#EdInfluence
In his inimitable style, Nick unearths the secrets of good leadership from his guests.
Trusted by thousands of education providers across the country, Browne Jacobson is an award winning national law firm helping clients and partner organisations shape and influence education policy.
#EdInfluence
S04 - E04 CST Conference special with Leora Cruddas CBE
This episode is comprised of two parts. In the first, we hear from Leora Cruddas CBE, CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts (CST), who seeks to unravel the complexities of educational leadership and community engagement. In the second part, we hear from a range of trust leaders from the floor of the Annual CST Conference.
Part 1: Leora Cruddas, CEO of CST
(00:00 - 33:17)
Leora Cruddas shares her eye-opening journey from South Africa to the UK, highlighting disparities in educational access and a fresh perspective on schooling, stressing the importance of community-rooted educational systems.
She advocates for the subtle power of quiet leadership. Leadership in the public sector isn't about loudness; rather, it's authenticity and silent diplomacy, particularly crucial for women in male-dominated spheres. Finally, we tackle the formidable challenges confronting educational trusts, from child poverty to strategic management in hybrid learning environments.
Part 2: CST Conference Special
(33:18 - 58:07)
From the floor of the Annual CST Conference at the ICC in Birmingham we hear views on a range of topics such as the challenges facing the sector from influential leaders including:
- Ollie Lane - Managing Director at communications agency PLMR.
- Stephen Morales - CEO of the Institute of School Business Management (ISBL).
- Gail Brown - Chief Executive at Ebor Academy Trust.
- Steve Howell - Commercial Director at Red Kite Learning Trust.
- Ernest Jenavs - Founder and CEO of Edurio.
Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn.
Welcome to the latest episode at EdInfluence. I'm Nick McKenzie from Browne Jacobson, and this episode is made up of two parts. In the first part, I'm delighted to be joined by Leora Cruddas, CEO of the Confederation of School Trusts. In the second part, I then share with you some discussions with leaders at CST's annual conference in November from the conference floor. Annual conference in November from the conference floor. Thank you, Leora, for joining me today. I wanted to start by inviting you to tell me a story from your life that would give me a picture of who you are.
Leora Cruddas (CST):So it's lovely to be here with you, Nick, and thank you for the invitation to join this podcast. So I think the story that I'm going to share with you is the story of arriving in England as a young teacher in 1997, the year that Tony Blair formed the labour government. So one of the things that, I guess, confused me as a young teacher as I came to England is that I could not reconcile that in South Africa, which is the country of my birth, adults and children fought and died for the right to an education, yet some children in England who have education as their right are alienated from it and unengaged by it. So let me give you an example. Hector Pieterson was shot and killed at the age of 12 during the Soweto uprising in South Africa in 1976, when the police opened fire on black students.
Leora Cruddas (CST):And in a different part of the world, Malala Yusafzai was shot by a Taliban government while on a bus in the Swat district of Pakistan in 2012 because she wrote and she spoke about the right of girls to an education. And in Afghanistan right now, girls are systematically denied access to education, and Malala has spoken very powerfully about this, and yet in England, schooling does not speak to some of our communities. So the thing that bothered me, as a young teacher coming to teach in in England, which still bothers me now, is how do we make sense of this as educators? How do we make sense of this? How can we engage or re-engage the communities we serve in a conversation about the importance and the power of education? So that's bothering me, Nick.
Nick MacKenzie:Powerful story and message. Leora, how has that shaped your attitude to the role you currently play at leading CST and what's required in the school system now then?
Leora Cruddas (CST):So in the early part of my career as a young teacher, I became really, really interested in the power of voice, so who speaks, who gets listened to, and particularly in listening to young people.
Leora Cruddas (CST):So I wrote quite extensively about it actually as a young teacher. This sort of sense of can we understand why education is not speaking to all of our communities? And I'm not one of those people who thinks that children have a very pure voice or a voice that isn't influenced by their sedimented histories, by their parents, by the communities in which they live. So sometimes that voice isn't as pure as we'd like it to be, sometimes that voice will recount stories that as educators we might find quite difficult. But nevertheless there is a power in voice because it is through our dialogic conversation with young people that I think we bring a perspective, a different perspective, perhaps to the experience they've lived or to what they've heard from their parents. So I think that's what I did as a young teacher.
Leora Cruddas (CST):I became really, really interested in the notion of pupil voice and I think I've held that right the way through my career and I believe now and CST has done quite a lot of work on this about the way schools should be anchored in their communities.
Leora Cruddas (CST):We should listen to the communities we serve. So I think this is a contested space. I think we should be debating why education doesn't speak to some of our communities and, as I said a few weeks ago at the CST conference, I don't think we should do this just in the echo chamber of edu-social media or conference halls or sector roundtables, but in real and respectful conversations with the communities we serve. And I visit lots of trusts, Nick, as you probably know, up and down the country and I always feel privileged to do that and I see so many CST members engaged in this work, the real work with parents and local communities that connects their schools so deeply in communities. I think this is deep and purposeful work. So if I look back at my career, I think I've always had this sort of sense that we need to speak to a wider range of voices and not just the echo chamber of professionals speaking to each other.
