, I would not tryto take over an outstanding
school.
My skill set would not be suchI normally and I just kind of
look back at my career it wasmostly going in and fixing
things in schools that requiredimprovement, and so to run a
(31:45):
school that's already been ratedoutstanding is a challenge in
itself.
A lot of people think, oh, it'seasier, but I think definitely
it's harder.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, this is the first school that I've led that
wasn't in trouble as well.
So all of the schools that I'vebeen a head of teacher of
previously had rapid improvementrequired, had rapid improvement
required, and so I had to learnquickly as well.
A change in approach here,because if I'd have done here
what I'd done in those otherthree schools, I'd have been out
(32:18):
in six weeks.
They wouldn't have put up withit.
They would have said who's thiscoming in from england with all
these big ideas?
We don't need this.
So definitely it is a challengeand I think it's probably one
that isn't spoken about enough,because I had this one colleague
for me from years ago that madea career of turnarounds.
He was an interim head teacherafter interim head teacher,
(32:38):
after interim head teacher,because that's what he was
really good at.
He wasn't there to set theculture for five, ten years.
He wasn't there to set thevision and see something through
.
He was there to rescue schoolsin crisis, stabilize them and
hand it over to someone else whocould do that.
And I think it's reallyimportant that either we
specialize in a particular areaor we learn the different parts,
(33:00):
because there are certainlydifferent approaches for
different schools?
Absolutely.
That's part of understandingthe complexity of the
organization that we lead.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, we're winding down.
We're way over 30 minutes.
If you're commuting and you'relistening to this podcast, can
you commute twice with it,please?
I've got over the 30 minutes,but I knew I would geek out with
leadership with Nick, because Ido enjoy his writing and the
way he thinks about leadershipin schools.
I wrote recently about fluidityin leadership and classroom.
(33:33):
Having that fluidity theability to move between the two
as you like, without being seento be weak because you stepped
down from leadership and thentaught for a while and then go
back into leadership and viceversa.
What are your thoughts on thatlevel of fluidity in schools?
Should that be normalized?
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I have a real problem with recruitment and
opportunities because you neverremove it completely.
But if you remove the boys clubelement of who you know and
that kind of thing and look atmerit on what someone is capable
of or what they're interestedin, what their expertise is in,
I think that there would be farmore opportunities for people to
do what you're describing,which is to sometimes realise
(34:15):
that the job you're doing isn'tthe one you really want to do.
Sometimes we have people whosecond to leisure positions and
then realise it's not for themand go back into the classroom
and then actually learn and growand then think, okay, I can do
the job much better now becauseI understand it more.
And so I think there's a lot tobe said for life experience and
the humility involved inrecognizing yourself, what you
(34:37):
like and what you want and whatyou're good at and what you're
not.
And I think any goodrecruitment process will explore
that really well, because noteveryone has the same path.
Not everyone goes teacher,middle leader, senior leader.
That is a bit of a stereotypeand actually if I'm looking at a
candidate or thinking about acandidate and it's just a plain
(34:59):
sailing rise through the ranks,I'm thinking what hardships have
you been through, whatchallenging situations have you
had?
And I think it's our job from arecruitment point of view to
make sure we're open to avariety of situations,
experiences, that kind of thing.
I think a lot of seniorleadership teams are far too
homogenous you've got all peoplethat think and look the same,
(35:21):
and leadership is about varietyof experiences and expertise and
viewpoints and I think if wesearch for that, we're far more
likely to understand our schoolmuch better, because if we've
got all people thinking the samething, we're going to miss
stuff.
Absolutely we're going to missit.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, which is very, very true and something that we
talk about a lot but we don'timplement.
You know, everybody has this oh, we want diversity of thoughts,
we want diversity of experience, we want diversity in ethnicity
and we want all of that, butthe truth is, nick, they don't
really want the thing.
It's not true.
(35:56):
When it comes to time forappointments, you can see what
people really want.
It's one thing to say you wantsomething.
It's a whole other thing toactually act on that want.
All right, quick fire.
If you were to meet your Idon't want to call it role model
leader, but an iconic leader,whether in or out of education
(36:20):
who would it be and why?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
more iconic leader.
I grew up watching football inthe 90s and the noughties and so
for me, a Alex Ferguson, themanager of Manchester United,
was long-serving, hard butnurturing.
I think that would be aninteresting one, Definitely.
The longevity and the legacythere is incredible.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Not Arsene Wenger.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
No, no, not an Arsenal fan.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Sorry, I had to do that.
My husband's an Arsenal fan.
I I had to do that.
My husband's an Arsenal fan.
I just had to throw that inthere Quickfire.
What's one thing school leadersshould stop doing now.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Stop doing now, asking teachers to do things
that make no difference tostudents' learning.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Brilliant, and what should they all start doing?
Final question my.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
What should they start doing If they haven't been
?
People behave differently,whether you like it or not,
whether they want to or not,they do.
