Estelle Morris: ‘I wish I had understood the impact of resigning on others’

Baroness Morris was secretary of state for education and skills in Tony Blair’s Labour government from 2001 to 2002, and held both minister and under-secretary roles in the Department for Education and Skills before that. She was a teacher prior to becoming an MP in 1992 and was made a life peer in 2005. She writes:

I didn’t have a wealthy childhood, but I had a childhood where people taking on responsibility was around me all the time. In those days, the community in which you lived had natural leaders, especially the women. The women ran the community; they would take on many of the things that we now ask the state to do. So I never had to go through that barrier of “people like me don’t do things like that” when it came to thinking about leadership. To me, being a leader as a woman was the most natural thing in the world.

My dad left school at 14. He was a quiet man, very even-tempered and a very good listener. And he was a beautiful writer. My mum was more fiery, and both were leaders in different ways. I cannot write as well as my dad. But I do think I have something of each of them in me.

I didn’t get any of my A levels. It was a shock not to get them. And it stays with you. When I became an MP, I thought that would be the limit of my achievement. I never aspired - it never entered my head - to be in the cabinet. I think I probably thought that you had to have an Oxbridge degree, which sounds awful. But I soon realised they were not better leaders than me because of the exams they took. Assessment doesn’t record what you’re good at; it sometimes records what you’re less good at. As a leader, you need to know what you are good at, despite that.

I did all three jobs in the department: under-secretary, minister, secretary of state. We make roles hierarchical; we’ve got this notion of going up the ladder. But because I worked with a very good secretary of state in David Blunkett, from whom I learned a great deal and who is an exceptionally good leader, I had as much influence as minister of state as I ever did when I was secretary of state. Hierarchy is incredibly contextual and we need to be much more aware of that.

Being secretary of state for education, and having been a teacher yourself, it gives you empathy for the sector and an insight to the language of the sector. But what being from the profession really gave me was a right to be listened to, not a right to be agreed with, and I was always conscious of that.

One of the skills great leaders have is the ability to judge when something matters or doesn’t matter: to have five things in front of you and say, “Those four don’t matter at the moment, but that one thing we need to act on right now.” Your ability on that is the difference between being a good leader and being a great one.

I remember being in an audience at an event when I was secretary of state and just suddenly pausing because I recognised I was in a rare moment when I felt in control of everything. All the issues before me, I thought, “I am on top of.” But I knew it wouldn’t last. In the top jobs, it’s inevitable it won’t last. Things always spin out of control eventually - you are just keeping a lid on it as long as you can. Your ability to keep going as a leader depends on your ability to gather it all in again each time it spirals.

When I look back at the point when I resigned as secretary of state, I know that I had a crisis of confidence. It didn’t come from nowhere - there’d been a number of things I wasn’t happy about. I wish I had understood better the impact that resigning might have on other people. It was about what I felt, about what I felt I could do. And I know that afterwards some people felt that I’d let them down by not sticking at it, that I’d let women down because I said I wasn’t up to the job. I didn’t see it from anyone else’s perspective, it was all about me at that moment, and that is the most difficult thing to live with.

You can still fail with the best teams around you. I was surrounded by people who wanted me to do well. I know that, and I felt it. But it’s like being a teacher when that classroom door shuts and you are by yourself, and you know it’s just you and the kids now. You’ve got to be able to do it when it’s just you. The decision is yours alone. It’s lonely, that feeling. And it is not for everyone at every stage of life. In that period of time, I was happiest as schools minister not secretary of state. At other times, it may have been different.

I always say “yes”. It’s my biggest advice to kids. Say “yes” to everything you’re offered. It might not work out, but you only need it to work out one in 10 for it to give you an opportunity you would have otherwise missed. And those things that don’t work? You learn so much.

I think there is a sweet spot of pressure. I think you need the adrenaline and the feeling of being on the edge of your ability. You need the right level of challenge or you become complacent, and I also think some of the joy of the job goes.

To be effective you need a conflict of ideas, but that is different to genuine conflict between people. I never let conflict run and escalate. You have to spot the tipping point. And if it goes too far, I find that a chat over a sandwich or a bottle of wine can go a long way to putting things back to how they were.

Donald Trump has this rare opportunity to do the job of president again, having had a gap in between to think about it all. Very few of us get that chance. I think, given another opportunity, I would reflect on one of my strengths - that I could see multiple points of view - being also a weakness. It slowed me down and I can see how it sometimes made me indecisive.

You can’t fake experience. There will be occasions now when I have resolved something and it was possible because I’ve called on something I learned over so many years past. But I am so thankful I am still learning, too. I still get those moments where I am getting better, and I love that.

Your aim should be a sense of accomplishment but it is very easy to fall into arrogance or over-confidence. Self-assessment as a leader is hard. You need to remember the things you have done badly as much as the things you have done well.

I love the word “wisdom”. It’s coming back into fashion. I don’t think you can get it without experience. It’s just such a shame you tend to get wisdom when you have less energy to exercise it!