13 October 2026

Everyone can tell you what needs to change. Who helps you with the how?

When things got tricky in headship, Rachel Rose and I both turned to books, research and conversations with people who could help us think. Leading can be lonely, particularly when the pressure to improve is high.

There are often plenty of people telling you what needs to change. Far fewer can help you work through how to make it happen.

You know the children need things to improve quickly. You can see how hard colleagues are working. Somehow, you have to bring everyone with you, demonstrate progress and keep the everyday life of the school going.

Then another recommendation arrives. You may well agree with it. But you are still left working out what to do next.

We have both been there. Systems Leadership Theory gave us practical ways to understand what was happening, make the work clearer and consider what people needed from us to do it well.

The people part of school improvement

We spend a great deal of time developing our understanding of teaching and learning. Quite rightly. We read Rosenshine, think about modelling and guided practice, and consider how we check children’s understanding. We work carefully on how the curriculum fits together.

We feel just as strongly that we need to understand people’s behaviour and how we work as a team. We can have all that technical knowledge, but we still need people to be able to put it into practice together.

Social process can sound like an abstract term. In school, it is there in the conversation after a difficult lesson, the meeting where nobody raises a concern until afterwards, or the moment someone tells you they haven’t done what you agreed.

It is how we listen, explain, disagree, make decisions and work through problems. It affects whether people can use their expertise and contribute fully.

Systems Leadership brings these things together through connected principles, models and tools for understanding culture, capability, roles, task assignment and teamwork. For us, that made the work of leadership much more tangible.

But we thought we had explained it

You have shared the plan. You have talked it through. People have nodded, asked questions and contributed. You leave thinking everyone knows what needs to happen. You may already be thinking about the next thing!

Then something comes back looking quite different from what you expected. Or it hasn’t happened at all.

That is frustrating. Exhausting, sometimes. Especially when you know you will be the one explaining the lack of progress. But before we ask why someone hasn’t done what was needed, we have to consider whether we made it clear enough.

Brené Brown calls this “paint done”: explaining what the completed work looks like, why it matters and how we will recognise success. It is such a useful reminder that someone else cannot see the picture in your head.

Our Systems Leadership task assignment sheet helps us have that conversation. It takes us through context, purpose, the output required in terms of quality and quantity, resources and time. If we ask a subject leader to review reading, what do we actually want? A description of provision? An evaluation? Recommendations for change? Which year groups? What evidence? When do we need it, and have we agreed what time and support are available?

There is quite a lot tucked inside a request to “review reading”.

Working through it together gives the person a chance to question, clarify and tell you what might get in the way. It also makes you think properly about what you are asking. There can be a real sense of looking forward to reviewing the work together, hearing what has been learned and discussing where it might take us next.

You can expect a lot and still help people feel safe

Mary Myatt’s High Challenge, Low Threat is another useful reference point for us. We can be ambitious about the quality of the work and create an environment where people can ask for help, admit uncertainty and learn from feedback. There are still difficult conversations. Sometimes the work isn’t good enough. Sometimes an expectation has been clear and has not been met. We need to address that.

But how we do it matters.

When you are under scrutiny yourself, it is worth noticing what you do with that pressure. Does it help you clarify the priorities and work out what support people need? Or does it travel straight through you and land on everyone else? We would want someone to tell us early that they were struggling. We would need to respond in a way that made them willing to tell us again.

Do people feel heard?

Who speaks in our meetings? Who doesn’t? What happens when someone disagrees with us? Do we listen properly when their concern complicates something we are keen to get moving?

Listening with concern means making the effort to understand what someone is telling us and why it matters to them.What happens afterwards matters too. Have we acted on what we heard, or explained thoughtfully why we have made a different decision?

A teaching assistant may have noticed something that changes our understanding of a child. Someone in the office may see a difficulty families are experiencing that we haven’t spotted. We need their knowledge, and they need to know their contribution counts.

Helping people give their best

We are interested in how much of people’s energy gets caught up in unclear expectations, waiting for decisions or worrying about how something will be received. What could they do if we helped remove some of those difficulties?

In our school improvement work, we used the Systems Leadership team leader and team member steps and traps to look at how we worked together. Everyone had a part in that. Being the headteacher certainly didn’t put either of us outside it.

Who helps with the how?

When improvement is urgent, making time to look at how the team works can feel like another demand. But misunderstandings, unresolved tensions and work that needs doing again are already taking our time.

By this point in the autumn term, September’s plans have met the reality of school life. It is a good moment to look at where things are getting stuck and ask what would help. This is the experience we bring to our work together through Systems Leadership CIC. Through leadership development, work with teams and culture audits, we help schools and trusts understand what is happening and work through practical ways forward.

We know how much it matters to have someone alongside you who understands the responsibility. Someone who will help you think, develop your own judgement and use tools that will still be useful after the conversation has finished.

We want leaders to have that support with the how. To be able to enable others to do their work well, build healthy, high performing teams and turn their intentions for children into reality.

If any of this feels familiar, we would welcome a conversation.

Angela O’Brien and Rachel Rose

Find out more about Systems Leadership CIC.

References

1. Rosenshine, B. (2012). Principles of Instruction: Research Based Strategies That All Teachers Should Know. American Educator, Spring 2012.
2. Brown, B. Dare to Lead: Key Language, Skills, Tools, and Practices. Glossary entry: “Paint done”.
3. Myatt, M. High Challenge, Low Threat: How the Best Leaders Find the Balance.

www.systemsleadership.org.uk