And so to widen the perspectiveby talking to different people
and getting the truth of what'sreally happening in the school,
because I think we all have hugeblind spots about what's
actually happening in the school.
We can think it's great, we canthink it's running smoothly,
but our leadership is only asgood as the information that
(37:43):
we're getting on the ground.
So seek a wider variety ofviewpoints.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
For me, Brilliant that we're getting on the ground
, so seek a wider variety ofviewpoints.
For me, brilliant, where canpeople find you apart from your
blog?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Where else can people find you?
So more LinkedIn posts thesedays than Twitter?
The algorithms now mean that Ithink that hardly anyone sees
anything that happens on Twitter, so I tend to post less there
now more on LinkedIn.
But yes, mr Nick Hart, onLinkedIn, same with the blog, is
where I tend to leave mostideas.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, thank you so much.
I've stopped posting on twittercompletely.
I've like have like neveropened it since it was taken
over by x no, it's just weird.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
I went from having like 14,000 followers and so
many interactions to postingsand nothing, no interactions.
It's really weird, so it'sstopped bothering me.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, well, I'll catch you all on LinkedIn with
Nick, and sure we'll meet himsomewhere at a conference or pay
him a visit at Horizon EnglishSchool.
Thanks for being my guest.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
No problem, thanks, lisa.
You are listening to the Teach Middle East podcast
connecting, developing andempowering educators.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hello everyone.
I'm donning my fan.
It's still hot here in theMiddle East.
Welcome to the Teach MiddleEast podcast.
Today I have Nick Hart with meon the podcast.
He is the principal of HorizonEnglish School in Dubai.
See, I didn't make the error.
I was there practicing withNick offline going.
Do not say the wrong name, Iwon't even call the other name
(00:38):
but Horizon English School,Dubai, and we are on the podcast
today to talk all thingsleadership.
Nick has been prolific inwriting about leadership.
I read his stuff on his blog,which, by the way, you should go
and check out.
It's mrnickhartcom and you canread all the stuff he posts
(01:01):
there, or you can follow him onLinkedIn.
I like to read stuff onleadership, especially from
people who sit in the seat andunderstand what it takes to
actually lead a school insomewhere like Dubai, which is
highly dynamic.
Nick, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Thanks so much, Lisa.
Glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Thank you so much for , by the way, your contributions
at the Middle East SchoolLeadership Conference.
Really, I was looking back atthe Middle East School
Leadership Conference.
Really I was looking back atthe highlights and I was like,
yeah, that was a really niceworkshop.
I really really wished I couldhave sat in it.
But you know, on event days I'mlike running around like I have
no sense.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I was only mildly offended that you came to the
door and then walked away.
So no one next time.
So sorry Anyway sorry, anyway,leadership.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
So I know you weren't , you know, I know you probably
were leading your parents whenyou were in nappies, but let's
not start there.
Let's start with your journeyinto education.
How did you get to the seat inwhich you now sit?
Speaker 1 (01:58):
so take us back a bit so all through school I had one
which was to play as muchfootball as possible.
So any decisions aroundstudying or subjects or even
university degree was all aroundhow can I play more football?
So I ended up doing a sportsscience degree with Brunel in
(02:20):
London with no intention otherthan play for the football team
brunel and try and get a job andtry and work in high level
sports.
But there was a moment with thecareers office, I think in my
second year of studying, where Iwent along and asked them you
get the standard meeting, don'tyou, about careers when you're
nearing the end of a degree.
And at the time the advice fromthem was you can.
(02:43):
They listened.
They listened to my kind ofwishes of trying to get into
high level sport and I said well, you can go and find any job
that you can with organizationslike the Football Association,
that kind of thing, and just getyour way in as whatever level
as possible, or you can go workin a gym.
But I thought, ok, I need to dotwo, three years of university
(03:03):
to go work in a gym.
And they said or you can teach.
So at the time I need to do two, three years of university to
go work in a gym and they said,well, you can teach.
So at the time I was alsoplaying football
semi-professionally and Ithought, ok, I want to be able
to play football evenings andweekends.
So I was looking for then a jobthat is nine till three every
day and nobody corrected me,nobody said, actually that's not
what teaching's like.
(03:23):
So I ended up in the short termbeing a teaching assistant for
a term and then I did thegraduate teacher program to
study whilst teaching and thendid the usual worked through
some various middle leadershippositions leading maths, english
science, pe, and then assistanthead, deputy head and head
teacher in England for a coupleof years.
And then Dubai came calling andI had to teach in England for a
(03:43):
couple of years, and then Dubaicame calling.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
Dubai came calling.
How did it call?
What happened?
What led to you leaving yourhome in England to sunny Dubai?
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It's a funny story because for a long time I wanted
to live and work out here, buttiming was never quite right.
So we needed to time it to dowith kind of career and kid
studies as well.
So we came on holiday here.
It must have been three or fouryears ago.
I wanted to know what it waslike, what schools were like in
Dubai, because, although havingvisited Dubai, I'd never seen a
(04:14):
school.
