35 years in education and 18 years as a Head have taught me that family must come first!
One morning in my first year as a teacher, I got a phone call from my wife. She was ringing to tell me that her Grandma had suddenly and unexpectedly died, and to ask me to drive her to the station to get on a train to be with her parents.
I went straight to my Head, to ask for permission to leave lessons for an hour or so to do that. His reply surprised me.
"No! I think you should drive her up to Shrewsbury and only come back when you are happy she’s OK".
As you might imagine, that response was not what I expected to hear; but it made a huge impression on me. The care that he showed for me and, more importantly, for my wife through that instinctive and generous response in one stroke increased my loyalty to him personally and to the school he represented. He got what mattered most to me and, over the years that followed, I am certain that my willingness to go the extra mile as a teacher there was at least in part a response to the kindness and understanding I had been shown.
In reacting as he did, my boss showed unequivocally that he acknowledged that family was more important than work and needed to come first when it mattered most. I’ve heard of too many leaders, in education as well as outside, who don’t get that; who think that their businesses or schools are so important as to require employees to make unacceptable sacrifices, or whose HR policies are so inflexible that they cannot adapt to the unique circumstances of individuals. For me, such an approach can also often indicate a lack of faith in the motivation and character of colleagues; a default suspicion that they are looking to take advantage and can’t be trusted.
As a school leader, I have always tried to follow Charles Martin’s example. Whether it’s nativity plays or graduations; funerals or weddings; hospital appointments for children or urgent visits to support ailing elderly parents, I’ve always tried to say ‘yes’. Part of it is that I don’t want to employ staff who put their work before their families; a bigger part is that I have never regretted doing so, as no one has ever taken advantage of that approach to take the mick further down the line. As with me in 1989, it has usually helped cement or reinforce their commitment to the institution and, in my experience, does more than almost anything else to help colleagues to know that they are valued and cared for.
And it works both ways. Just before Christmas I needed urgent time off for a family issue and didn’t feel bad about taking it. I hope that none of my colleagues questioned it, and that they knew that its how they would have been treated had they needed the same.
Maybe it’s a reminder to leaders of the order of priorities that can help an enterprise to flourish, because its people are helped to flourish.
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