A Leadership Journey in Practice and Development.
Over the past few months, I’ve embarked on a deeply reflective journey into my own leadership practice, particularly within the context of staff development in education and care settings. What began as a compliance-driven approach—focused on meeting targets and regulatory benchmarks—has evolved into a more purposeful, values-led, and collaborative model of leadership.
Through critical engagement with leadership theories such as transformational, instructional, and distributed models (Leithwood et al., 2008; Bush, 2020), I have recognised the importance of moving beyond transactional leadership. Transformational leadership, with its emphasis on vision, trust, and empowerment, has shaped how I now co-construct professional learning experiences with colleagues.
Meanwhile, distributed leadership has shown me the value of shared ownership and the power of collective expertise (Spillane, 2006).
My reflective submissions, guided by Schön (1983) and Kolb’s (1984) models, have allowed me to critique how my leadership style has shifted from delivering training to facilitating professional inquiry. I’ve seen the real impact this has had on workplace culture—staff are more engaged, collaborative learning is thriving, and CPD is increasingly linked to real-world classroom and care experiences.