Nobody tells you how lonely middle leadership is

You were good at your job. That is why they promoted you. Your lessons worked, your results were strong, students respected you and colleagues came to you for advice. Then one day you were handed a team, a budget line and a set of results that now had your name on them.

Nobody tells you how lonely that first term can be.

You are no longer quite one of the team, and not yet one of the leaders. Yesterday you complained about decisions in the staff room. Today you are expected to explain them. Friends become people you line manage. And every problem in your department, whether you caused it or not, is now yours.

I have been that new leader, and in more than twenty years I have appointed, coached and supported many more. Almost all of them made the same mistake I made. They tried to prove they deserved the job by changing things straight away.

The first month: shut up and listen

I mean that kindly. In your first thirty days, your most powerful tool is a question, not a plan.

Sit with every member of your team, one at a time, and ask: what is working, what gets in your way, and what would you change if you could? Then listen. Do not defend, do not explain and do not promise. Write it down. You will be astonished at what people tell a leader who genuinely wants to know.

Read the data, the schemes of work and last year's reviews. Learn who really makes decisions and which battles have already been fought and lost. And sit down with your own line manager and ask the question new leaders are often too proud to ask: what does success look like for me by Christmas?

The second month: earn the right to lead

Trust is not given with a job title. It is earned, one small act at a time.

Fix the thing that has annoyed your team for years. Run a meeting that finishes early. Protect someone from a pointless task. Thank somebody, specifically and publicly, for work that nobody else noticed. These things seem small. They are not. They tell your team that when they speak, you act. That is the currency you will spend later, when the harder conversations come.

The third month: decide where you are going

Now, and only now, set the direction. Not ten priorities. Three at most, grounded in evidence and shaped with your team rather than handed to them. People will walk a long way for a plan they helped to write. They will resist, quietly and indefinitely, a plan that was simply announced.

The hard truths

You cannot be everybody's friend. You can be warm, fair and kind, and still hold people to account. In fact, clarity is the kindest thing you can offer a team.

You cannot do it all yourself. If you are working until midnight because you will not delegate, you are not being dedicated. You are taking development away from your team.

And you cannot avoid the difficult conversation. Every problem you ignore in October becomes part of your department's culture by March.

Middle leadership is one of the hardest jobs in any school. It is also, I believe, the one that changes the most children's lives, because it is where strategy finally meets the classroom. If you are in your first term and feeling the weight of it, that is not a sign you are failing. It is a sign you understand what is at stake.