Wholesome Leadership

Wholesome Leadership by Tom Rees is a whole approach to school leadership. It is based around the model of the heart, the head, the hands and the health of school leaders, and goes into detail as to what successful leaders in schools do in each of these categories.

Throughout the book, Rees tells personal stories of how he has developed as a leader in the different aspects, as well as giving specific examples of his experiences. This personal touch really helps the book feel more authentic, as you can tell it is written by somebody who has lived these experiences. This is balanced nicely by the interviews with others who are (or have been) involved in leadership in education, each giving their own perspective on one of the aspects of the Wholesome Leadership model.

Before delving into the nitty gritty, Rees shares a handy planning tool, which he calls the Five Fives, for managing change, a big part of being a school leader. Throughout the book he refers back to this tool, providing a template at the end of each chapter to encourage leaders to engage in planning their changes. 

Also at the end of each chapter are a series of reflection questions for leaders to use to ascertain what areas they would like to work on in their leadership/school. Combining these with the Five Fives planning tool is an excellent way for leaders to take action after reading the chapter.

Illustrated by Oliver Caviglioli, the visuals add to the whole experience of the book. Each chapter starts with a summary of key quotes which gives the reader a nice taster of what is to come. The highlight of the visuals are the WalkThrus for Learning Walks, Appraisal, CAP Meetings and Review Mornings.

Each of the four parts of the Heart, Head, Hands and Health model is broken into 3 linked chapters. Although it is an easy book to read all the way through, it is also designed so you can jump to a particular chapter that you are interested in. I can see myself popping back to chapters on a regular basis to reacquaint myself with the ideas, now that I have read the whole thing.

I have created a summary document of the book. The image is below, but you can find the PDF version here, which can be printed up to A2 (it also works pretty well in A3). Some more details on each chapter are below that.

HEART - Finding Your Leadership Voice

"People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them. The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value"

We need to know who we are, as a person and as a leader. Analysing this in detail helps us ascertain our values and beliefs that influence the way we act. This includes thinking about the different leadership styles, which ones we fall into naturally, and which we need to work actively on. But in doing this, never lose that sense of who you are.

HEART - Building Ethos and Professional Culture

"Leaders make the weather."

Without a good soil in place, nothing will grow. One of the most important roles of a leader is to regularly tend to the soil of the school, to allow for healthy growth and stop weeds from taking over.

Ethos - What we're here for.

Culture - The way we do things.
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Creating a professional culture requires:

1. Healthy relationships
   1. Trust - do what you say you will; don't talk behind people's backs
   2. Over-communication - make sure the message is heard by everybody
   3. Acceptance - that we are all different and bring our own strengths
   4. Managing conflict - don't try to win arguments (you never truly win), and explore differences of opinions
2. Disciplined thought and action
   1. Enacting school policies - are all staff being consistent and disciplined about this?
   2. Avoid Bureaucracy - if all staff are disciplined there is no need for excessive accountability
3. Teacher Agency and Innovation
   1. Agency - teachers having ownership over their development
   2. Agency, not autonomy - don't let staff stop doing what makes them great, or out of a set of agreed structures
   3. Innovation - not a licence to try anything that hasn't been thought through carefully, but value new ideas
4. Solution-focused thinking
   1. Default positive - adopt a mindset of finding the positives in situations, rather than the focusing on the problem
   2. Coaching - use coaching style conversations to flip conversations
5. Chop wood, carry water
   1. Stay connected - to the very core of what a school does, by doing small tasks that keep you in the loop

HEART - Creating a Vision and Implementing Change

​"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."

When creating a vision work through the levels of Why->How->What, and not the other way round, which can often be easier.
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For implementing change:

1. Beware the visionary
2. First, do no harm
3. Apply appreciative inquiry
4. Consultation
5. Avoid compromise
6. Take small steps of change
7. Manage change well

HEAD - School Improvement Strategy and Research

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably why so few people engage in it."

Rather than thinking of schools in terms of judgement levels such as good or outstanding, use the model:

• Stabilise - Identifying the reality
• Repair - Taking control
• Improve - Embedding strategies
• Sustain - Ensure lasting success

Focus on the future you want, not the past you are running from, but recognise the strengths of the school and build upon those.

The vital organs model of school improvement follows the idea that cosmetic surgery will not fix major problems. Just like the vital organs of the body, if one of them is failing, you have to treat the problem first. It is important to do regular health checks of the vital organs to see how they are doing.
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1. Safety - if students (and staff) are not physically and psychologically safe, then nothing else matters
2. Behaviour - behaviour can hijack learning in the classroom, and must be a continual focus
3. Curriculum- a broad, balanced and rigourous curriculum ensures students are learning stuff that is worthwhile
4. Inclusion - everybody needs access to the curriculum, but the most at risk are often the ones who lose out if behaviour and curriculum are not in place first
5. Teaching - teaching is a vital organ, but without the others working healthily it will not be as effective as it can be.

HEAD - Healthy Accountability

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."

