I was working with a leadership team on how to have successful difficult conversations. Whenever possible, we work on real situations they have because my aim is to improve the difficult situation for the teacher, the leader and the children, and once we’ve worked on a real situation and they use it, they have a […]

Sometimes a conversation is difficult because the other person doesn’t understand there is a problem – you might have told them several times but feel that they don’t appreciate how serious this is or that they don’t acknowledge that there is a problem. One of the school leadership team’s I support had exactly this issue; […]

A difficult conversation case study I trained a school leadership team of 7 on how to have more successful difficult conversations. When I do this, I teach them the skills in the morning and, in the afternoon, I support them approaching a difficult conversation they have ahead of them. In this school, there was a […]

A difficult conversation case study I first met head teacher Lisa at one of the Successful Difficult Conversations training days I run and she later booked me for the next stage of the course ‘Flexing your Leadership Style’ which I ran with her leadership team. During the course of the day, we talked about issues […]

Three tips for talking to teachers when their pay is higher than performance  Pay is always a hot, emotive topic, and in teaching it’s about to get a lot hotter; performance-related pay is going to mean some difficult conversations around pay every year.  But in the first two years, 2013/14 and 2014/15, these conversations will […]

Alright, I admit, I don’t enjoy conflict any more than you do; my heart pumps harder, my palms get sweaty, I can feel my voice wobble and I worry terribly that I’m going to upset the other person and risk doing some irreparable damage. But I know that conflict is good, at least healthy conflict […]

Conflict is a daily part of life as a leader; sometimes it’s big, sometimes it’s small, usually it lands on us, but if you want be the best leader you can be, and create the best school culture you can, then you need to look for conflict. I don’t mean you go ‘spoiling for a […]

I get to work with a lot of great head teachers, ones with a real sense of moral purpose, who work hard and are willing to make tough decisions for the benefit of their pupils. But one thing keeps coming to me as an issue that these capable, purposeful heads face: managing adults. Not in […]

I spent a great day with a head teacher and deputy head working on difficult conversations. These two were a great fun pair who, to their credit, never shied away from having those conversations so many of us avoid. However, they had reached a point where they both had some conversation classed as ‘top-level trickies’ […]

You don’t want to do it but you want to have a cleaner, clearer life. I’m sure my flatmate thinks I like cleaning, because ritually once a week our flat is cleaned. Like most people, cleaning is far from the highlight of my week and I’d really like to avoid it; the problem is I […]