Mind your Head

Mind your Head An Emotional Intelligence Guide for School Leaders by David Boddy John Catt Educational 2012 Paperback, 214pp. Price £15.99 ISBN 978-1-908095-62-6

I have to begin this review with a confession - the educational leadership section of my personal library is extremely slim. As a young Head, many years ago, I did invest a certain amount of time, energy and money in books whose covers and titles seemed to offer the promise of a fast-track route to mastering the leadership and management challenges of my new role. Perhaps through laziness, or maybe because I put more trust in my own insights about the situations I had to face, the advice in those pages was rarely utilized.

Not surprisingly, my investment in the literature of leadership has deteriorated over time and the few books on my shelves today tend to be biographical accounts of how 'great educators' have striven to put their vision into practice rather than the quasi-scientific handbooks that pander to the latest trends in organizational theory. Contrasting with my literary experiences, I ought to add, I have gained a great deal from courses and workshops (and collaborating with colleagues and consultants) where the banter and dialectic of professional exchanges have always been immensely rewarding and inspirational.

Given my personal bias, then, the thought occurred to me that I might not be the best person to review this book. I even wondered whether I would make it all the way to the end. But on opening the first pages I found some tantalizing comments that begged me to continue. About the Author and Acknowledgements are sections that are usually skipped by most readers rushing to get to chapter one, but it was here that I learned that the author, David Boddy, is no ordinary Head.

He came to his position after successful careers in journalism, Conservative Party politics as Margaret Thatcher's press secretary, business and charity, and he was not even a qualified teacher at the time if his appointment. In his own words (which suggest something of the hyperbole that is a characteristic of his writing), 'the last time I had been in a Head's office was 40 years earlier at my own secondary school'.

Just as surprisingly, up there with...