The Seven Persistent Problems of School Leadership

1. Setting Direction and Building Alignment

The problem:
Schools are complex organisations with multiple stakeholders and competing priorities. Leaders must create clarity of purpose and ensure everyone is pulling in the same direction.

What leaders can do:

• Establish a small number of enduring, high‑leverage priorities.
• Build shared mental models so staff understand why the work matters.
• Communicate purpose repeatedly and consistently.
• Protect staff from noise, distraction, and initiative overload.

2. Enlisting Staff Contribution and Ensuring Staff Development

The problem:
Improvement depends on people, but staff vary in expertise, confidence, motivation, and capacity. Leaders must secure contribution while building capability.

What leaders can do:

• Create a culture where contribution is expected, supported, and valued.
• Provide domain‑specific professional development (curriculum, assessment, behaviour).
• Use modelling, coaching, and feedback to build expertise.
• Align CPD, QA, and appraisal so they reinforce each other.

3. Organising and Staffing the Curriculum

The problem:
Curriculum is the core work of the school, but designing and delivering it requires deep subject knowledge and careful deployment of staff.

What leaders can do:

• Prioritise curriculum expertise in recruitment and timetabling.
• Ensure subject teams have time and structures for collaboration.
• Align curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy.
• Monitor curriculum enactment, not just documentation.

4. Attending to Pupil Behaviour and Wider Circumstances

The problem:
Behaviour, attendance, safeguarding, SEND, and pastoral needs are persistent, emotionally charged, and shape the conditions for learning.

What leaders can do:

• Establish clear, consistent routines and expectations.
• Use data to identify patterns and intervene early.
• Train staff in behaviour, trauma‑informed practice, and inclusion.
• Build strong relationships with families and external agencies.

5. Diagnosing, Prioritising, and Managing Resources to Build and Implement Strategy

The problem:
Leaders must make decisions with imperfect information, limited resources, and competing pressures. These are classic “wicked problems” with no perfect solutions.

What leaders can do:

• Diagnose before acting; understand root causes, not symptoms.
• Sequence improvement work deliberately; avoid doing everything at once.
• Allocate resources to the highest‑leverage problems.
• Monitor implementation and adapt based on evidence.

6. Managing an Efficient and Effective Organisation (Administration)

The problem:
Operational demands (timetabling, compliance, finance, HR, estates, systems) are relentless and can easily overwhelm strategic leadership.

What leaders can do:

• Build robust, repeatable systems that reduce cognitive load.
• Delegate operational responsibilities intelligently.
• Use technology and routines to create organisational calm.
• Ensure operations serve the educational mission, not the other way around.

7. Developing Personal Expertise, Self‑Regulation, and Resilience

The problem:
Leadership is cognitively and emotionally demanding. Expertise is not innate; it must be built deliberately. Leaders must manage themselves to lead others well.

What leaders can do:

• Develop domain‑specific knowledge (curriculum, assessment, behaviour, implementation).
• Build mental models that support judgement under pressure.
• Use reflection, coaching, and feedback to refine practice.
• Maintain routines that support wellbeing, perspective, and resilience.

… And three general themes (to make 10 points in total!)…

8. Reject the “hero paradigm”… expertise beats charisma

The literature strongly argues against the myth of the charismatic, inspirational leader. Effective leadership is about expertise applied to persistent problems, not personality.

9. Leadership development must be problem‑centred, not competency‑centred

Ambition Institute emphasises that leadership development should be organised around the persistent problems, not generic traits or styles.

10. Context matters: the problems are universal, but their manifestations are local

Every leader faces the same seven problems, but how they appear depends on phase, community, staffing, and culture. Effective leaders adapt their knowledge to their context.

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