Nick MacKenzie:Extending that a bit. I think everybody you know communication is really challenging for all sorts of organisations and communities at the moment, with just the sheer volume and speed of the different ways you can communicate. Since the pandemic, your audience has massively increased as a membership organisation, I was just wondering what you've learned about effectively connecting with such a wide range and diverse audience. Yeah, What are the things that you do to try and create that connection and have have your voice heard when you're communicating with so many people, or so many busy people with so many different priorities and calls on their time?
Leora Cruddas (CST):So there are a few stories there, Nick. The first thing I would say is we actually started to see the the growth in cst membership during the pandemic, that that was in fact our biggest growth curve. And if I reflect back on that time, as soon as the pandemic happened, I think I realised I needed to pivot CST to be entirely member-facing, because this novel we were all living through this novel experience of a global pandemic and none of us knew how to lead through this period and we were being asked to do things that we had literally never done before or that we had very, very limited knowledge and understanding of. So in pivoting CST to be member-facing, I instituted Wednesday morning meetings, so an hour on a Wednesday morning, between 9 and 10, that were agendered . So quite unusual in the education space to have meetings that were not agendered. These were meetings conducted on Zoom and they were an open invitation to CST members and we started off quite small because we were quite a small organisation and as people talked to other people and they realised the sort of value and the benefit in these Wednesday morning meetings, the meetings started to grow. They pretty much remain not agendered because the single purpose of those meetings was for me to understand in real time from CST members what was worrying them, what was the top of their minds, what were the things that they needed me to find out from the DfE they need me to do, and then I would go away and do them. So there were hugely discursive or dialogic meetings. It wasn't me speaking at members, it was a conversation, and I started to notice that people were having their own conversations in the kind of Zoom chat. And I think what we were doing but I didn't appreciate it until afterwards is we were building a community, a community of leaders who were doing something quite terrifying and who felt quite lonely and quite isolated and were actually on their own. And these Wednesday morning meetings provided a community space where people could, in a confidential space, share with each other the things that were worrying them most, tell me what was worrying them most, but also talk to each other. So that was very powerful. I never thought that that forum would really outlive the pandemic and to my surprise, Nick, it really has. So we don't hold those meetings every week now, we hold them every fortnight, but they are still a hugely valuable feature of the way that CST engages with its members.
Leora Cruddas (CST):The second thing I did it's also a pandemic response was to put out a briefing which was with members before nine o'clock every single morning. So in the pandemic, every single morning a briefing went out and that was whatever members needed to know and whatever I'd managed to find out from the DfE or colleagues in health or whoever I needed to talk to. That would then go in the briefing the next morning. Again, because it was a pandemic response, I didn't necessarily think that people would want that to continue. But we are consistently told by our members in survey after survey that that morning briefing, that written briefing in the morning which comes very early before the start of the kind of working day, is the number one CST benefit. It is the reason why, we don't see much turnover, I think, in CST membership. So those two forms of communication and engagement one kind of in real time people talking to each other and the other using that briefing to give people the information they need that feels called the way that CST now does its routine business.
Nick MacKenzie:It's really interesting. I mean one thing listening to you, I think something else particularly to the second limb of that is is I don't think you've ever missed one. It's constant, it's been there, it's always been something that people know will be there, and I think the power of that stability is quite powerful, isn't it?
Leora Cruddas (CST):I think so. So we, following the pandemic, we we moved to three briefings a week, so it's not to kind of inundate people with with briefings. But yes, you're right, and we don't, we don't, we don't miss them at all. When there's been a hiccup in the office and perhaps the Wi-Fi has gone down, which it has a few times, we've still got the briefing out, but sometimes later than members expected. And then we start to get emails from members saying where's the briefing? So we know that, particularly in the pandemic, our members were relying on that briefing to help them set themselves up for the day or for the week, to get that information that they had asked us to get, to kind of be the source of authority, I guess.
Nick MacKenzie:Yes, sometimes I ask guests about quotes. But taking your theme of voice and anyone that knows you or heard you speak will know that you like to lean on poetry in many of your important speeches I was wondering if there are any favourite lines of yours that you think are really helpful to get to to the heart of leadership.
Leora Cruddas (CST):Yes,
Nick MacKenzie:I thought that might be the case
Leora Cruddas (CST):So there was a moment, maybe a bit more than a year ago, when things were feeling very, very difficult in a particular context, and of an evening I was feeling quite down and also quite vulnerable because something had happened that day that made me feel unusually vulnerable.
