Pioneering Leadership: adopting a vertical approach

In transforming our organisation, Pioneer Educational Trust is investing in developing leaders who can thrive in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world. As such, we have drawn on research into vertical leadership development to design our own leadership programme supporting teacher agency and building leadership capacity at all levels. Why traditional leadership development fails Leadership is crucial in complex, uncertain times. Schools need more leaders, but not through appointing onto leadership teams. We need a leadership revolution in schools where everyone sees themselves as leaders, acting with the empowerment, agency and confidence needed to take on the complex work of educating young people in the 21st century. Traditional leadership development programmes (a day’s course or NPQ) often fail to make the profound changes in mindset and personal capacity needed for professional growth. These traditional methods adopt a horizontal approach (Petrie, 2014) focused