35 years in education and 18 years as a Head have taught me about the benefits of healthy self doubt.
I never intended to be a Headteacher. I didn’t enter the profession with any sort of career plan, unlike many colleagues I have encountered over the years have done.
The perfectly legitimate aim to ‘be in my first headship by the time I’m 40’ was never a thing for me. Indeed, I remember leaving my first job in Bristol at the age of 34, incredulous and even a touch scornful that a song had been written for me by a more senior colleague (who had known me since I a teenager and was skilled at adapting existing lyrics) which ended with the words: Though you leave us wreathed in glory, loftier yet the path you'll tread: For the ending of the story must be "C P Jeffery, Head"!
My approach to ambition has always been to do the job in front of me as well as I can, to add as much value to a school and the lives it nurtures as possible, and then to see where that leads. It was in that spirit that I applied for my first headships in the certain belief that I would very probably never get one and wouldn’t be able to do it successfully anyway. Indeed, one of the pieces of advice that I give consistently to family and colleagues has always been to prioritise applying for jobs that actually scare you a lot, and at which you think you might not succeed. The Peter Principle consciously applied!
So, to find myself to have been leading schools for more than half my career still honestly rather scrambles my mind! After all this time, I still sometimes think that I am finally going to be ‘found out’, to be exposed as the charlatan I am; that a time will come when the scales will finally fall from everyone’s eyes and they will see that the Emperor never was wearing anything more than a fig leaf. Having said that, there will undoubtedly be many people who I have worked with over the years who would say that they have known that all along!
I have long argued -probably because it has suited my personal mindset- that having a healthy sense of one’s own inadequacies should be a prerequisite for leadership. Knowing one’s limitations and areas of ‘inexpertise’ (provided that one has strengths and expertise that outweigh those of course) would appear to have benefits.
Similarly, one of the most liberating realisations that I have come to as a leader is that everyone is probably winging-it most of the time. We each know only too well that the competence, control and confidence that we all might seek to project on the surface isn’t ever the whole story, sometimes a very small part of it. Why do we assume that it is different for others?
Understanding that my own self-doubt doesn’t necessarily have to be a weakness was an important moment.
While I know that full-on ‘imposter syndrome’ is a really negative -even damaging- experience for some (especially when it is born of perfectionism or applies to those who have to struggle to be accepted in a work place due to their race or sexuality or ‘class’) I also believe that a milder version of it has the potential to be a real tool for leaders.
Indeed, I came across a piece of research just a few weeks ago that seems to back that up. It argued that those who have imposter syndrome are more likely to be empathetic to others and can be better to work with/for; they inspire a more collaborative and trusting approach. I guess that to know that everyone is winging it and to acknowledged your weaknesses can steer you towards the humble; it forces you to recognise and value the expertise in others and makes you think decisions through carefully. It can also hopefully make you less harsh on others.
There is a Quaker phrase that we turn to in school quite often that leads me in the same direction as all of the above: ‘Think it possible that you may be mistaken’. If I know that I am deeply imperfect as a leader, and that I have been and will be mistaken many times, maybe I can be better and more human in the way I go about my business, and won’t feel I have got to pretend that I can ‘do it all’. Maybe that will help to build emotional capital with people and encourage buy-in to the vision, goals and processes we share.
But I don’t think we’re going to see that approach on The Apprentice anytime soon!
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