Leora Cruddas (CST):And the absolutely wonderful Steve Rollett, who is my deputy and who is also my dear friend, spoke to me, phoned me. He knew there was something wrong and we talked for a bit and then he sent me a poem, and the poem he sent me is called "A Centre and it's a poem about how you lead from a quiet centre. So when things become very noisy and you can be distracted by that noise, when there's a lot that could have the opposite effect of a quiet centre, a lot to disturb the mind, it becomes all the more important to hold that centre of gravity, for yourself, to find that quiet centre, because I honestly believe that the best leadership decisions are taken from a quiet centre. So that's the poem with the leadership message in it.
Nick MacKenzie:Thank you. I've taken the opportunity just to bring up the opening line where it says you must hold your quiet centre where you do what only you can do.
Leora Cruddas (CST):Exactly that. Exactly that.
Nick MacKenzie:Thinking about when things get tough. Then, Leora, how do you go about other than having dear friends reach out and pick up the phone to you? How do you go about finding people who give you energy, or how do you go about getting the energy you need?
Leora Cruddas (CST):So this is again quite a, I suppose, personal story and it involves another poem. So the other thing, I think, when the world becomes too much, when you are feeling too much of those distractions, I suppose the question is how do you find your quiet centre? Distractions, I suppose the question is how do you find your quiet centre? And for me it is walking, and it is walking in nature and finding the peace of wild things, and it's the peace of wild things, I think, have a very calming effect on me.
Leora Cruddas (CST):So I went for a beautiful walk the other morning at sunrise when I had to be in London for a very early meeting. So I stayed in a hotel in Westminster and I planned a route walking around St James's Park where the lake is, and there are loads of wild birds, including actually pelicans in St James's Park, and it was sunrise as the sun was coming up, these wild birds, including actually pelicans, in St James's Park and it was sunrise as the sun was coming up these wild birds were making a cacophony of noise on the lake and it just felt such a powerful moment about the restorative value of the piece of wild things.
Nick MacKenzie:I love that line. The piece of wild things when you talked about a cacophony of noise though it's yeah, that paints quite a picture. So, thinking of influence, then, I think of your experience as CEO of CST, and before that you're a director of policy at ASCL, on how best to influence government, because you have a really interesting role but representing the views of your members of the sector and the nature of that public-private relationship that you have to have with government and those around them. How do you go about it? What's your approach? What have you learned about how best to influence?
Leora Cruddas (CST):So my approach can best be described as quiet diplomacy. I'm quite a big fan of quiet leadership and I think that my style of influence has always been quiet diplomacy. So that is the opposite of shouting in the press. It is the way that you are deeply respectful of the role of government and also the role of civil servants. Civil servants, I think, have had a really hard time in recent years. They are professionals, people like the rest of us, trying to do their best in sometimes very difficult and challenging circumstances. Trying to do their best in sometimes very difficult and challenging circumstances, so affording them the respect of talking to them first. Likewise with ministers talking to ministers first.
Leora Cruddas (CST):Where there's a point of disagreement or a point of tension or friction in a policy debate, I would always first have that private engagement with government, with the DfE, with ministers, before I sought to speak publicly. Very often you can resolve things in that quiet diplomacy space, but not always. If you do need to speak out, then the rule that we have in CST is to speak with authority, so not in media soundbites, not to get clickbait, and I guess that's why I and CST don't have quite the sort of big public profile because, on balance, I try never to speak in that way that is going to, that can be used for clickbait, but rather to speak with, with the authority of the profession I serve, of the members I serve I was wondering what, what personality characteristics do you think are important in a leader in the 21st century?
Nick MacKenzie:Can you share a story, perhaps, that illustrates why it's important to you as well?
Leora Cruddas (CST):I can. So I think there are lots of different ways to lead effectively. I don't think there is one way to lead effectively. I think lots of people, including me, make the mistake of looking to a leader you admire and then trying to be like that leader. And there's lots we can learn from those we admire and lots I have learned from those I admire.
Leora Cruddas (CST):But the thing that I've realised, perhaps more latterly in my leadership career, is I am most powerful as a leader when I am most authentically myself, and that has taken me perhaps too long to realise, and it's only in the last year, actually, that I've had the courage to share more of myself and my own stories.
Leora Cruddas (CST):So I'm instinctively quite a deeply private person.
Leora Cruddas (CST):I don't find it easy to share all of myself, to bring all of myself to leadership, and in the last year I've learned the power of doing that.
Leora Cruddas (CST):So I think up until then my leadership was very much determined by lots of women will say this being the most knowledgeable person in the room making sure I did double the preparation of possibly the men who are going to be in the room, because if you lead in a world that's predominantly male, you need to be a source of authority, and I had understood that that source of authority was being the most knowledgeable person in the room.
