Have you heard the one about JFK and the janitor?

The story goes that President John F Kennedy was visiting NASA headquarters and introduced himself to a nearby janitor who was mopping the floor. When asked what his job was, the janitor replied: “I’m helping put a man on the moon”. 

To have a culture so strong - where all members of staff, at all levels, are united in a common goal - does not stem from a single figure at the top, but rather collective leadership that runs through the veins of an organisation. 

All staff are leaders

At my trust, we make no apology for putting our teachers on a pedestal. All staff have leadership responsibility and must contribute towards the vision, but to be able to do that well they need to understand what that vision is.

What are the key goals that the school is working towards? What do we believe in? What would we go to the wall for above all else, and what principles should enable all staff within the organisation to make decisions which will be aligned? 

And this is where our leaders come in. Not only are they the ones responsible for enabling a climate and culture where the teachers and support staff can do their job, without impediment, they are also the ones responsible for instilling the vision.

Earlier in my career, during training days, I did not fully commit to sessions that were about “vision”. I was more focussed on practical strategies that I was keen to implement. Looking back, I did not value enough the time spent thinking about the macro, but rather was too focussed on the micro, the here and now.  

Since its inception, the David Ross Education Trust - a family of 34 primary and secondary schools, ranging from inner-city schools to small rural ones - always had a clear identity and mission: to broaden students’ horizons and aspirations by investing in the whole person.  

As we looked to develop the vision further, our school leaders visited many schools and trusts across the country, and we listened to important voices in the field such as Christine Counsell (now one of our trustees), Dylan Wiliam and Doug Lemov.   

The DRET way

As a result of this work, we developed ‘The DRET Way Secondary’ - a formal document that outlines the vision of our secondary schools, explicitly and without apology.

From the outset, we were determined for the development of this to be a collective endeavour, to ensure that it was wholly shared, and is easy for colleagues to share with their teams with integrity.  

In fact, this vision has been so strong that it has already helped us attract new members to our senior leadership teams who were drawn to our mission, including three new principals and several senior leaders.  

At this level of leadership, it is impossible to feel that you can drive an agenda that you don’t believe in, alignment is extremely important, and as soon as we started to be explicit about this, we noticed that we were getting more applicants for roles, and having people contact us speculatively.   

Being clear and transparent to everyone about what we believe in means that we recruit staff who see the world as we do - fellow travellers who are mission-aligned. This is undoubtedly good news for retention.  

Added value

Values matter and we are unlikely to keep, or get the best work from, people who have a different philosophy to ours. So we talk to everybody about our three core beliefs: a knowledge-rich curriculum; a warm-strict behaviour ethos; and explicit instruction which celebrates our teachers as the expert in the room. 

We aim to be the employer of choice in the regions which we serve, and we know that having a strong vision is one of the most powerful recruitment tools we have. It also means that we can successfully grow our own. 

Our leaders at all levels are expected to coach and develop those for whom they are responsible, and to ensure they continue to progress. This creates a culture of improvement across our schools and means that talented staff know that they will find new opportunities within the trust. 

We know how much talent there is within DRET, and it is a genuine pleasure to watch our people grow and thrive, as people, as teachers, and as leaders. It is my job to nurture this talent, to watch them develop and to know that our vision is safe in their hands. 

Mark Neild is deputy CEO at the David Ross Education Trust