Career barriers and professional support: Perceptions of global majority trust leaders

QIAN LIU, GILLIAN KEIGHTLEY, CALUM DAVEY AND KAMAL BODHANKER, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TEACHING, UK

Introduction 

The lack of ethnic diversityThe recognition of individual differences in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, physical ability, religious beliefs and other differences across the teaching workforce in England remains a persistent issue (Sharp and Aston, 2024) and is particularly stark in school leadership. For example, in 2020/21, 86 per cent of schools in England had an all-white senior leadership team (Worth et al., 2022). Recent figures from the School Teacher Workforce (DfEDepartment for Education - a ministerial department responsible for children’s services and education in England, 2025) report that 91.8 per cent of headteachers are white British. Similarly, global majority leaders (i.e. those who self-identify as non-white or indigenous to the Global South or who have been racialised as ‘ethnic minorities’) (Campbell-Stephens, 2021) remain underrepresented in multi-academy trusts (MATs). A recent survey found that only 2.3 per cent of MATMulti-academy trust - a group of schools working in collaboration, governed by a single set of members and directors chief executive officers (CEOs) with 15 or more academies came from the global majority (Dyson, 2024).

Given increasing ethnic diversity among students (DfE, 2024), a more diverse teaching and leadership workforce is needed, as ‘diversity within schools is valuable in fostering social cohesion and most importantly, in supporting pupils to grow and develop in an environment of visible, diverse role models’ (DfE, 2018, p. 2). Research also highlights positive effects of diverse teachers and leaders on students’ social-emotional, attitudinal and behavioural outcomes (e.g. Sharp and Aston, 2024).

However, global majority teachers often face barriers to leadership progression, retention and promotion, such as racism and racial stereotyping, religious discrimination, value clashes, additional workload and pressure, and limited support (Miller, 2020a; Miller and Lashley, 2022). Yet little is known about the career barriers faced by global majority leaders in MATs and the forms of professional support that they perceive as being beneficial. To address this gap, this article shares key findings from a recent study involving 10 global majority executive leaders currently working in MATs.

Research

Information about the 10 participants is shown in Table 1. They included five current CEOs, one deputy CEO, two directors and two principals. They comprised two men and eight women, all of whom self-identified as being from ethically minoritised backgrounds. Six of them were recruited from a professional development programme for serving and aspiring MAT CEOs and four of them had expressed an interest in the programme. They shared their insights via individual semi-structured interviews. Guided by our research focus on barriers and professional support, we used a thematic coding approach to analyse the interview transcripts. Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1989) provided a theoretical lens to understand how different barriers (e.g. institutional, systemic and representational) intersected to shape the lived experience of individuals and how they were shaped by their intersectional identities (e.g. gender, race, class). For instance, women of colour may face greater barriers to senior leadership promotion because of additional responsibilities (Elton-Chalcraft et al., 2018). Ethical considerations were carefully applied at all stages of this study. Participants are identified by numbers rather than by names throughout to preserve anonymity.

Table 1: Participant information (n=10)

Career barriers 

The interviews revealed three main categories of barriers, related to system, structure and representation.

Systemic barriers

Systemic barriers refer to barriers within a system that lead to unequal opportunities for some groups. In terms of systemic barriers, racism in schools and communities was frequently mentioned. For example, one interviewee said, ‘In terms of ethnic minority background, I mean when I was new to teaching, I have suffered racist abuse from students.’ (P5) Another expressed that she often received death threats throughout her career, which affected her sense of safety and wellbeing. These accounts align with existing literature highlighting racism as a common barrier for teachers from the global majority (e.g. Adams et al., 2023; Haque, 2017).

Structural barriers

In addition, many participants highlighted structural barriers in their career journeys. These are barriers that are embedded in organisational systems. One prevalent issue identified by the participants was the lack of diversity on trust boards, the central leadership team and interview panels. For example, these participants noted:

I’m the only external regional director that this organisation has recruited in. I’m the only Brown face.

P7

They were, at the time when I was looking at headship, very white and lacked diversity.

P8

This barrier left participants feeling undervalued. They had to be ‘exceptional’, showing extraordinary agency, determination, resilience and hard work to maintain and advance their leadership trajectories (Bush et al., 2007; Miller, 2020b). For instance, one interviewee reflected:

Sometimes you have to work harder. You have to be that much better than other individuals in the room or going for the same job your failure rate will be higher than the average, but you have to persevere with these things to be able to rise to the top.