Leora Cruddas (CST):I still think that's true, by the way, except I now think there is something equally powerful about bringing myself into that conversation thing. Equally powerful about bringing myself into that conversation and recently, as I've learned how to do that and it is quite recent, I think I've been practicing doing more of it. I think I've got more and more feedback, particularly from other women, saying that that is, that is powerful, that that is what they want to see. They want to see women um, other women leading in very, very authentic, powerful ways, bringing them, how, bringing their whole selves to the room and, uh, that that is a perhaps a counterbalance to some of the ways that we have been taught to lead in the past.
Nick MacKenzie:And do you know, because you said that was relatively over the last year do you know what the catalyst for you was to take? You said you're deeply private, Leora, so I imagine it was a very conscious step. So what was the catalyst for you?
Leora Cruddas (CST):It was coaching, without any shadow of a doubt. There was a point, in around April last year, when again it was a bit of a low, low point for me. I was working very, very hard. I think I was starting to see some of the symptoms of what could have become burnout if I had let it go too far and I knew that I had to make an intervention, a very conscious intervention, to do things differently. And one of my trustees suggested that a coach might be helpful and I had an instinctive reaction against coaching. Actually, I wasn't sure that it would work for me at all and I found the most wonderful coach who has been working with me since May and has. And the arc of that journey through coaching has has helped me to bring more of myself into my leadership journey.
Nick MacKenzie:Thank you. I was almost going to ask you a question about someone that's influenced you at your leadership, but you've almost. You've said actually loads of people have influenced and sometimes being your authentic self is is important as well. But could you perhaps share, share, describe a time when listening to someone else's story that perhaps changed your perspective as a leader?
Leora Cruddas (CST):Gosh, there's probably quite a lot of stories there, but I've got to be, I think, a bit careful because I don't want to be telling other people's stories. I think you've got to be respectful of that. So I'm going to focus on a leader that I've learned a lot from because of the way he leads, and that is my absolutely wonderful chair, Sir Hamid Patel. Sir Hamid Patel, who has been working with me in the capacity of being CST's chair now for a little over a year, and I am endlessly fascinated by the way he leads. So most leaders lead loudly, they talk a lot, they're very present within a meeting. They will have a lot to say on any one thing. Hamid doesn't do that.
Leora Cruddas (CST):Hamid is very quiet. He's a very quiet leader and that has, I think, a very powerful effect because when he does speak and that has, I think, a very powerful effect because when he does speak, he really has something to say and everybody listens to him. So I've watched him chair meetings in the most skilful way, where he hardly says anything at all, but he enables everybody in that room to feel valued, to feel like they can bring something to the table. He is deeply respectful of everybody in the room and makes a sort of conscious effort to make sure that people have come in and spoken, that people feel comfortable, that they feel that they have a right to be at that table, and there is such an art in that and I'm afraid, although I watch him and admire it hugely and I haven't I haven't got to anywhere near that level of expertise yet and I still, I think I still speak too much in in meetings, as I think most leaders do.
Nick MacKenzie:What's on your mind this week?
Nick MacKenzie:what are you thinking about?
Leora Cruddas (CST):What's on my mind this week? on my mind this week is our secretary of state's new political narrative. So a couple of weeks ago, at the CST conference, secretary of State gave what I think was I called it in an article that we've just published in Tears Today a quietly authoritative speech in which she changed the political narrative, and I'm not sure that we have properly understood just how much that political narrative potentially has changed. So she talked about not just the opportunity government's opportunity mission, but the twin themes of achieving and thriving. That is very powerful language and it is a long time since we have used that language of thriving within the English education system. And, for the avoidance of doubt, the Secretary of State did not mean for one second that thriving was something other than achieving. So at CST we use the language of flourishing and along with the Church of England and the Catholic Education Service, we've just published a paper, as I'm sure you know at the conference, called human flourishing or flourishing together actually. And I think that that concept of flourishing, so how we enable our children in our schools to reach their optimal development, that's the core purpose of education, but also how we enable them to lead a good life. The language of flourishing, I think, encapsulates what the Secretary of State talks about when she talks about both achieving and thriving. So I think that's very powerful.
Leora Cruddas (CST):And I'm just about to go off actually to a rather intimidating set of very senior public sector leaders, at the invitation of the cabinet office's leadership college for government, to talk about the opportunity mission.
Leora Cruddas (CST):This is why I've been thinking about it so much, because I've been thinking about what do I say to these very senior people in the public sector about the opportunity mission?
Leora Cruddas (CST):And I think it is about this new political narrative. But it is also about how we as public sector leaders need to have a different mental model of leadership, which is something akin to what CST has been talking about for a number of years now with our conceptualisation of civic leadership, so how we lead other civic actors for a wider common good. But I think that that wider common good needs a framing and I think the Opportunity Mission potentially allows us to give it a framing. And I think there might be something in there about that framing being a common understanding of childhood, what we mean by childhood and what we want for our children, not just in the next five or 10 years, but perhaps in longer terms than that, perhaps in the next 20 years. How is it we want to construct childhood as a society, and then how we mobilise all the adults in a child's life, including public sector professionals, around that common vision of childhood?