So I used my social medianetwork and the deputy head here
at Horizon, martin we had beentalking over Twitter as it was
then, and I asked can I come andvisit?
So I came to visit the school,loved the school, met lots of
lovely people, and I remembergoing back thinking I don't just
want to work in Dubai, I wantto work at Horizon English
School.
But at the time there was novacancy, there was no
(04:36):
possibility for leading theschool, and then, as luck would
have it, ian, the previousprincipal, moved into a director
of education role and then theprevious principal moved into a
director of education role andthen the Horizon principal job
came up and got a phone call andvarious things went in motion.
And here I am, the principal ofthe school that I visited,
hoping that I would be able tolead one day, and I actually am.
It's great.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
See how good that is.
It's almost like themanifestation malarkey that I
talk about sometimes, but Ithink it does work sometimes.
I'm not sending anyone outthere to close their eyes and
try to imagine yourself sittingin a principal's desk if you
haven't done the work.
I'm sure Nick did all the workbecause he rose through the
different ranks and levels andhad the experience.
(05:16):
But what's the experience beenlike now that you've got the job
?
What has it been at Horizon?
Speaker 1 (05:21):
It is comfortably, comfortably the best school that
I've worked in and led.
It's incredible.
It has a reputation of being agreat school in Dubai, but I'm
increasingly of the opinion that, globally, horizon should stand
up there with some of the bestschools in the world.
The quality of education thatwe provide, the employee
experience, parent experienceit's a dream job.
(05:44):
It really is a dream job.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I don't want to linger on this because I want to
talk leadership, but you saidsomething there.
You said it should be among thetop schools in the world.
Give me some specifics, likewhat makes it such a standout
school?
Speaker 1 (05:59):
So I mean lots of schools have a high academic
achievement, so you take that asgiven that the achievement is
there.
So I mean lots of schools havea high academic achievement, so
you take that as given that theachievement is there.
I mean it's hard to compareHorizon with all three schools
because we're a primary schooland you don't have the GCSE and
the A-level or the equivalentsto compare for academic
achievement.
But children attain reallyreally well.
The standardized schools, thevarious year groups are great,
(06:29):
but attainment achievement, lotsof schools do that, but lots of
schools also do it in a waythat is maybe unsustainable or
leads to kind of burnout.
So the way that we've managed tohave high academic achievement
but also have incredibly happychildren and incredibly happy
parents, it is really specialwhen people visit horizon.
They talk about the culture,they talk about the connection,
they talk about the communityfeeling and lots of people say
those things but backing it upwith kind of evidence around
what parents say in our annualsurvey, which is when we look at
(06:50):
net promoter score, is top 10percent of organizations in the
world.
The same with the voice of theemployee when we look at the net
promoter score for voice, theemployee our scores through the
roof.
You can look at maybe top fivepercent of organizations,
employers, not just in education, across all sorts of industries
.
The score is incredibly highand I think it's down to the way
that we work that we prioritizeflourishing and happiness,
(07:13):
because that is the route tohigh academic achievement.
It's not the short route, butit is the sustainable and
morally correct route to do that.
So I'm really grateful for mypredecessors in terms of setting
that foundation and I've beenglad to be able to take it on a
little bit further and nudge ita little bit higher in terms of
all those outcomes.
It's it really is a specialplace brilliant quick question
(07:38):
blogging.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yes, what led to that and when did it start?
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know, you might remember.
So back in I think it was 2011,something like that the London
riots were happening and this isa strange place to start for
them.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Right with my home.
So that's so funny because Ifelt taught no, don't try it,
nick.
What are you trying to say?
I'm joking.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Go on.
I remember back then trying tofind out what was happening in
the world because the news youknow how biased news things is
and back then Twitter was justtaking off, I think, and I
remember signing up to Twitterto just to find out some
different perspectives on whatwas happening.
And I quickly found out thatbeyond finding out about what's
(08:19):
happening in London riots, therewas a pocket of Twitter to do
with educationists who weretalking about education in a way
that I hadn't reallyexperienced before.
So when I was a teacher andmaybe an emerging middle leader,
I only ever spoke to theteachers in the school and the
leaders in the school aboutteaching and about kind of
emerging leadership.
And then I realised there's awhole other world of people
(08:41):
actually talking about evidenceand research and ideas that
wasn't really exposed to.
So then I started kind ofdelving a little bit deeper into
the education side of Twitterand then started contributing
and I thought, okay, I see someother people who are kind of
writing blogs.
Let's just make one and see whathappens.
And so I started just writingto basically think.
(09:02):
So I was using it to write downideas and capture them and to
share what we're doing in myschool at the time and it kind
of grew and grew and then Irealized actually this is a good
way of learning.
So I realized that when I writesomething down and I try and
put it into a format that isunderstandable to other people,
it made me understand it betterand I almost realized what I
(09:22):
think about something by writingit, communicating it and
sharing it.
