Do we do what we say we do?

clairevharley
Oct 3
6 min read

Last year I downloaded a habit tracker app. With so many spinning plates, I thought this would be a useful way of making sure I kept up the habits that I felt were the most important. My other aim was to make sure that I was regularly looking after myself through pregnancy, maternity and returning to work – a little pampering goes a long way after all. Instead, what I learnt was that I am a very inconsistent human!

There are some really interesting books about how habits link to school culture. For example, I’ve just finished Charlie Gilkey’s Team Habits. I’m sure we have all heard that often used quote from Aristotle ‘we are what we repeatedly do excellence then is not an act but a habit’. This is my assembly staple!

As a bit of an experiment, I put in all the things that I knew I should be doing regularly such working on my doctorate, listening to wider educational media and time for reflection. I even put some non-education things in there like making sure that I do a face mask regularly and catch up with a friend every day.

The thing that I've learned about myself is that I don't always do what I think I'm doing.

I would talk to friends about how often I was doing something, but when I checked I notice that I just… wasn’t. Being inconsistent might be a problem, but I don’t think its as big a problem as thinking that you are doing something when you’re not.

The way we view the world is through the lens of stories constructed in shared language (Bruner, 1986). The stories we tell ourselves, the rationalisations for our actions and our world views are linked to arcs we create in our heads (Campbell, 1949). I’m not saying we all have main character syndrome, but our understanding of the world is determined by our environment and how we view ourselves in relation to it; we constantly examine and reexamine who we are based on what’s happening around us.

The reason I think this can be problematic is that the perceptions of school leaders are at the heart of how schools operate. So, in a world where school leaders’ perceptions are consequently the reality for plans that impact the people around us, there is a need to critically reflect on our own practice. The reason I'm so excited about research engagement and evidence informed practice is that it is, Bandura (2001) tell us, systemic critical self-reflection.

Things aren’t bad because people are rubbish

The easy way to do things is to blame the person who was in charge last. It’s human nature and fits with the ‘hero's journey’ narrative arc that flows through every story we’ve ever told as humans (Campbell, 1949), but it’s lazy.

No system is perfect and you’re more likely to see this when you pick something up and less likely to care when you put it down. This doesn’t mean that people are rubbish. It means that the weight is heavy and the job is hard. Also, being self-motivated takes time, dedication and work. If we are not in a system where there’s time and space to honestly reflect with a critical friend about our work, the chances of us being very good at it for a sustained amount of time is…. pretty low.

A useful lens?

What happens then is that we get into a cycle that mirrors the heroes journey. Something wasn’t very good, we came along, we fixed it and then everyone lived happily ever after. But the reality of complex organisations like schools means that this perception of the situation is to ignore the realities of others. How did things get to a point where radical change is needed, if it is at all? The EEF (Sharpes et al., 2024) guidance for implementation in schools starts with reflection and uniting people for this very reason. There are, of course, circumstances where pressing the pause button and making radical changes are needed, but if it feels as though everything is totally awful and nothing is salvageable you’re either in very dire straits or you’re wrong about something.

Now this would never happen, but if you imagine your school on a day where everyone does everything they’re supposed to do. There is a buzz around learning, we have dotted the Is, crossed the Ts and everyone made it out to lunch duty. This school would still be filled with the same people who get stuck in traffic meaning tutor time is chaotic, forget to tell the pupils about the changes to assembly leading to a mess in the corridors and sit in their office whilst behaviour bubbles. It might feel like the latter is more likely, but this is probably as unrealistic a viewpoint as the first scenario.

Is doing what we say we do a good idea?

I’ve been thinking about what we do about this. Would it even be a good idea if every single person followed every school rule to the absolute letter all the time? Up front, the answer feels like an obvious yes if we are going to avoid being total hypocrites. But I also wonder if there are some instances in which we simply don’t do what’s written on the tin and that’s ok. We are all human and can’t do everything perfectly, so perhaps to ensure that we give the important things our attention, we need to be discreetly aware of the things we are going to pick up later on. What makes a culture is deciding where the hard lines are and all sticking to them.

If we don't do everything does that make us hypocrites? Maybe. Is there an easy answer to all this? Absolutely not. I don’t think that you have to be a perfect person to be an effective leader. The whole point of leadership, after all, is to train leaders who will one day surpass you and we can’t do that from a viewpoint that thinks we are already perfect!

What I think it does mean is that we can see the importance of reflective practice in leadership. Thinking about how our actions reflect our values. Before jumping to a conclusion, holding ourselves accountable for our emotional reactions and evaluating our sources of information and ultimately considering why decisions were made in the way that they were at the time before we change course. How do be balance imperfect people (which we all are) with clear cut systems?

Every plan that failed started with someone saying they'd do something. This is a sobering and humbling thought. No situation we pick up was created by someone who set out to not do the things. I think at an individual level we have to cut ourselves some slack, but if the system start to drop, this has a wider impact on the school so teamwork feels important here.

As always, this blog is a public sharing of my personal reflections. I don’t think I have the answers, but I do want to try and improve my own practice through this kind of thinking. I’m taking over leadership of different aspects of the school when I return from maternity leave this year and am going to consciously reflect on whether I am sending myself down the potentially unhelpful path of the hero’s journey. Thinking about how I can create an environment where (at least most of the time) my colleagues can do what we say we do.

Reflective Questions:

Do you do what you say you do? How do you know?
Where might there be gaps between what we think we are doing and what our day looks like?
How would you know you’re slipping into the narrative of the hero’s journey?
How do I create time, space and culture for myself and others to reflect critically and honestly?
What sources of information do I use when making decisions? How do I know they are the right ones?
What are my biases and how do I challenge these?
What needs doing now and what can wait?