Nick MacKenzie:ounds like you're up for a good conversation this afternoon then
Leora Cruddas (CST):I hope, so
Nick MacKenzie:Wanted to ask, time. We can't create more time, but we can choose how to spend it that there's an awful lot of ways you could spend your time, Leora. I was curious what do you do to intentionally make the best use of your time and where you choose to spend it?
Leora Cruddas (CST):Gosh, Nick. The honest answer is I'm not very good at it. I'm still learning. So a colleague of mine a while ago said to me you need to think about where you put yourself. Particularly as CST grows. You need to be much more conscious and deliberative about where you put yourself. So those words ring in my ears because I am nowhere near conscious or deliberative enough about that. It's still something I'm learning to do. I find it quite hard to say no. So if somebody asks me to do something, I'm very likely to say yes, of course I'll try to do that. Of course I'll try to come and work with your trust board or come and visit your principal's conference and do a speech. I think I always will do that, but I think the time has perhaps come for me to be more conscious of where I put myself than I, than I have until now, and I guess I would. That might be also something that I say to to other leaders in education think carefully about where you put yourself, because I think otherwise you could exhaust yourself.
Nick MacKenzie:I was almost going to ask you the question of what's the best advice you would give a leader. Is there anything else you'd add to what you've just shared, or would that be it?
Leora Cruddas (CST):so there's a another way of talking about that, which I also often use, which is keep your balance.
Leora Cruddas (CST):And so I'm not sure I'm I really sign up to the kind of work-life balance thing, because I think work is, and it is, one expression of the way we lead our lives and for me it's a really important part of who I am. My identity as a human being is also very entwined with who I am as a professional. But I think there have been moments in my life when I don't think I have kept my balance in quite the right way. I'm trying to be better at it now, actually. So to just know that I feel centred enough to bring myself to work and be entirely present, I suppose, coming back to what we talked about earlier with the noise and the distraction, we talked about earlier with the noise and the distraction, so you can only bring your full self into your, into your work, if you are centred and if you are balanced. And if you are unbalanced, then, I think what if I am unbalanced? I think that's where I make less good decisions. So it comes back to the quiet centre.
Nick MacKenzie:Final question, then, I think what's the mission that drives you and connects your leadership roles, Leora?
Leora Cruddas (CST):So I'm going to say something that I've said quite frequently at the moment I believe education is a good in itself. I think lots of people claim different kinds of purposes for it. I believe it is a good in itself. It is fundamentally what it means to be human is to educate our children. It is fundamentally what it means to be human is to educate our children, but I also believe that education can be mobilised as a force for social justice, as distinct from social mobility. So you've probably heard me say this before, Nick. So social mobility is lifting up a few, social justice is lifting up all. I think education is the way in society, we lift up all.
Nick MacKenzie:Thank you, and thank you for joining me today, Leora. I think that's a perfect place to stop. I've thoroughly enjoyed our discussion and I do hope our listeners have as well. We're now going to head over to soak up some of the atmosphere from your recent conference.
Ollie Lane (PLMR):Ollie Lane. I'm Managing Director at PLMR, which is a communications agency. We work across lots of different sectors, including education.
Nick MacKenzie:What's on your mind this week?
Ollie Lane (PLMR):This week I've been particularly interested to hear about Bridget Phillipson and hear her speech on academies and her direction of travel on that front, whether she's supportive of them or otherwise, and her attempts, I think, to kind of bring unity across the system.
Stephen Morales (ISBL):Hi, my name's Stephen Morales. I'm the Chief Executive of the Institute of School Business Leadership.
Nick MacKenzie:What's on your mind this week?
Stephen Morales (ISBL):Well, heavens, so much.
Stephen Morales (ISBL):So, obviously, we had the announcement from the chancellor last week in terms of education funding, and I think we are all accepting of the fact that it's an incredibly fiscally challenging environment and so a little bit more money is helpful.
Stephen Morales (ISBL):It's not going to fix all the problems, and it's certainly not going to fix all the problems today or tomorrow, but it shows a direction of travel and, you know, in a year's time, let's hope that we can revisit this space and and we get a better deal. But I think there is an imperative for schools and trusts to do the very best with what they've got in front of them. And, whilst we can continue to campaign for a better deal, our priority needs to be with the here and now and what's available to us. And just one other thing very quickly. I think we're all 48 hours, whatever it is 72 hours since the American general election and there's an outcome that some anticipated, others didn't, and we have to see how that plays out and what it does to the geopolitical landscape.
Gail Brown (Ebor):Hi, I'm Gail Brown. I'm CEO of Ebor Academy Trust, based in Yorkshire and Humber.
Nick MacKenzie:What's on your mind this week?
Gail Brown (Ebor):So on my mind this particular week is we've been working behind the scenes for a number of months now, following various external reviews, various internal reviews, on a large restructure that will affect quite a large part of our organisation, and this week we've launched it. So that's been prevalent in my mind this week.
