Next week, I will be packing my bags and heading back to
England for a few days to attend a conference about women in education
leadership. I will also spend some time helping with the professional
development of some newly-appointed female leaders in their school. I am always very excited when my experience
of education takes a new turn and the recognition of the need for a community
of support for women in the profession is a wonderful thing. It has, along with many other colleagues,
made me think of my own experiences and my own feelings about my career. The more I read and reflect, the more I keep
coming across words like ‘confidence’, ‘balance’, ‘guilt’, ‘opportunity’,
‘support’ and ‘choice’. Various forums
have debated these, offering up personal stories, discussing the nature of
being a female leader or that of one who is also a mother, arguing out
work/life balance, promoting the right to lead authentically and in one’s own
style and much more.
Increasingly, I find myself listening to women considering
their careers, who are filled with doubt and tension about what to do next and
the only advice I can ever give is to do what is right for them right now. I
too have had the sleepless nights and butterflies in the stomach caused by the
fear of bad decisions, the terror of messing it all up and having to compromise
at the cost of all that hard work. When
I contemplate it all, there is one word that keeps bobbing about in my mind. ‘Permission’. More specifically, it is the permission I
have slowly learned to give myself to do what I think is best for me. It has been a lengthy and often frustrating
journey, but one that may well resonate with others.
If you asked me what has been the significant shift in my
attitude, I would say that it has been that instead of seeking others’
approval, their acceptance, their perception of where my career should go,
their sense of my professional worth, I can now finally find the validation and
direction from within. This has not been
easy. While I have never been an ambitious,
career-driven seeker of opportunity for the sake of it, I care deeply and
passionately about education and being an educator. If I have ever gone for a post or promotion,
it has been because it was the right thing for me and it would make me happy to
be able to contribute more through that particular role. As I have moved through my life, other
factors have played a part in my happiness – my family, my home, my sense of
wellbeing, my close friends, my thirst for knowledge, my understanding of
time. As this has happened, I have had
to learn to give myself permission to do what enables me to feel peaceful and
happy about my own life, without worrying so much about what other people think
about my decisions. To be honest, if I
hadn’t, I would be a miserable wreck and that is no way to lead your life.
It started before I even met my husband or became a parent
or had anything else much to think about in my life. After a very rapid move through promotions in
a couple of schools, I suddenly realised that I had been entered into a race I
wasn’t even aware existed and it terrified me.
From nowhere, it became about becoming a Deputy Head in order to reach
the heights of Headteacher as quickly as possible. If I didn’t do it in my mid-thirties then I
was no longer one of the frontrunners. It bothered me, made me achingly uncomfortable
and I felt like I was in danger of letting myself be convinced of what I wanted
rather than following my heart. I remember how, one sunny Sunday morning, I suddenly
felt an unforgettable sense of calm when I decided that I wanted to go and work
elsewhere in education for a few years. Just because it would give me a great
experience of so much in the wider system. So that is what I did. It made me
even more passionate about education. It made me want to continue on as a
school leader because there was work to be done and some incredible people
already doing it. Most of all, I did it because I wanted to and not because it
was what was expected of me.
Once family happened, my ability to give myself permission
to do what was tolerable to my soul became even more important. I found this
out after I had cried for 3 weeks straight dreading telling the Head at my very
new school that I was unexpectedly pregnant. She was brilliant, told me some
enduring home truths about being a working mother and couldn’t have been more
supportive when we then had to move due to my husband’s work. Awkward. I had to
let myself absorb the guilt and embarrassment of not having control over my own
life and career, but equally to accept that nothing would have been worth our
family living apart all week, every week. As I said in my leaving speech, my
younger, feminist self would have imploded. My older, wiser feminist self was
happy to be able to make the choice and be content with it.
A few years later, I had strong words with myself and said
it was absolutely ok to say that I didn’t want to be considered for potential
promotion to lead a school because I didn’t know if we would be moving again
the following year. I knew I couldn’t live with letting anyone down, least of
all myself and my own sense of professionalism.
I gave myself permission to skirt the edges of madness holding together a
web of support around me and my son, so that I could give it my all again in that
second Deputy Headship, with my husband in another demanding role with
unpredictable hours. I learned to ‘let
it go’ when things didn’t go to plan. I stopped looking at how many cars were
in the car park when I got to school and at the end of my working day, its
length dictated by childcare. The world never once ended, I didn’t feel less
respected. I realised that if I worked hard, was a nice person and did what I
said I was going to do, then nobody cared what time I entered or left the
building. My voice was heard and I was taken seriously because I thought about
what I said and made sure I knew what I was talking about, not because I
declared how busy I was or how many hours I’d worked over the weekend.
Most recently, I gave myself permission to be happy to take
a long sabbatical that potentially jeopardised the next steps in my career,
because it meant that my family could move abroad for a few years and have an
amazing experience together. Which we
are. I have started studying again, I am
very involved in my son’s school, and I indulge myself in writing, which I have
always adored. Every day, I tell myself
it is ok to feel a pang when I see someone I know move on to their first
Headship, when I watch posts go by in schools I would have loved to lead, when
I read about the latest policy I want to be in school to fight from the
trenches, when I can’t participate more because I’m not ‘home’. I have learned to give myself permission to
choose the right path for me, for living in the present, and it has been the
most liberating thing I have ever done.
I am entirely at peace with my life, both personal and
professional. I wish I’d known that would be the case as a middle leader in her
late twenties with no life, a caffeine addiction, plenty of great ideas and too
many late nights working, trying so hard to live up to other people’s
expectations. I wish I hadn’t wasted so
many hours since then feeling guilty, confused, inadequate, emotionally
exhausted and a disappointment because I just didn’t always want, or could do,
what others felt I should aspire to. I
wish I could have told myself what I have learned.
Be true to your own ambition, not that of others. Know
that it is both good and right to put your personal self ahead of your school self. You only gain
professional respect by walking the walk and being a consistent, compassionate
human being. Life is messy, you will always have days when you feel like it has
all gone wrong. It all works out fine in the end if your aim is to be happy.
When I left my school last year, someone asked me if I would
find it difficult to give it ‘all’ up.
Without even thinking, I simply said that I didn’t feel I had anything
to prove to anyone except myself, and I absolutely meant it. It felt great.
This post was inspired
by the WomenEd network and their first ‘unconference’. You can follow @WomenEd
on Twitter and more details about their networks and events can be found on
their website http://www.womened.org/
