by Dr Melissa Burnell
One of the workshop highlights for me was Martin Crozier’s workshop on
‘Developing the Engine of your School: Empowering the Middle Leaders Team’
I have always seen the need for more leadership development in this area, but I was struck by the sheer importance of this group of school leaders. Martin shared some key information, including that middle leadership is contextual and heavily influenced by the effectiveness of senior leaders.
In many schools, there are frameworks for teachers’ and leaders’ performance, but middle leaders are often overlooked. Therefore, adopting frameworks and standards are an important consideration for schools that don’t already have them for middle leadership roles.
In the conversation with my table partners, we talked about the time and capacity challenges existing and aspiring middle leaders face. One possible strategy to ease this tension is to ask what can be taken off of someone’s plate to free them up to lead or contribute to school improvement initiatives.
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