Steve Howell (Red Kite):I'm Steve Howell. I'm Commercial Director at Red Kite Learning Trusts in Harrogate and Leeds.
Nick MacKenzie:What's on your mind this week?
Steve Howell (Red Kite):I think the thing that's hit me this week is what Leora was saying in her talk this morning around child poverty, and it's just such a horrific figure 4.3 million children in poverty in the UK. She said that was 30% of the total, but what really hit me was that figure of a million children in destitution. I mean it feels like a Victorian word, but we have surely got to do more to address that.
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):I'm Ernest Jenavs. I'm the founder and CEO of Edurio.
Nick MacKenzie:What's on your mind this week?
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):The week started off with a bit of sense of being depressed about humanity. We are in global election week, and then I've been really looking forward to meeting with the people I know and love here at the CST conference, and so there's been a sense of starting to be a bit worried and scared, but then feeling that the people around us make it all right.
Nick MacKenzie:Biggest strategic leadership challenge you think looking ahead over the next three years?
Ollie Lane (PLMR):We've got a new government, of course, and they have new ideas and a fresh perspective. I think quite a bit of what they're planning to do remains to be seen, but I think how that affects schools, academy trusts, businesses like ours is something that we will both need to respond to and prepare for, but, at the same time, be clear about what we think our trajectory and travel should be. So I think it's both important that you reflect on what the government is doing and plans to do, but also that you stick to your own path.
Nick MacKenzie:Biggest strategic leadership challenge. Looking ahead, say, over the next three years?
Stephen Morales (ISBL):Capacity, capacity, capability, capability, capability. So, in terms of what do we need to be thinking really carefully about if we're going to continue in this hybrid system is how do we give schools, teachers and therefore children's lifetimes. How do we give that the best chance of succeeding?
Nick MacKenzie:Biggest strategic leadership challenge looking ahead over the next three years?
Gail Brown (Ebor):So we're a primary only trust um, obviously, around the funding issues, particularly in primary only multi-academy trusts. That's something that I've talked openly about um and I'm very upfront about it. I think for us, for me, the biggest strategic leadership challenge is making sure that we get the best quality of professional development in order to get the best people in front of our children, to get the best outcomes for our children. With the purse that we're given and it's easy to talk about the purse, but actually having more in your purse enables you to do sometimes better things and wider things, and I think for me, it's always about getting the best for. But but I think also just to swing that around it is a challenge, but I also maintain the view that we as a sector are very good at doing a lot of stuff with very little. So I don't I don't want to be burdened by that, but it is something that I'm challenged by.
Nick MacKenzie:Biggest strategic leadership challenge, looking ahead over the next, say, three years.
Steve Howell (Red Kite):I think it's working with clarity on our plan to bridge the equity gap so related really to that problem of destitution and child poverty. How are we going to work across our disparate collection of schools, which range, by the way, from five percent to seventy percent free school meals? How are we going to bring equity and reach all those children and families?
Nick MacKenzie:Biggest strategic leadership challenge, looking ahead over, say, the next three years.
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):Trust structure and operating models. So we've been working on some research seeing how trusts of different sizes differ, and one of the findings was the trusts who want to grow aren't the trusts who believe they will grow. So the larger the trust, the more they've spent time on digital strategy, on well-being or some of the other trust-level elements, and so the system itself may go into consolidation mode or may continue slowly evolving and maturing. But I think whatever way it develops, the structure and how the trusts operate will have to go through another lens of maturity.
Nick MacKenzie:When looking for inspiration from outside the sector to meet a challenge or take an opportunity, where do you look?
Ollie Lane (PLMR):without being too cliched. I just often look at my own children. They have a very nice simple perspective often on whether something is the right thing to do or not, and I think that is usually a pretty good yardstick is what would my kids do on something?
Nick MacKenzie:When looking for inspiration from outside the sector to say meet a challenge or take an opportunity, where would you go?
Stephen Morales (ISBL):so I think we we shouldn't be afraid to look at industry, and I know that you know public sector are always slightly nervous about leaning into the commercial world, but I think we should be less precious about that. And it isn't that we have to pivot to a for-profit mentality, but I think there are really well-defined approaches to to organise that result in organisational success. So, you know, let's, let's lean into that and and let's not be way behind, way behind the curve, in the way that we have been for for many years. So, and that isn't in any way to dampen or to dilute the brilliant work that educators do. But let's be honest, we're not brilliant at business and ops. It's new to us and we're evolving. And you know, the academy movement really, as it is today, is still quite embryonic.
Nick MacKenzie:When looking for inspiration from outside the sector to say meet a challenge or take an opportunity, where do you look?