Teaching is too importance a job to have no accountability, and we must ensure that teachers are doing their best for students. But archaic models of accountability often don't lead to the outcomes we want. The optimum accountability is High Challenge but Low Threat. That is having explicit high expectations, and when people don't reach those expectations, supporting them to get there rather than disciplining them.
The most important way to manage accountability - get in classrooms!
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Use effective processes such as learning walk, appraisals, with preparation and feedback, but do them well:

1. First, do no harm
2. Plan and communicate well
3. Execute well
4. Do 'with' not 'to'
5. Avoid judging
6. Give good feedback
7. Follow up and follow through
8. Keep workload lean
9. Evaluate properly
10. Repeat

HEAD - Assessing Like a Consultant Doctor

​"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

Reliability - measure of consistency. Would the same student get the same mark on a different day? No assessment is perfectly reliable.

Validity - measure of accuracy. Does the assessment tell us what we want it to? Is the language element too high in a maths paper so the problems in English not Maths?
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Steps to effective (summative) assessment

1. Choose what to assess and why
2. Decide when to assess
3. Beware the rubrics
4. Use tests well
5. Avoid the ghosts of levels
6. Read the data well
7. Respond to assessment
8. Communicate to parents
9. Make it manageable
10. Repeat and tinker with care

HANDS - Training and Development

"Every teacher needs to improve, not because they are not good enough, but because they can be even better."

Make sure the vital organs are healthy before pushing people off the bus.
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It is important to have different development models in place for staff at different stages of their careers. Given the short amount of time dedicated to developing teachers, we have to make sure it is used optimally.

The Standards for Professional Development

• Professional development should have a focus on improving and evaluating pupil outcomes
• Professional development should be underpinned by robust evidence and expertise
• Professional development should include collaboration and expert challenge
• Professional development programmes should be sustained over time
• Professional development should be prioritised by school leadership

Beware the fact that teachers will often fall in the unconcsiously incompetent category, unaware that they don't know something, but also falling for the Dunning-Kruger effect and thinking they do it already. Coaching has a role to play here. Give kind, specific and useful feedback.

HANDS - People Management

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

The vast majority of teachers have good intentions with what they do, so handle difficult conversations with care. Make sure you are not attacking them personally.
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To plan a difficult conversation use NEFI ART:

• Name the issue
• Give an example
• Say how it makes you feel
• Explain why it's important
• Accept what you might have done to contribute to the problem
• Make it clear this needs to be resolved
• Over to them - what do they think?

When managing people keep in mind:

1. The little things - TNTs go a long way to buy you credibility for when you need it
2. Clarity is everything - stop things from going wrong in the first place
   1. Do fewer things
   2. Make fewer changes
   3. Communicate better
   4. Improve induction
3. Pulling rank and cutting slack - have the awkward conversations when necessary, but remember teachers are human with lives outside school
4. Act in haste, repent at leisure - think and plan carefully before having a difficult conversation
5. Getting people 'off the bus' - give people a chance to improve, but then hold firm

Engage with parents following an UP framework, and make use of leapfrog conversations.

HANDS - A Lean Operation

​"Action is the foundational key to all success"

Whilst we must move away from the dancefloor to see the big picture, we all need to go back to the dancefloor to be involved in the dance. Moving between the two is the key.

Make routines work smoothly and efficiently to prevent breakdowns in the first place.

Spend time in the 'real place', on the front lines, getting to know how it works.

When problem arise, identify them early (by being in the real place); stop everything else to fix urgent problems; find long term solutions by identifying the root causes using the Five Whys.
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There are two costs to think of when running a school: Financial cost and Opportunity cost. With anything we do we can time cost it (how much do we spend on it given salaries), but also think about what other things we could be doing in that time that might have a great impact.

HEALTH - Self-Preservation

​"Self-preservation, nature's first great law, all the creatures, except man, doth awe."

To be a good leader you need to be in good health and avoid burnout. We can only support others effectively if we are in a position to be able to go beyond ourselves. Think about:

1. Keep your mojo - why do you do it
2. Manage time well - to do lists
3. Find space to think strategically - urgent vs important
4. Delegate well - others can do it as well as you
5. Avoid the 'martyr leader' trap - do what you can
6. Develop wellbeing tools - mindfulness, sleep
7. If all else fails, engage 'safe mode' - focus on the things that need to get done, and let stuff slip

HEALTH - Staff Wellbeing

"Connect the dots between individual roles and the goals of the organization. When people see that connection they get a lot of energy out of work. They feel the importance, dignity and meaning in their job."

Keep a constant focus on staff wellbeing, by looking at data and having conversations. Make wellbeing something that is talked about in school.
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The basics of wellbeing are:

• Autonomy of how to do your job
• Some control over the bigger organisation
• Variety in work
• Clarity
• Supportive supervision
• Positive interpersonal connections
• Fairness in the workplace
• Pay
• Physical security
• Job security
• Perception of significance

Workload has an impact on wellbeing, so cut the faff, so analyse what workload can be cut.

HEALTH - Interdependent Leadership

​"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."

A good team is not made up of outstanding individuals, and a team can achieve so much more than the sum of its parts. A team ensures synergy by keeping everybody together and using the strengths of each individual.


To have an interdependent mindset, you need:

• Abundance thinking - there is enough to go around
• Collaboration - not just cooperation
• Discipline - from the whole team
• Trust - do what you say you will