So for me it's what it's turnedinto is a bit of
self-accountability for learning, for processing thoughts and
ideas and turning them intosomething that is hopefully
clear, communicable and helpfulfor other people, because if
(09:43):
nobody else reads it, I havefound so much value in writing
it in the first place.
So for me, blogging is figuringout what I know and being able
to communicate clearly.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
Yeah, I do write a lot as well and I do encourage
educators to write, but now,with AI, people are writing less
and less and it really worriesme, especially as a former
teacher of languages.
I am very worried for, you know, the coming generations, that
their lack of skill inprocessing thoughts, putting
(10:15):
them on paper, making themcoherent and communicating their
point of view effectively.
I'm very worried.
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
I mean, linkedin has become a bit of a strange world
where you can quite clearly seeAI generated posts and then AI
generated responses to that.
It's like nobody's actuallythinking.
And there are obviously thereare lots and lots of exceptions
to that, but it's too easy.
It's too easy to put a promptinto an AI and get it to create
content.
For me, it's not about content,it's about thinking.
You do the thinking in order toget the result.
If you kind of take away thethinking, what have you got?
(10:51):
You've got kind of an emptyshell of nonsense thoughts that
just get posted there for thecontent rather than to try and
actually contribute or toclarify our own thinking is.
It is really.
It's a risk, and something thatI think we'll have to figure
out over the next couple ofyears is to try and maintain the
thought processes that reallygo into good leadership and not
(11:13):
outsource it to AI.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Yeah, but I think we'll come full circle.
I don't think we'll come fullcircle quickly, but I think
eventually people will get sosaturated and so fed up with the
garbage not the garbage, fine,I'll say garbage that AI spits
out at you sometimes.
And then, once you get to thatpoint, once you hit that
(11:37):
saturation point, you will thenstart to look for quality among
the things that you read andeventually we'll become very
adept at spotting what'sauthentic and what isn't
authentic.
It'll take us a little while,but we'll get there, I think,
eventually.
But what's your writing processLike?
How do you start?
(11:57):
Because a lot of times teachersask me how do I start to do
this whole writing thing thatyou do on LinkedIn or that I
used to do on Twitter and on myblog?
How do you start your processand how do you carry it through?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Usually there's some sort of stimulus.
It might be a conversation withsomeone, it might be something
that we're talking about atschool, it might be something
I've read, it might be a studyor someone else's work, and
quite often what happens is I'lltry and translate something
that I've learning or thinkingabout in a form, in a graphic
(12:36):
organizer kind of form that Ithink then is useful.
After that I'd use that toelaborate.
So the process tends to be findout something interesting, turn
it into diagrammatic or graphicorganizer form and then use
that to elaborate and writesomething so I can get into the
model a little bit and into theframework to make sure I can
communicate something clearly,because I found that school
(12:59):
leaders, the ones that cancommunicate ideas really clearly
, are typically the ones thatare successful.
And if, if we can't explain ourthinking behind something, if
we can't justify our reasons forasking people to do stuff, then
they quickly kind of fall awayand easily lose credibility.
So it's the graphic organizersection that is probably
invisible to a lot of people,because I try and represent it
(13:19):
first and then write somethingthat elaborates on it.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, apart from your own personal benefits of
writing, have you had anyexternal benefits that's come to
you as a result of putting yourwork out there?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, so I get various inquiries through the
blog to do training days inengland, multi-academy trusts or
conferences, and actually oneof my books was because of a
blog post.
So one of a publisher saw apost I'd written, announced me
to elaborate and turn it into abook, which is great, and I
think I have social media andblogging to thank.
(13:53):
So a lot of that hascontributed to the situations I
found myself in as a leaderwhere opportunities have come my
way.
So you said at the beginning,the hard work goes in, but then
you're generous and you share.
Hopefully it comes back as well.
So that's been.
My approach is to freely sharethings because it may come back
around one day and that's great.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah.
So you write a lot aboutleadership and I talk a lot
about leadership just becauseI'm a student of the subject,
because sometimes you know, Ican see where I did it really,
really wrong.
You know, it's weird because Ileft school leadership in 2018
and now that I'm looking fromthe outside in sometimes I feel
(14:36):
like a tinge.
I'm very open, I feel a bitashamed of some of the
foolishness I did.
I really like I'm thinking Imean, luckily for me, some of my
colleagues they still reach outmy former teachers and stuff
from my school.
They're gracious, they haven'tkind of excommunicated me
completely, but I look back atsome of the ways I did things
(14:59):
that now I would not have doneand I wondered and you've
written something about how theindustrial models no longer suit
what we are trying to achievenow as it relates to leadership.
So talk me through howleadership in your view,
especially school leadership,has changed and evolved over the
(15:19):
years or over the decades.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah.
So I mean, I think that there'sa general pattern that when
people started writing andthinking about leadership, it's
come out of what the dominantorganizations and models were.