P3

However, structural barriers should not be addressed solely through personal effort (e.g. being more resilient, working harder); rather, they need to be tackled and removed at organisational and system levels (Sharp and Aston, 2024).

Representation 

The third main barrier relates to the CEO role’s representation. This refers to the lack of representation of global majority leaders at trust leadership level. Stereotypes of the CEO role were recognised by the participants. As CEOs are predominately white men, women leaders felt that they had to change their behaviour to ‘fit in’, and global majority leaders felt that they were viewed as ‘outsiders’ to local communities. As an interviewee shared, ‘the only feedback that I received [from the interview] that I didn’t understand [was a town’s name], which I don’t get.’ (P7) An interviewee reflected on her experience and questioned:

Do all leaders have to look the same? Do they all have to say the same things? Do they all have to come from the same background? Do they all have to have been to the same university? What else can people bring? So that’s what I’m trying to advocate for.

P10

Participants also noted the lack of diverse role models in leadership. One interviewee noted that when picturing senior leaders in education institutions (e.g. OfstedThe Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills – a non-ministerial department responsible for inspecting and regulating services that care for children and young people, and services providing education and skills, Department for EducationThe ministerial department responsible for children’s services and education in England), people usually thought of white leaders: ‘I think inherently you don’t think that it’s necessarily something that is for people from an ethnic minority group.’ (P5)

Similarly, an interviewee emphasised:

Because we’ve not got a diverse group of people in the CEO role. You don’t naturally [have] people around you who you think or that you see, I’m going to be like that, that’s the role model. That’s the model I’m looking towards.

P4

Professional support 

In response to these barriers, participants identified several forms of professional support that they found – or would find – beneficial. These include diverse role models, mentoring, networking and shadowing opportunities.

First, having access to diverse role models was seen as important for trust leaders at all career stages. Early exposure to role models was thought to encourage more global majority candidates into teaching. One interviewee explained:

It’s about sort of having role models that are around [from] a young age and educating those from BAME [Black, Asian and minority ethnic] groups to understand that education really is, you know, a great career.

P5

For those in leadership, visible role models were described as inspirational and essential for progression. As one interviewee noted:

You’re not going to get people coming to be CEOs if you’re not developing your middle leaders, your senior leaders, your teaching staff and showing them that there are people within your organisation that you can aspire to.

P8

Second, many participants expressed a need for mentoring. In particular, they recognised interconnections between mentoring, networking and role-modelling. For example, one interviewee expressed a need for ‘a kind of mentoring group or networking opportunities’, so ‘at least the next generation of system leaders will be able to see role models’ (P1).

Additionally, networking opportunities were perceived as important for understanding career trajectories and accessing support. Moreover, participants expressed the need to have shadowing opportunities with serving CEOs. One participant suggested, ‘I think for me it would be the opportunities to talk to CEOs, to shadow them, to walk a week in their life.’ (P7)​ For aspiring CEOs, this could also allow them to ‘expand networks’ and ‘make the job easier to understand’ (P9).

Conclusion and implications 

In summary, this article has presented global majority trust leaders’ perceptions of the barriers to leadership progression and the professional support needed. The barriers experienced are intersectional at systemic, structural and representational levels. This suggests a need to move beyond deficit approaches that only place responsibility on individuals. It is more important to make change at institutional and system levels. For example, building an anti-racist and inclusive culture across MAT academies is valuable. This could involve raising awareness and developing diversity literacy among all students, staff, parents and trustees.

Based on professional support needs expressed by participants, we suggest that MATs and training providers:

• offer personalised mentoring that responds to global majority leaders’ career and personal development needs at different career stages 
• increase the visibility of diverse role models and make them reachable to global trust leaders
• increase the diversity of trust boards and senior leadership teams, given their influence on recruitment and organisational culture
• expand access to professional support networks with diverse stakeholders, including but not limited to other trust leaders, policy shapers and/or makers, and organisations/institutions in the public and business sectors 
• provide tailored training that foregrounds equity, diversity and inclusionAn approach where a school aims to ensure that all children are educated together, with support for those who require it to access the full curriculum and contribute to and participate in all aspects of school life and focuses on developing global trust leaders’ personal and collective capacity
• offer shadowing opportunities with executive and senior leaders through immersive learning in other trusts.

References