Prologue: On the Touchline
It was one of those crisp, bright weekends, parents lined the rugby pitch, coffees steaming, conversations ebbing and flowing between phases of play, my firstborn was playing. He found space, cut inside, and then, feet pumping; shoulders set dived over the line. The noise that burst out of me was pure joy, I jumped, hands in the air; and in that instant, pride drowned out everything else. I was 32 weeks pregnant with my third child and had been advised to take it easy because of a low‑lying placenta. The moment had triggered a major bleed.
My husband, was miles away in the Isle of Wight on a charity trek to raise funds for wheelchair‑accessible trampolines at the school where I was Head. I can still remember the thinness of my message, when I phoned him: “I’m bleeding. Going to hospital. Baby might be early.”
At the hospital decisions were brisk. I was monitored. The gravity was palpable but calm. A doctor explained the risk that premature delivery might be necessary if the bleeding couldn’t be controlled. A hormone (steroid) injection could accelerate our baby’s lung development to increase his chances if he arrived early.
Then came the sentence that has stayed with me:
“This is going to hurt.”
The injection went into my thigh. It was the right thing to do. It was necessary in that moment, but ‘necessary’ can still be agonising physically, emotionally, and existentially. Having it meant facing the possibility of delivering without my husband by my side, and the very real risk that the bleeding might not stop. We had two other children. I kept scanning their faces in my mind. What if something went wrong?
None of the options felt like good ones. Every path carried risk. Every decision was going to hurt and yet, I had to face this.
The pain was immediate and overwhelming. At first it was just intensity, but within seconds it constricted my breathing. My chest tightened, the room narrowed, and I heard myself say, “I can’t breathe.” The team moved in close. Voices anchored me. Hands steady, professional, they guided my breathing and grounded my panic. I had entered what was likely a panic attack, wrapped within real medical danger.
I wasn’t ‘strong’ in that moment. I was held, and that truth has become a central lesson in leadership. It reminded me that sometimes the bravest, most responsible thing we can do is to say, “I’m struggling. I need help.”
From Crisis to Compass: Doing the Right Thing
I’ve led through many difficult decisions since then, across schools, with families, with staff, and at Trust level. And I’ve made mistakes. But that day taught me something enduring:
Doing the right thing often feels difficult and uncertain. And yet, we must.
Leadership is not the art of finding perfect choices. It’s the responsibility of choosing the right ones when none of them feels comfortable. The cost can be real; relationships under strain, scarce resources, public scrutiny, and personal doubt. The work is to hold steady and to act with integrity.
As Trust leaders, there are moments when we must look colleagues in the eye and say:
‘This is going to be difficult. But even if it’s difficult, we must and we’ll do it together.’
What Emotional Intelligence Looks Like in Real Life
Daniel Goleman’s framework for Emotional Intelligence (EI) gives language to what sustains leaders through complexity:
- Self‑awareness to notice the fear, the stress, and the potential for it to cloud judgment
- Self‑regulation to remain steady, providing containment when anxieties surge
- Motivation grounded in purpose, children, families, communities; rather than ego or optics
- Empathy so that decisions remain human as well as efficient
- Social skill to build trust, share difficult messages honestly, and align diverse teams
Those clinicians who helped me in hospital weren’t simply applying medical expertise; they were co‑regulating me, modelling calm so I could find mine. That is EI in action. In a Multi‑Academy Trust, it’s the same; people take their cues from how we show up, not just what we decide.
EI doesn’t remove the pain of hard choices. It makes it possible to move through them with dignity.
From Touchline to Trust: Why This Matters for MAT Leadership
Leading a Multi‑Academy Trust is rarely about elegant solutions. It’s about balancing imperfect options across multiple schools and communities and doing so in public. Safeguarding pressures, SEND complexity, recruitment and retention, finance, estates, attendance, behaviour, inclusion, each carries consequence; all arrive at once.
Values are not wall art in that world. They are your operating system.
Support as a Core Organisational Value
In our Trust, support has to be tangible. Just as I needed a team to help me breathe and think, school leaders need a Trust that will catch, steady, and resource them at pace.
Leadership Sets the Tone
I am also learning, in real time, what values‑led system leadership looks like in practice through CEO Paul Stone’s leadership. What has struck me most is not the absence of challenge, but the way it is held. The consistency with which people, purpose and integrity are placed at the centre sets a clear tone across the Trust: pressure is acknowledged rather than denied; support is deliberate rather than performative; and difficult decisions are framed through values, not urgency alone.
Watching this approach has reinforced something fundamental for me: culture cascades. When the tone from the top is principled and relational, it gives others permission to lead with honesty, to ask for help early, and to make courageous decisions without fear of being left isolated. That kind of leadership doesn’t remove difficulty, but it changes how safely people experience it.
Specialist Provision and Lived Experience at the Centre
In special education, this approach becomes even more critical. Anticipated SEND reforms and evolving guidance are currently causing uncertainty within the system and anxiety within the SEND community. Lived experience must be our compass: children and young people whose needs don’t fit neat boxes; families who have advocated for years; staff who carry daily emotional and professional labour.
Practically, that means:
- Co‑producing pathways and plans with families and young people
- Designing multi‑disciplinary hubs of expertise that schools can access quickly
- Transparent communication about trade‑offs, thresholds, and timelines
- Wellbeing architecture for staff who hold others’ distress
Back to the Touchline (and What It Gave Me)
I often return to that Sunday. To my firstborn’s try. To my unguarded leap of joy and what followed. It would be neat if the moral of the story were ‘stay calm and everything will be fine.’ It wasn’t like that.
The truth is messier and truer:
- Joy and risk coexist.
- Necessary can still be painful.
- Leadership sometimes looks like being held by others so you can make the next right decision.
That day gave me a compass that I often use subconsciously in leadership:
- Tell the truth about difficulty.
- Ask for help sooner than you think you need it.
- Act from values, not from fear.
- Keep people in the room, even when answers are incomplete.
- Choose the humane path, especially when none of the options feel good.
If you are leading in a Multi‑Academy Trust right now, I suspect you recognise this:
The right decision is rarely the easy one.
It may be contested.
It may hurt.
But it matters.
When the next hard decision arrives and it will, remember:
“This is going to be difficult. But it is the right thing to do, and we will not do it alone.”
On the touchline that day, celebration and crisis arrived in the same breath. What carried me was values, people, and support. That’s the work of Trust leadership too: building systems that can hold our schools when the ground shifts so children, families, and staff can flourish.
In case you wondered- the youngest was fine and has gone on to find novel ways to annoy his big brothers.