The move from head of a small department to middle-school principal at a large international school was not what I expected. I had imagined that I would be engaging in stimulating debates about differing educational priorities and building a coherent, cohesive vision of education together with my colleagues. Instead, what I found myself doing was guessing my way around the educational preferences of the institution, struggling to work out all the things I couldn’t say and all the things I should say.

So many of the assumptions and unspoken agreements - “the way things are done around here” - went unsaid, untested and unchallenged. To put it another way, the reality of school leadership often boils down to office politics.

Such politicking is not unique to any particular school - and, I hasten to add, nor do I imagine there is an institution in the world that doesn’t suffer from it to a certain extent.

It’s easy to spot when you know where to look. It’s there when you challenge, or are seen to say something “different” from the accepted codes about how to deal with behaviour, how to plan a curriculum, how to prioritise time and so on. It’s the elephant in every room and the sacred cow roaming every corridor. It’s the feeling of being trapped, isolated and alone for trying to speak out about important issues.

Common tactics include the hoarding of information, the subtle questioning and undermining of every small decision in the name of accountability, and blatant favouritism towards those who most closely toe the line.

If you have never experienced these things, you are lucky: it’s a rare school in which there are no unspeakable themes. How do we tackle this as leaders?

What will success look like?

Perhaps schools could learn from politicians on this point. Full, frank and robust debate within a trusted group should be the status quo, so that, when everyone steps out of the room, they know the direction and have had their say even if they aren’t entirely in agreement.

But, in my opinion, what causes the more severe manifestations of toxicity is an absence of clear indicators of success that everyone understands. Without strategic prioritisation, goals and culture can change with the whim of whoever comes in and tries to make a name for themself.

Through the gateway of ill-defined outcomes can walk two harbingers of a noxious culture: blame shifting and credit stealing. What matters? Enrolment? The number of suspensions? Parental happiness? Staff retention? Attendance? Improved academic results? The wellbeing of students? The number of transformational initiatives? If we aren’t sure, people will compete to have their name on any successful initiative and to have it taken off anything that seems like it isn’t going to work out.

In other words, the game of blame and credit is played out, and people spend more time plotting little alliances than actually getting on with the job.

We also need to be brutally honest with ourselves and others. Because schools don’t do everything badly, it’s always possible to fish out some data that makes the organisation seem like it’s doing well. Poor academic outcomes can be attributed to previous policies, individuals or teachers, and excellent academic results can be identified as the result of the informed decisions of the current leadership.

It’s easy to say “we planned it like that” when something seems to be going well and, for the less successful parts, to assign causality to some factor beyond our control. If the indicators aren’t agreed upon in advance, this is a relatively easy game for leaders to play.

Continual drive to improve

Of course, even when you do have clear indicators, if transparency and ethical behaviour aren’t at the centre of decision making, gaming behaviours will occur. The adage “what gets measured gets managed” applies to schools. Gaming the system can become a problem when the “what” takes priority over the “how”.

Leaders are under pressure to show they are doing something, especially when key indicators aren’t going the right way. The drive to improve the indicators can lead to micromanagement and line-by-line scrutiny of everything to obtain the illusion of control. It can also lead to unhealthy short-termism.

Yet, the more senior leaders try to grip on to culture, the more easily it can slip out of our hands. The degradation of culture most often happens when unintended consequences aren’t fully considered.

Finally, we need to lead from the front. Credit should be given to teachers whenever possible, and the senior leadership team should own its mistakes and use that information in a continual drive to improve.

There should be no unsayable agenda items because it’s those very questions that often have the most impact on the culture and success of the organisation.

And we need to be wary of our conduct: frustration can easily lead to a bitchiness that we think no one sees but which can bleed into an organisation with shocking ease.

The writer is headteacher of an international school

This article originally appeared in the 13 December 2019 issue under the headline “Make nothing unsayable to end the blame game”