At this year’s Annual Conference, ASCL launched a year-long project on Ethical Leadership in Education - you can read more about the background to this in Carolyn Roberts' article Shared Values in issue 96 of Leader magazine.

This is the fifth in a series of eight blog posts, where Carolyn adds further context to the subject and poses questions relating to this proposed new commission.

How do the Nolan Principles compare to ‘incentivised’, ‘exceptional’ leadership?

Or

What have we become?

At a conference once upon a time I exchanged pleasantries with the chap next to me. We had a perfectly civil and sensible conversation right up to the point when he told me that, as a leader, he was “beyond outstanding and going for exceptional”. I bade him good bye with a “Well done you!”, and as I left, my only thought was - how did we get here? What would possess a person to say that to a stranger? How could a public servant be so egregiously boastful? What was the expected response? “Oh my! Good grief!  You’re kidding?”

This was vintage Wilshaw. He wanted to identify a new breed of exceptional heads who took on struggling schools and helped them out of trouble.  ‘Incentivised’ was another calibration, with a reasonable purpose of trying to coax folks to be heads in places they wouldn’t otherwise want to go without extra cash.

It didn’t really work; still no one wanted the intractable jobs even for ready money and a big badge. Heartening, perhaps, in one way, depressing in all others.

How do we know what's right?
When I do speaking gigs on ethical leadership I’m interested in finding out colleagues’ thinking.  Do they have an internal mechanism for keeping themselves stable, measured and motivated in what is often an insane profession?  How do they know what’s right? One of the little tests I administer (low stakes, high frequency) is about the Standards for Public Life, otherwise known as the Nolan Principles.   

I’m always surprised by how little they’re known, but perhaps that’s my age. I remember the government from which they emerged.  It had had a bit of trouble with sex and envelopes of cash so in 1994 Prime Minister John Major announced the Committee on Standards in Public Life.

“To examine current concerns about standards of conduct of all holders of public office, including arrangements relating to financial and commercial activities, and make recommendations as to any changes in present arrangements which might be required to ensure the highest standards of propriety in public life.”

Tony Blair extended it to review the funding of political parties and in 2013, David Cameron’s government added “… all those involved in the delivery of public services, not solely those appointed or elected to public office.”   

The Committee’s remit means it “can examine issues relating to the ethical standards of the delivery of public services by private and voluntary sector organisations, paid for by public funds, even where those delivering the services have not been appointed or elected to public office.”

Do they mean us? They surely do.

The Principles are seven simple words:

1. Selflessness
2. Integrity
3. Objectivity
4. Accountability
5. Openness
6. Honesty
7. Leadership

In a profession where you can be exceptional, incentivised, outstanding, good, requiring improvement, inadequate, or charismatic, inspirational, and where too-frequent news stories suggest a confusing approach to funds and power - perhaps we should look again?

The Nolan Principles requires the locus of our motivation to be in the quiet service of others. They expect old-fashioned British behaviours of reserve, humility, and a bit of decorum. They demand propriety. They preclude the vainglorious ‘look at me’ which has infiltrated leadership discourse this century. We should know them, use them, tattoo them on ourselves and paint them on our doorposts.

Our education service won’t get any better if the best leaders have to be exceptional rather than collegiate.  Good leadership should be the norm, recognised and encouraged as such without bragging or gold-plating. We should be valued for diligence and effectiveness, for the stability and hope we bring to our communities, and for the example we set to the nation’s young.  

We shouldn’t need to be incentivised to do a hard job, because the rewards should be there in good salaries, manageable workloads, community respect and the satisfaction of a job well done. Our jobs should be manageable. We should be able to work steadily to make things better for children and not be at the mercy of those who know little of our daily work.

Most of all, we should demonstrate in ourselves the values of public service so that many, many more of our colleagues want our jobs and want to be like us.  If that happened, my chap at the conference would be an inexplicable and embarrassing relic of a time when we temporarily lost our minds and our manners.

Get involved

In 2018, ASCL would like to be able to propose a Code of Ethics for Education so that together, we’ll be able to talk to the public clearly about the ethics we want to pass on to our young people.

In order to achieve this, we need your help. If you would like to be involved in any way, or if you would like to share your views on this important issue, please email codeofethics@ascl.org.uk