Gail Brown (Ebor):I'm very aware that I run an organisation that absolutely has, obviously, education at its core, but a lot of the challenges in our organisation aren't necessarily driven by education. They're driven by more of the business side of things. So I think quite a lot of my recent inspiration has been looking outside the sector. So I was very fortunate to, for example, learn a lot from apple. I learn a lot and seek a lot of advice from people, even within our own organisation, but from a trustee perspective. So some of our trustees are really high quality professionals who don't work in the education sector, but actually I I seek a lot of inspiration from them. So, whether that be our HR trustee, who was involved quite a lot in the city, whether it be our risk trustee, who was involved in building a huge city out in Saudi Arabia, I'm always learning from them with a view to what my job entails.
Nick MacKenzie:When looking for inspiration from outside the sector to meet a challenge or take an opportunity, where do you look?
Steve Howell (Red Kite):I really enjoy speaking to partners, people that we work with in our trust and always try and understand what their needs are and their business models are and how we can work together and learn from each other.
Nick MacKenzie:When looking for inspiration from outside the sector to say meet a challenge or take an opportunity, where do you look?
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):I think inspiration frequently comes from being able to not be busy but be forward-looking and strategic. So actually, if I think about inspiration, I think about my hobby, which is woodworking, and if I spend a day focusing on not chopping up my fingers while doing something, creating something different, I find that frequently brings me inspiration to push ahead in the, in the work I do.
Nick MacKenzie:Tell me about someone who's helped you become the person you are today, who's really influenced you and how?
Ollie Lane (PLMR):That's one of those questions you could answer lots and lots of people, and I'm not going to fall into that trap, but I am questions you could answer lots and lots of people, and I'm not going to fall into that trap, but I am going to pick one person. And that doesn't mean that there haven't been other people, though, who have been really important, and the guy I'm going to mention is an old chief sub-editor on the first newspaper I worked on many years ago too too many years to mention a guy called Chris Mardell, and Chris was an old hack, and he used to spend hours and hours with me improving my writing, how I reported, how I wrote stories for the newspaper. He could be a pretty tough taskmaster, but and at the time I didn't always like it, but I did always know that he was spending a lot of time to help me, and I always appreciated that and and hope that I've similarly tried to help other people in terms of feedback and being constructive, and so on and so forth.
Nick MacKenzie:So tell me about someone who's helped you become the person you are today, who's really influenced you and how?
Stephen Morales (ISBL):mean there are so many people for so many in so many different, different ways. So, outside of education, my uncles were political activists during the Franco era and they fought really hard to get to create an environment where fairness, equality and inclusivity mattered.
Stephen Morales (ISBL):And so in my core, I am inspired by the things they did against all the odds. One of them was deported from Spain. The other one spent three years in in Central America because he was wasn't safe. It wasn't safe for him to be in the country, but within education itself, there are so many people and too many to list really but people like Peter Lauener and Sir David Carter and indeed Leora and her, the way that she's built a narrative around education and the extent to which the system can find solutions itself and present those solutions rather than waiting for government to set the direction.
Nick MacKenzie:tell me about someone who's helped you become the person you are today, who's really influenced you and how?
Gail Brown (Ebor):okay, so it's a bit cliched, I suppose, started with some great teachers and that is true, so they've certainly influenced me.
Gail Brown (Ebor):I think my predecessor in my role influenced me a great deal, very different person to him but actually learnt a lot from him, and I think that's helped me in my development of roles, I think, in terms of, I think it's really hard to nail someone, but I think some people who who help me are are my peers, in my current role, I learn a lot from them and continue to learn a lot from them.
Nick MacKenzie:who's really influenced you and how?
Steve Howell (Red Kite):I was thinking about someone who's really helped me and influenced me. It was an entrepreneur that I met and we ended up going into a venture together. So it was between the school where I worked and his fledgling organisation and I learned a lot from him commercially, but also, I think, around the way to approach leadership aspects. But I think fundamentally it was about execution. So it's all very well coming up with ideas, but until you execute them, make them happen, turn an idea into reality, it's not really worth anything.
Nick MacKenzie:Tell me about someone who's helped you become the person you are today. Who's really influenced and how?
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):today, thinking about how I am as an individual, I'm thinking of Claudia Barwell, who's a friend and a community gatherer or leader in education space, and she opened my eyes to how we as individuals first interact with each other as people rather than representatives of their organisation, and she brought me into a wonderful community. And so over the last couple of days I've met many friends and I know I am more authentic as a person because I've been inspired by her.
Nick MacKenzie:What leadership superpower do you wish you had?
Ollie Lane (PLMR):I think probably it would be most useful if I could look ahead and know what was coming. I think probably it would be most useful if I could look ahead and know what was coming. I think we all try to predict what the government might do or what might be around the corner and I think if I could see ahead whether that's one month, six months, 12 months, five years, etc. I think that would be incredibly helpful.
