Preparing For Your First Head Of Faculty Role
Ryan Woolaston
This summer I’m moving to a Head of Faculty role in a much bigger team and school. As the change draws closer I’ve been giving a lot of thought to how to approach those first few days and weeks and what I can do in the lead-up to taking on this new role. This is not my first rodeo, but it was once. I think back to my first Head of Faculty role and how unprepared I was, and wish I could give myself a few tips for that transition into that step up. The self-doubt and uncertainty that comes with a new leadership role is completely normal. It shows you care. Don’t forget that every leader you respect has been in this spot at some point.
This is what I’d want to know if I were starting my first Head of Faculty role again.
What can you do before you start?
How much you already know about the school and department will depend on your context; an internal promotion gives you a head start on institutional knowledge that a move to a new school doesn’t. Either way, the approach prior to starting should be the same. Talk to the outgoing Head of Faculty if you can, but don’t stop there. Can you get time with your new team, with senior leadership? Can you look at recent results, student voice data, or the latest Ofsted report? It signals to everyone around you that you want to meet the faculty where it is, rather than arriving with a predetermined agenda built on no context at all. We all know teacher time is finite and workload is the ever-present spectre looming over everything, so a deep dive might not be realistic before you start, but a solid grasp of the broad strokes doesn’t take long. It’s worth the investment.
I’m a big advocate for continuous learning and have a shelf full of books on teaching and learning, but I’ve never been particularly drawn to leadership books. Too many of them are generic, not education specific, and pull you in enough different directions that your leadership ends up incoherent as a result. There are a few worth reading ahead of your first role though. Pick one or two that speak to you and read them with a notepad nearby to jot down key ideas or reflections. For me, Adam Robins’ Middle Leadership Mastery and Shane Leaning’s Change Starts Here are great education-specific starting points, grounded, practical, and written by people who have actually worked in schools in the very positions you are about to embark on.
Day one and the first week
There can be a strong urge, given this is your first Head of Faculty position, to want to demonstrate your competence. I get that. I did it too. The truth is that trust in your competence already starts at a reasonably healthy level, and as long as you don’t do anything outrageously bad (which you won’t) there is a generous grace period for this. The school has put you through a rigorous interview process, so that trust in your competence is already baked in. The one thing that is sometimes overlooked, much harder to cultivate, and much faster to lose, is trust in your character. As a leader, why do you do the things you do? What are your guiding principles? If you can start building that trust from day one, everything that follows becomes easier. Your job in this first week is simple: listen, watch, learn, resist the urge to prove yourself, and start to show your team what you are about. Leadership, change and navigating the inevitable challenges are all much easier when the people around you know your intentions are rooted in authenticity and good intentions.
One of the things I think really facilitates building trust in your character is meeting with your team one-to-one and genuinely listening. Have a couple of questions ready but be open to wherever the conversation goes. These are intentionally vague and open-ended with some focused on the team and some on the individual. Use some or use your own but remember the goal here is to listen, let your team tell you what they want you to hear.
Some of the questions I use for this are shamelessly stolen from Change Starts Here:
What is the biggest challenge here?
What do we do really well?
Where have we done change well here?
What have you achieved here that you are most proud of?
The first term
Your team will be looking to you to set and maintain the tone from early on. That’s fine, just make sure the signals you send are deliberate ones. A few things worth doing consistently from the start:
Honesty
If you don’t know something, say so but add specifics about a resolution.
“I don’t know the answer to that right now. I’m going to do X to find out and I’ll get back to you by Y.”
Simple, but it builds more trust than blagging it ever will.
Gratitude
I’m fairly convinced that half of my success as a leader comes down to Freddos and post-it notes. Leave a note (and edible treat) on a colleague’s desk thanking them for something specific they’ve done. Your team wants to feel seen, and there is nothing worse than suspecting your leader doesn’t notice your work or value it.
Follow through
If you say you will do something, do it. Every time.
This sounds obvious but it is the thing that erodes trust fastest when it doesn’t happen.
A quick win
Find one thing that has been quietly frustrating the team for a while and sort it. It doesn’t have to be big. Nothing signals that things are going to be different more effectively than fixing something that’s been sitting on the pile.
Know your people
Find out about their lives outside the classroom. Families, hobbies, what they did over the holidays. The most successful teams are filled with people who feel valued and cared about as individuals, not just staff members.
The tricky part is that despite this article nothing can really prepare you for the moment it all becomes real. You’ve got the job, you’ve done your preparation and then someone asks you a question and every pair of eyes in the room turns to you expecting an answer. That feeling doesn’t mean you’re in the wrong seat. It just means you are experiencing the scope of the role for the first time.
The internal experience of early leadership is something that doesn’t get talked about enough. There is a version of yourself you feel you are supposed to project and a version that is quietly panicking behind it. The swan on the lake. Above the water: calm, composed, in control. Below it: an entirely different story! The gap between those two things is completely normal and, for what it’s worth, it closes much faster than you might think.
One of the most useful things (which I didn’t do the first time around) is to find a buddy. Not a manager, not someone in your department, but someone in the same/similar role you trust outside of your immediate context who you can be honest with. Someone who will listen without judgement and push back when you need it. I still seek these people now whenever I move to a new school and the difference is significant. You are not supposed to figure all of this out alone.
Your first Head of Faculty role will be the hardest and most formative leadership experience you have. Not despite the uncertainty and challenge, but because of it. Remember that nobody gets this completely right the first time and the leaders worth learning from never pretended they did. Do the preparation, trust the process, and give yourself the same patience you’d give a member of your team who was finding their feet in something new.
Good luck and above all, enjoy it. You’ll be fine. Probably better than fine.