And so in that industrial area,when post-industrialization,
when there's lots of factorywork and lots of organizations
working in that way of simplecause and effect or production
(15:42):
line style kind of organizations, then leadership was about
pressing buttons to get theoutcome that you want.
It was pull that lever, getthat thing.
And sadly I mean sadly now theapproach to people in that way
people don't work like that.
Production lines may work likethat, but people don't work like
that.
And so when we're progressingout of an industrial era into
(16:05):
this knowledge era of complexityand free, quick sharing of
information, those models ofcommand and control or a heroic
white man in a blue suit,middle-aged, that's not what
leaders look like and that's notwhat leaders do.
The shift is towards complexity.
The conditions that we work inin schools are nothing like
those industrial models.
(16:25):
There's a beautiful complexityabout a school where hundreds of
people interact every day inways that we can't predict, in
ways that we can't control, inways that we can't control in
ways that we can't imagine.
And so the shift in leadershipis about understanding those
conditions, I think, andcreating those interactions,
because those interactions arethe things that enable the
(16:46):
emergence of solutions toproblems or to innovations in
how we teach, and therefore ourjob isn't command and control,
it's to understand theconditions and encourage
interactions for people who areclosest to problems, to solve
them.
One of my pet peeves is schoolsthat dictate how teachers teach,
and one thing I like to talkabout is how we shouldn't be
(17:09):
aiming for consistency, becauseconsistency is everyone doing
the same thing.
We should be aiming forcoherence, where we've got
aligned values and aligned waysof working, but teachers have to
adapt what they're doing to thechildren in front of them.
You can have two classes rightnext to each other teaching the
same curriculum to the same agechildren, but the approach needs
to be entirely different,because the children are
(17:29):
different, because the teacheris different and therefore the
interactions are.
So that pet peeve is one that Itry to make sure that we don't
do.
We're not going to tell youexactly how to teach.
We'll help you to identify theproblems that you're
experiencing, and we allexperience problems and have to
solve them day by day, and ourjob as leaders is to try and
help people to interact in a waythat solves those problems and
(17:52):
we find a way to get the mostout of every interaction with
children in the classroom,rather than following a cookie
cutter and a set of routines orstructures, which sadly does
happen in a lot of places thecookie cutter.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Is that there because that level of consistency is
easier to measure?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
yes, and it's arguably a quicker way to
success if you've got chaos or Isay chaos in a manner that
explains the kind of lack ofstructure.
So some schools are in chaosbecause they don't have systems,
they don't have routines, theydon't have expectations, and if
you're in a school that needswhat david carter talks about
rescuing and putting systems inthat's the easiest way to do.
(18:34):
It's the quickest, safest.
Actually, the most common senseway of leading a school that is
in crisis is you make people dothe same thing that you know at
some point will give you astarting point.
So there is an argument forthat as a leadership strategy
for a particular situation, intimes of crisis, in times of
where stability is needed.
(18:54):
But you can't do in crisismanagement and stability for a
long period of time.
Eventually it settles and theyneed something else.
So there is a time and a placefor it, but it's not a long-term
sustainable approach.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
I get that, but the argument is that the consistency
helps to meet the standardsstipulated by the regulatory
authorities so that you can thenattain the rating, which then
means that you can then raiseyour fees and do all the bits
(19:29):
and attract to the parents.
How do we counter that, nick?
Speaker 1 (19:33):
And that's a frustration with the regulation
system and it's good that it'schanging.
The regulation system that wehave had in Dubai for the last
few years in our relativelyimmature school system is that,
and the regulation system isthat way to quickly raise
standards.
But when you talk to schoolleaders about and I'm sure you
(19:54):
do about their experience ofinspection and regulation, then
it's not easy.
It's a lot of time bound, timepressured, numerical based
things to chase rather thandoing the work that in our
hearts we know is right for acommunity and a group of
children.
So in some ways it's a bit of aprivilege to have a good
(20:14):
grading in order to step awayfrom the treadmill and step away
from the conveyor belt that isrequired to get to a certain
stage.
So I completely understand whyit is an approach in some places
.
But I suppose the leadershipangle is we need to know when to
change the approach and to bebrave enough to do it.
(20:35):
And if we get that opportunityas a school leader then I think
we should take it with bothhands.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Yeah, I love to make analogies and I think you're
very right.
You know, the kind of forcethat is needed to push an
aircraft off the ground is notthe same that is needed to take
it and smooth it out at certainaltitudes.
And I get that we might needthose structures and that sort
of consistency in place.
(20:59):
But when you get to a certainaltitude we can work for
coherence in leadership and itcan be smooth with the
occasional bumps because youknow there are air pockets
everywhere.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
But I mean you're ready to jump back into crisis
mode at some point because youcould lose 40 of your teachers
through normal internationaltransients and attrition, in
which case you can't then do thesame things you'd always do.
So in international schools weare at the mercy a little bit of
transient teachers, because ifyour teaching kind of profile
(21:34):
changes, you can almost have tostart again.