Stephen Morales (ISBL):What leadership superpower do I wish I had? It's a really, really important question, but it's so difficult to answer. I think in the end it's to be understood and we work really hard to try to be understood and sometimes we connect, sometimes the message lands, but because we deal with such a wide variety of personas, what lands with one group? One community completely alienates another. So I guess the superpower really is the ability to connect with that range of personas that we have to deal with every single day.
Gail Brown (Ebor):Oh, what leadership superpower do I wish I had? I think that's really hard, Leadership superpower. So, as a leader, I am absolutely obsessed about everybody being human. So I really try and focus in our organisation on doesn't matter about your role, doesn't matter about what your title is. I'm not title obsessed. I'm obsessed about everybody being human and seen as being human and everybody having an active part to play. I would like everybody, as a leader, to be able to see that and I think sometimes they don't. I think sometimes, particularly in our sector, we can be quite hierarchical and I think for me the power is in the people in your organisation, not necessarily in the titles that they hold.
Nick MacKenzie:What leadership superpower do you wish you had?
Steve Howell (Red Kite):I think being able to dredge up kindness in difficult situations.
Nick MacKenzie:What leadership superpower do you wish you had?
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):Follow-through, because it is very easy to create new strategies and new ideas and get excited about them. But the most difficult thing that I've personally faced is being excited about them six months on, nine months on, and I think if I had a better capability to do follow through, many of the things I'm working on would move much, much faster.
Nick MacKenzie:Favourite leadership characteristic.
Ollie Lane (PLMR):I think it's really great when you've got leaders who really clearly are on your side. Think it's really great when, um, you've got leaders who really clearly are on your side, whether they are giving you a bit of tough feedback or a bit of constructive feedback or whatever it might be. I think really knowing that that leaders are on your side and have got your back, I think that's a really a really good characteristic.
Nick MacKenzie:favourite leadership characteristic
Stephen Morales (ISBL):inclusivity
Gail Brown (Ebor):favourite leadership characteristic oh being genuine and being you.
Gail Brown (Ebor):I think we talked about being you. I think that's so important, not, I think, humility a little bit, but not to the point of being pitiful. I think being genuine, accepting responsibility. I accept that I have a role that often involves, you know, and difficult decisions. I never shy away from that, but actually I never, ever assume, just because I hold this role, that I am always right.
Nick MacKenzie:Favourite leadership characteristic.
Steve Howell (Red Kite):Of mine, I think, being able to accommodate people from all walks of life and connect with people, regardless of their background or position.
Nick MacKenzie:Favourite leadership characteristic.
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):Can I say follow through again.
Nick MacKenzie:What quality do you see in young people you wish you had or had more of?
Ollie Lane (PLMR):That ability to not over complicate stuff and they do stuff because they think it's the right thing to do and it's a very, very simple way, and I don't mean that in a critical way at all. It's a really great quality. They, they just want to do something and they see the good in it and therefore that's something that they should do.
Ollie Lane (PLMR):And I think that simplistic I suppose simplistic way of thinking is a great thing to have
Nick MacKenzie:. What quality?
Nick MacKenzie:do you see in young people you wish you had or had more of?
Stephen Morales (ISBL):Look, young people are so, they're just amazing. I'm in awe of young people are so, they're just amazing. I'm in awe of young people and I feel every day I feel a little bit more left behind.
Stephen Morales (ISBL):And I'll just use a very quick anecdote so my daughter's 30 now, but for the last 10 years we've had really healthy conversations and she's really challenged me. She's really challenged me in terms of my own biases and my own, my own thinking, and she has a different set of reference points. You know, she reads, she gets her information from different channels. You know, not not traditional media, the newspapers and and terrestrial tv. It's coming at her from different angles, but she's very good at triangulating, so she doesn't just look at one particular version, she'll go for various.
Stephen Morales (ISBL):But she's deeply curious. She's got information coming at her and consumes information in a way that I couldn't have dreamt of at her age. And it's not just her, you know, in the summer we have 20 of her friends around. It's a kind of tradition and I can jump around the various groups and we have brilliant conversations, much better conversations, by the way, than I have with my 50 year old counterparts in the pub.
Nick MacKenzie:what quality do you see in young people you wish you had or had more of?
Gail Brown (Ebor):I think young people and I've spent a lot of years of my career with early years and reception children I just love. They are fearless and I think a characteristic of young children is that they do not carry the fear. I think the older we get, the more worried. Even answering these questions, nick, you're worried about, am I giving the right answer? Young children are great at just saying it as they are and I think that, for me, is a really good quality.
Nick MacKenzie:What quality do you see in young people you wish you had or had more of?
Steve Howell (Red Kite):As a foster carer, I see children who are truly resilient, despite the fact that they've had perhaps a traumatic episode in their lives. So resilience.
Nick MacKenzie:And what quality do you see in young people you wish you had or had more of?
Ernest Jenavs (Edurio):The ability to be authentic in expressing their views.
Nick MacKenzie:Thank you for joining me. I look forward to you joining us on the next in our series of Ed Influence podcast.
