You’re preparing to apply for a leadership role
You know what you have done. Turning that into something a panel who has never seen you work can verify is a different job.
There is a post, a deadline and a form. You have decided to go for it, and what remains is the work of presenting your leadership to people who have no other way of knowing about it. Applications can become difficult to distinguish when they describe what the applicant was responsible for rather than what changed because of them, or when they are written for any school rather than this one. Both are fixable, and both take longer than the evening before the deadline.
Presenting symptoms
- Reading it back, you cannot tell whether it is about you or about your department.
- You have written the same statement you would send to any school with the name changed.
- You can describe what you were responsible for, and you are struggling to say what is different because you were there.
Possible causes
- You may be claiming responsibility rather than evidencing impact, which can make it difficult for a panel to distinguish your contribution.
- You may not know what this particular school is appointing someone to do, as distinct from what the job title says.
- You may have written a list of duties, which will read like everybody else’s.
- You may be able to write it and not yet able to say it aloud under questioning.
It says what you were responsible for, not what changed.
Your most useful next step: Take each claim and write three things beside it: what the position was before, what it is now, and how you know. Where you cannot fill the third column, either find the evidence or drop the claim. Where the improvement was a team’s, say so and be specific about what your part in it was, because a panel may well be able to tell, and a candidate who is clear about their own part in a team’s work is easier to trust.
Lead behaviours
You do not really know what this school is appointing someone to do.
Your most useful next step: Read the job description and person specification alongside the school’s own published information, and work out what problem they are appointing someone to solve. Where you can legitimately speak to someone there, ask what the first year would need to achieve. Write for that, not for schools in general.
Lead behaviours
It reads like a list of duties and sounds like anybody.
Your most useful next step: Write the part nobody else can write: why this work, and what formed that. The book’s own warning applies here, that this is not a list of qualifications and achievements but an account of the values and experience behind them. Then anchor it to evidence, so that it is a story a panel can check rather than one they have to take on trust.
Lead behaviours
You can write it and you cannot say it out loud.
Your most useful next step: Take the three or four decisions you are most likely to be asked about and practise explaining the reasoning aloud, to someone who will interrupt. Reasoning that only works on paper has not been tested. Decide in advance what you will do when a question lands badly, because the recovery is more visible to a panel than the stumble.
Lead behaviours
Core behaviours
The book defines this as the discipline of confronting the reality of a situation and using evidence rather than a flattering reading of it. In an application the reality in question is your own impact, and the test is the one the book applies to a school’s data: what was the position before, what is it now, and how do you know. A claim that cannot survive that test is the one the panel will probe.
The book’s framework here is Public Narrative, and its Story of Self is described as revealing the values and experiences that shaped a leader’s commitment rather than listing qualifications or achievements. That is precisely what separates an application someone wrote from a list of duties anybody could have written. The book also requires the story to balance credibility with emotion, which is the guard against a personal statement that is moving and unverifiable.
The book’s claim is that the quality of your questions determines the quality of your decisions, and that leaders should understand before acting. Applied here, the thing to understand is what this school is appointing someone to do, which is frequently not what the job title says. Candidates who write for schools in general are answering a question nobody asked.
One of the book’s own examples of humility is a deputy who defers credit to the team after a successful inspection. An application is the single place in professional life where the pressure runs hardest against that, and a panel reading a candidate who has annexed a team’s work may well notice. The book is equally clear that humility is not self-deprecation, so this is not an argument for understating what you did.
The book defines this as articulating the purpose behind decisions so that others understand rather than merely comply. An interview is an examination of exactly that: not what you did, but why you did it and why it was the right call. Reasoning that has never been said aloud tends to collapse under a follow-up question.
Secondary behaviours
Use this for the interview itself. The book frames emotional regulation as pausing before reacting rather than suppressing the feeling, and the moment that matters in an interview is the one after a question has landed badly. How you recover is more visible to a panel than the stumble.
Use this on the preparation. The book’s point is that development is a discipline rather than a luxury, and that it includes dialogue with people who stretch your thinking. A rehearsal with someone who will actually challenge you is worth more than another redraft on your own.
A useful first action
Take the strongest claim in your draft and write three things beside it: the position before, the position now, and how you know. If the third is thin, that is the work, and it is worth more than another evening spent rewriting the wording.
Suggested approach
- Establish what this school is appointing someone to do, from the job description, the person specification and its own published information.
- List what you have actually led, and for each one write the before, the after, and the evidence.
- Say plainly where an improvement was a team’s and what your part in it was.
- Write the part nobody else could write: why this work, and what formed that.
- Rehearse the reasoning aloud with someone who will interrupt, using the decisions you are most likely to be asked about.
- Read the whole thing back and ask whether it could have been sent to any other school. If it could, it is not finished.