And this is I've had thisproblem a couple of times in
england where you get to acertain point with teachers and
their training and then, forwhatever reason, they move on
and you almost start again withnew people and to recognize that
is an important part ofleadership and to act
accordingly yeah, let's changegears a bit.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
debunkunk the myth.
For me, hierarchical leadershipmeans strength and relational
leadership could potentiallymean weakness.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Debunk that myth hierarchy, person in charge,
strength, and we're conditionedto probably think that
relational leadership may becozy and warm and
non-challenging andnon-judgmental, for example.
But when you talk aboutrelational leadership, the
language of it, I don't thinkit's helpful.
(22:26):
So you hear the word relationaland you think, okay,
relationships, you think warm,caring, that kind of thing.
But actually relationalleadership is is more the
encouragement of interactionsbetween people, and what we can
do is take the best of both.
Do you need hierarchicalleadership?
Yes, you need someone who isaccountable for something
(22:46):
happening.
Simon can be.
Our group ceo talks aboutsomeone.
You have to have someone tocatch the ball.
At the end of the day, youcould pass it around, but
someone has to catch it and sowe do need that.
People need clear roles,responsibilities, but one of our
responsibilities isinteractions.
So you can go about relationalleadership and be all about
(23:08):
interactions but have nosubstance.
So you could get people beingreally nice to each other.
You can get people being kind,you can get people being really
nice to be around, and one ofthe problems with that which I
kind of used to illustrate thepoint is in one year group.
So they were all lovely people,so kind, so nice, so nurturing
(23:40):
their children loved them.
The parents loved them.
But when you put them togetherin a year group and they talk
about teaching, they were alltoo nice to challenge each other
and say I don't think thatshould happen.
I think we should do it likethis so they would sit in their
team meeting and they wouldshare their planning, and I know
that they'd be thinking I don'tquite like how that's done.
I think we should dodifferently and they'd all go
(24:01):
away, make the changes thatnight, all of them doing the
same thing, and then not sayanything to each other.
They're tripling their workloadand yet they're burning
themselves out to make thechanges that they all know
should happen, but they theydidn't want to say it to each
other.
And that's where relationalleadership can, in that myth, be
weakness, because we need goodrelationships, but rooted in
(24:21):
substance.
You need people who are expertsin their jobs, like they were.
But to be able to challenge, tobe able to feel like, yes, I
can say to this person that Ilike this bit, I like this bit,
but my class needs somethingdifferent.
I think they should dosomething else without feeling
like they're going to offendsomeone, and have the trust and
the mechanisms to be able to dothat, which then raises
(24:44):
standards.
So although they had in thisexample, they had good
interactions on a personal level, they didn't have good
interactions on a professionallevel, and that's part of our
job if we're going to attempt tolead relationally is to make
sure we've got expert people butset up the systems to be able
to challenge and to have goodconversations about the
(25:04):
substance of what they're doingso that the standard rises.
And I think that's a reallygood way.
A sustainable, long-term way ofraising standards is getting
teachers to talk more andgetting leaders to talk more
about the substance of what theydo, creating a situation where
they are challenging and settingup systems to make it work so
(25:25):
that the bar rises, rises, risesover a period of time and then,
before you know it, thestandards have risen over.
It's over six months and thenagain then six months later and
and habits change.
So the strength doesn't comefrom having a person telling
them what to do in ahierarchical model.
The strength comes from theinteractions that people have
that enable great conversations,great learning and therefore
(25:45):
great teaching yeah, I agreewith you, but I know that could
be a myth.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
So, yeah, well done in debunking that.
But my other is there is alittle bit of a complaint around
this region, in particular inthe UAE, about inexperienced
leaders being promoted tooquickly, rising way too fast and
not being able to handle thenuances and challenges that
(26:12):
school leadership brings, and Iwanted to find out, apart from
years of experience, which noteveryone will have, what are
some traits of a good leader,particularly a good school
leader?
Speaker 1 (26:27):
I think it's good to differentiate between experience
and expertise, because you canbe a 20-year veteran of
leadership but you could do thesame year 20 times.
But you could also be a leaderfor two or three years and learn
an incredible amount of kind ofregional approach or strategy
in that time and be a moreeffective leader.
So for me it's not necessarilyexpertise, it's not experience
(26:50):
that matters, it's expertisethat matters.
But what does a successfulleader look like?
So I've got opinions here thatare very much rooted in some of
the work done at AmbitionInstitute in England where for
me fundamentally, if you haveany chance of being a successful
leader, you have to know a lotof stuff.
You've got to know so muchabout curriculum, pedagogy,
(27:12):
assessment, safeguarding healthand safety and increase it in
Dubai and at internationalschool, the marketing side of
things, the admission side, thegrowth side.
You have to know so muchbecause decision-making without
a basis of knowledge is just ona whim.
So the way that we makedecisions, I think, sets leaders
(27:32):
apart.
