ABSTRACT
More often than not, a new head will ‘inherit’ a leadership team appointed by her predecessor. How this team reacts to having a new leader will depend much on their personal agendas, as discussed in chapter 10. A wise new head will have found out as much as possible about these people before taking up the appointment so that she is able to work sensitively on developing a working relationship with them. Several new heads we talked to commented on the pleasant surprise they had on finding how willing the senior staff were to be supportive and prepared to make changes. Where this did not happen it was usually only one member of the team who obviously found it difficult; in this case the head tried to find a different way of using skills to give the person a new focus. In one comprehensive where one deputy was appointed to the headship of the school, he found an opportunity for the other to lead the school’s bid for specialist status and the ensuing developments. There are cases where all attempts fail to integrate a disappointed deputy into the team and the best way forward is for this person to find a job elsewhere, but it is not easy for someone who has held a senior post in a school for a long time to find another satisfying post. We found a substantial number of heads who had learnt eventually to work round a deputy or senior teacher whose style or attitude was not sympathetic to the way they wanted the school to progress. If this was the position with more than one senior member of staff the situation could be impossible.
