Best Practice

Middle leadership: Six leadership styles

Aiming for headship Middle leadership
In a five-part series on middle leadership, Adam Riches will be offering advice and tips on excelling in all aspects of this vital role in schools. In article two, he looks at six middle leadership styles


There are a number of different ways in which you can lead in school and depending on your capacity there is a variety of approaches you may take (or may be required to take).

Your own leadership style will depend very heavily on the ethos and vision of your school or wider trust, your own personality traits, and the requirements of your role.

Middle leadership requires you to be adaptable, versatile and most importantly motivational for those who you work most closely with. Often, on a day-to-day basis, those you manage will be directly affected by your leadership style.

Knowing what kind of leadership style is required for a task to be completed is of paramount importance – it can mean the difference between success and failure. Different situations and scenarios require different approaches and selecting and applying the right type of leadership can have a huge impact on your own workload and the workload of others, not to mention their morale and motivation.


Effective Middle Leadership Series

Part 1: The principles of effective middle leadership: Published August 31. Click here.
Part 2: Six middle leadership styles: This article
Part 3: Leading the subject curriculum: Published September 13. Click here.
Part 4: Assessing and quality assuring teaching as a middle leader: Published September 20. Click here.
Part 5: Collective efficacy for your team: Published September 26. Click here.


Knowing your team is key

As I said in article one of this series, to be an effective middle leader you need to know your subject and your team well, very well in fact. On an individual basis, you need to ascertain what motivates those who you line manage. Not only will this help your team to feel valued, it also means that you are able to apply the most appropriate leadership styles to each individual. Different people will respond to different styles of leadership. Once you see your team as a collective of different people with different needs, your mindset on leadership styles changes dramatically.

Many of you will have seen those “what type of leader are you?” quizzes. While it is important to highlight that there are different types of leadership approach out there, I don’t agree with the idea that these exercises imply you are innately only one type of leader. It may be that your personality suits one of the types of leadership approaches, but what is important to consider is that being team-centric is a more valuable approach than saying: “This is how I do it and that’s that.”

It may take a while to get it right and the situation is always fluid when it comes to your approach to others but take the time to listen and talk to your team. It really pays dividends to understand others.


Styles of leadership

Categorising leadership into styles is a traditional approach that gives us some way of differentiating how we adapt our behaviours as middle leaders. As already mentioned, it is a good idea to see these styles as a toolbox of potential approaches that can be used – not innate qualities that you cannot and should not diversify away from.

A lot of the leadership styles we see in teaching are directly translated from the business world. The slight differences of course are the subtleties of the requirements of school leaders – although we share a lot of similarities to business leaders, we remain student-centred, not profit-driven.

Before I continue, I will also signpost to a 2018 SecEd article by Matt Bromley in which he discussed five types of school leader – surgeons, soldiers, accountants, philosophers, architects – based on earlier research published in the Harvard Business Review (Hill et al, 2016).

While these styles are more focused on senior leadership, there are many crossovers and many of the themes are reflected in the leadership styles I outline below.

So how might we lead as a middle leader and what are the advantages and drawbacks of each approach?


The coach

A coaching leader is someone who can ascertain their team members’ strengths, weaknesses and motivations and uses this understanding to help them improve.

This type of leader often observes practice and then provides regular feedback with challenging projects to promote growth. In contrast to mentoring, coaching helps the member of staff with their own journey of discovery much more implicitly than mentoring would.

A coach leader is often skilled in setting expectations and creating a positive, motivating environment for colleagues. The coach leadership style is hugely motivational, but of course this type of leadership can be hugely time-consuming and may only be appropriate for specific contexts.


The visionary

Visionary leaders have a powerful ability to drive progress and instigate incentives during periods of change by inspiring employees and communicating the power of their plans and vision. One of the key traits of a visionary leader is that they are able to motivate their team through clearly outlined outcomes. This type of leadership is especially helpful for small, fast-growing schools and those who require drastic changes.


The autocrat

Autocratic leaders tend to be labelled as authoritarians. Quite often, these leaders are focused predominantly on results and efficiency. Decisions, and direction is often settled on alone or on some occasions with a small, trusted group. Autocratic leaders expect employees to do exactly what they’re asked, without deviation or free-thinking. Where compliance is paramount and experience is minimal, this type of leadership approach can be useful. However, one issue that arises from a prolonged period of autocratic leadership is a reduction in creativity and innovation, which could potentially lead to demotivation and stifled growth.


The servant

A servant leader puts their staff first in all situations. Their mindset focuses on the concept that when team members feel personally and professionally fulfilled, they are more effective and are more likely to buy-in to the vision and ethos of an organisation. The focus on employee satisfaction and collaboration often results in higher levels of respect for these types of leaders.


Participative

The participative style leader uses a combination of styles to create a kind of democracy. These leaders ask for a level of input from their team before making the final decision. Including team members in planning can be hugely motivational (if the planning is then implemented) because the members feel their voice is heard and their contributions matter.

This leadership approach can be hugely motivational if staff see their ideas and input put into action. One question leaders who adopt this style may want to ask themselves, however, is whether the sharing of the decision-making is taking away from the direct vision of the organisation – too many cooks and all that.


Transformational

A transformational leadership style often looks very much like a coaching style, with the biggest difference being the focus on organisational vision and improvement as opposed to individual improvement.

Transformational leaders spend much of their time on the overall vision of a school. This style is most effective with teams who can work with relative autonomy and are able to handle delegated tasks. Transformational leaders thrive with well-established colleagues who have a good level of experience in their specialist fields.


The reality

Having an awareness of different leadership styles can help with the way in which you manage a task as a leader or, in fact, can help you understand as a teacher how and why your leader is taking the approach they are.

As with anything, different approaches will yield different outcomes. A consideration when leading is that every action has a reaction and as such, each style of leadership has advantages and direct implications.

We must always consider the way in which different approaches may negatively affect our teams as well as how much they may help.

Ultimately, to be a brilliant middle leader, you need to ensure that you maintain adaptability and help your team grow. Your style will change as you and your team develop and the challenges you face change. Just remember that you can utilise different leadership styles to get the outcomes you need.


Further information & resources