So Neil Goodbride does somereally interesting stuff on
leadership, decision-making andour ability to appreciate the
complexity, and I think there'sa real fruitful area of
leadership development whereNeil talks about ego development
, ego being the place in ourpsyche where the outside world
and the inside world collide andwe make sense of the complexity
(27:55):
around us.
And what Neil talks about inhis research is that for years
we thought, perhaps, that egodevelops up until adulthood and
then it stays the same, whateverlevel of ego development you
have at 18 or 20, then stays.
But no, there are stages of egodevelopment you have at 18 or
20, then stays.
But no, there are stages of egodevelopment into adulthood, and
that we can progress throughstages of ego development
through having disruptiveexperiences where you think, oh,
(28:17):
I didn't notice that, I didn'tsee it.
From that point of view, hisresearch is really interesting
that a leader's stage of egodevelopment greatly influences
our ability to make sense ofcomplex situations and therefore
make decisions that affectthousands of students, thousands
of parents, hundreds of staff.
(28:37):
So for me, what does a goodleader need?
What does a successful leaderneed?
It's an understanding ofcomplexity, an understanding
that you can't just press thatbutton to raise attainment there
, that there's going to be allsorts of unintended consequences
, there's going to be all sortsof near and far cause and effect
that we can't possibly imagineand it's not just a case of okay
(28:59):
, I'm coming in as a leader, I'mgoing to make everyone use this
one PowerPoint and then we'regoing to fix reading.
Or I'm starting a new school,as a leader, I'm going to make
my mark by introducing Pobble orwhatever.
It is that understanding thatschools are complex places and
you can't just transplantsomething that has worked
somewhere else here, because theproblems are probably different
(29:22):
and therefore the solutions aredifferent.
I think at the heart of it isleaders' understanding of
complexity, their stage of egodevelopment, and at the heart of
it is leaders understanding ofcomplexity, their stage of ego
development and, at the heart ofthat, knowing loads of stuff
yeah, and I think also when itcomes to I think you've covered
it, but I think it also comes toyour willingness to be a
(29:44):
learner.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yes, because if you think you know everything coming
in as a leader, you're going tolearn some things that will
definitely humble you.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
When I started here at Horizon, the school had been
outstanding for several yearsgreat kind of results, great
kind of stakeholder feedback andeverything.
I remember thinking what can Iadd?
What can I add to this, this?
And so I was very deliberate incoming into the school of
saying to everyone before I eventhink of doing anything, I need
to learn how this school works.
(30:15):
I need to learn the history.
I need to learn what's workedand what hasn't.
I need to learn the reasons forthe success that we've had,
because I could quite easilyinadvertently undo all sorts of
success by just coming in andletting my ego get the better of
me and try and implement thingsthat I think work before really
understanding the school.
And it's only really afterabout maybe 18 months where I
(30:38):
actually probably did anythingsignificantly different to what
was already existing.
I saw my job as I remembertalking to the CEO about this.
My job in the first period oftime was all about aligning,
like me, inducting myself into avery successful organization
before even thinking abouttrying to affect any change.
(30:58):
Because how can I possibly knowwhat this school needs without
spending time understanding itand understanding the people?
So I think that's a massive onethere, which is to listen first
, to watch first.
Don't act too quickly.
Yes, act if there aresafeguarding health and safety
issues.
But when it comes to kind ofthose more complex things, just
try and understand what'shappening first before you go
(31:19):
wading in and trying to solveproblems with your off-the-shelf
solutions.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, very much so, and I think that's what trips up
a lot of people when they gointo a school.
Very much so, and I thinkthat's what trips up a lot of
people when they go into aschool.
If I'm honest, I would not tryto take over an outstanding
school.
My skill set would not be suchI normally and I just kind of
look back at my career it wasmostly going in and fixing
things in schools that requiredimprovement, and so to run a
(31:45):
school that's already been ratedoutstanding is a challenge in
itself.
A lot of people think, oh, it'seasier, but I think definitely
it's harder.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Yeah, this is the first school that I've led that
wasn't in trouble as well.
So all of the schools that I'vebeen a head of teacher of
previously had rapid improvementrequired, had rapid improvement
required, and so I had to learnquickly as well.
A change in approach here,because if I'd have done here
what I'd done in those otherthree schools, I'd have been out
(32:18):
in six weeks.
They wouldn't have put up withit.
They would have said who's thiscoming in from england with all
these big ideas?
We don't need this.
So definitely it is a challengeand I think it's probably one
that isn't spoken about enough,because I had this one colleague
for me from years ago that madea career of turnarounds.
He was an interim head teacherafter interim head teacher,
(32:38):
after interim head teacher,because that's what he was
really good at.
He wasn't there to set theculture for five, ten years.
He wasn't there to set thevision and see something through
.
He was there to rescue schoolsin crisis, stabilize them and
hand it over to someone else whocould do that.
And I think it's reallyimportant that either we
specialize in a particular areaor we learn the different parts,
(33:00):
because there are certainlydifferent approaches for
different schools?
