How can schools and colleges develop middle leaders?

Middle leaders hold schools and colleges together. They turn strategy into timetables, support colleagues through difficult terms and still teach a full or near-full load. Yet many are appointed because they are excellent teachers, with little preparation for the very different job of leading adults.

The squeeze in the middle

A head of department has to manage a team, represent that team to senior leaders and work alongside other departments, often all in the same week. They may be leading former peers, or colleagues with far more experience. The hardest part is rarely the curriculum. It is the conversations: setting expectations, handling disagreement and asking colleagues to change how they work.

Leading a team of experts

Teaching staff are skilled professionals with strong views about how things should be done. Some want clear direction and quick decisions. Others want to be consulted and to understand the reasoning. Some are full of new ideas, while others want to see the evidence first. A middle leader who only leads in their own natural style will connect with some colleagues and frustrate others.

Practise leadership together

Most leadership training happens on courses, away from the people you actually lead. It is far more powerful when a leadership team learns together: seeing how each person behaves when a decision has to be made quickly, who steps forward, who holds back and how they delegate. That shared experience gives the team a common language they can use in every meeting afterwards.

What to try

1. Map your team’s styles. Who needs pace, who needs detail, who needs to feel included and who wants room for ideas?
2. Plan key conversations from the other side. Before a difficult conversation, think about how that colleague prefers to receive information.
3. Agree how decisions get made. Make it clear which decisions are consulted on and which aren’t.
4. Review together. Build a short leadership team reflection into the end of each half term.