#WomenEd Blogs
That was a year
As I draw breath on this rainy Saturday afternoon, I take this space to look back over my first year as CEO of Veritas Multi Academy Trust. This has been an amazing year, demanding of my depth of leadership experience, but also my self-belief in my leadership skills.
Leadership of Learning
And I smile wryly at a comment made by an experienced male CEO, you're very confident… I may, no will, come back to that.
I began the year committing to a 100 days listening project. I was determined to frame our Trust Improvement Plan in the voices of our community: children, teachers, teaching assistants, support staff, business team, governors, trustees, parents, other volunteers. Yes, this was an extensive list to hear as many voices as possible. Feeding back on the listening project at our annual conference in November, I shared all, the amazing, the good, the less good and … well the ugly.
My leadership is premised on transparency, truth, and humility. I committed to taking on some tricky issues.
This has been my go to...
I received two emails in the last weeks, which have gone some way towards affirming my leadership behaviour AND that I'm not over confident. As part of my listening project one of our staff members asked that I review our Staff Absence Policy, and part of it, which she felt was inappropriate. Working with my HR Lead we have transformed our Staff Absence Policy. It's a strange thing to shout out about in this blog. But for me that policy encapsulates what I set out to do: embrace flexible working, make our work place truly family friendly, make explicit the values of equality and equity.
So this brings me to a second email; from one of our new Trustees. She thanked me for being true to my values, for my tenacious commitment to challenging practices that may be normalised in our sector: in short using my leadership position to bring about change.
I want to thank #WomenEd for giving me my voice, my self-belief, the understanding that too often women enter the room apologetically.
Of course, I had a voice, but how often had I experienced explicit or implicit messaging that my voice or my chair at the table wasn't welcomed? Or, that I should know my place… women leaders continue to be in the minority. When we do have a chair at the table, we shouldn't appear too confident, when we speak we need to "clad it with warmth" (Mary Anne Seighart).
Too confident, no.
Determined to be a change agent, yes.
Determined to speak up and speak out, yes.
Cladding it with warmth, maybe.
Speaking truth to power, always.
And of course, with a little help from my friends #WomenEd. ????
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