Absolutely.
That's part of understandingthe complexity of the
organization that we lead.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, we're winding down.
We're way over 30 minutes.
If you're commuting and you'relistening to this podcast, can
you commute twice with it,please?
I've got over the 30 minutes,but I knew I would geek out with
leadership with Nick, because Ido enjoy his writing and the
way he thinks about leadershipin schools.
I wrote recently about fluidityin leadership and classroom.
(33:33):
Having that fluidity theability to move between the two
as you like, without being seento be weak because you stepped
down from leadership and thentaught for a while and then go
back into leadership and viceversa.
What are your thoughts on thatlevel of fluidity in schools?
Should that be normalized?
Speaker 1 (33:54):
I have a real problem with recruitment and
opportunities because you neverremove it completely.
But if you remove the boys clubelement of who you know and
that kind of thing and look atmerit on what someone is capable
of or what they're interestedin, what their expertise is in,
I think that there would be farmore opportunities for people to
do what you're describing,which is to sometimes realise
(34:15):
that the job you're doing isn'tthe one you really want to do.
Sometimes we have people whosecond to leisure positions and
then realise it's not for themand go back into the classroom
and then actually learn and growand then think, okay, I can do
the job much better now becauseI understand it more.
And so I think there's a lot tobe said for life experience and
the humility involved inrecognizing yourself, what you
(34:37):
like and what you want and whatyou're good at and what you're
not.
And I think any goodrecruitment process will explore
that really well, because noteveryone has the same path.
Not everyone goes teacher,middle leader, senior leader.
That is a bit of a stereotypeand actually if I'm looking at a
candidate or thinking about acandidate and it's just a plain
(34:59):
sailing rise through the ranks,I'm thinking what hardships have
you been through, whatchallenging situations have you
had?
And I think it's our job from arecruitment point of view to
make sure we're open to avariety of situations,
experiences, that kind of thing.
I think a lot of seniorleadership teams are far too
homogenous you've got all peoplethat think and look the same,
(35:21):
and leadership is about varietyof experiences and expertise and
viewpoints and I think if wesearch for that, we're far more
likely to understand our schoolmuch better, because if we've
got all people thinking the samething, we're going to miss
stuff.
Absolutely we're going to missit.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Yeah, which is very, very true and something that we
talk about a lot but we don'timplement.
You know, everybody has this oh, we want diversity of thoughts,
we want diversity of experience, we want diversity in ethnicity
and we want all of that, butthe truth is, nick, they don't
really want the thing.
It's not true.
(35:56):
When it comes to time forappointments, you can see what
people really want.
It's one thing to say you wantsomething.
It's a whole other thing toactually act on that want.
All right, quick fire.
If you were to meet your Idon't want to call it role model
leader, but an iconic leader,whether in or out of education
(36:20):
who would it be and why?
Speaker 1 (36:22):
more iconic leader.
I grew up watching football inthe 90s and the noughties and so
for me, a Alex Ferguson, themanager of Manchester United,
was long-serving, hard butnurturing.
I think that would be aninteresting one, Definitely.
The longevity and the legacythere is incredible.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Not Arsene Wenger.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
No, no, not an Arsenal fan.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Sorry, I had to do that.
My husband's an Arsenal fan.
I I had to do that.
My husband's an Arsenal fan.
I just had to throw that inthere Quickfire.
What's one thing school leadersshould stop doing now.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Stop doing now, asking teachers to do things
that make no difference tostudents' learning.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Brilliant, and what should they all start doing?
Final question my.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
What should they start doing If they haven't been
?
People behave differently,whether you like it or not,
whether they want to or not,they do.
And so to widen the perspectiveby talking to different people
and getting the truth of what'sreally happening in the school,
because I think we all have hugeblind spots about what's
actually happening in the school.
We can think it's great, we canthink it's running smoothly,
but our leadership is only asgood as the information that
(37:43):
we're getting on the ground.
So seek a wider variety ofviewpoints.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
For me, Brilliant that we're getting on the ground
, so seek a wider variety ofviewpoints.
For me, brilliant, where canpeople find you apart from your
blog?
Speaker 1 (37:54):
Where else can people find you?
So more LinkedIn posts thesedays than Twitter?
The algorithms now mean that Ithink that hardly anyone sees
anything that happens on Twitter, so I tend to post less there
now more on LinkedIn.
But yes, mr Nick Hart, onLinkedIn, same with the blog, is
where I tend to leave mostideas.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, thank you so much.
I've stopped posting on twittercompletely.
I've like have like neveropened it since it was taken
over by x no, it's just weird.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
I went from having like 14,000 followers and so
many interactions to postingsand nothing, no interactions.
It's really weird, so it'sstopped bothering me.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, well, I'll catch you all on LinkedIn with
Nick, and sure we'll meet himsomewhere at a conference or pay
him a visit at Horizon EnglishSchool.
Thanks for being my guest.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
No problem, thanks, lisa.
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