Pick your shot: How cricket can help you make smarter leadership choices

Life as a school leader is marked by the need to constantly make decisions, the results of which can make or break a career. I liken this to the experience of a cricketer and this is a good place to start when considering decision-making in school leadership. Whilst not a perfect match the following analogy is worth considering. If you know absolutely nothing about cricket then I apologise for what may be totally unintelligible, otherwise stick with this and hopefully you’ll see the point.

It could be argued that the job of a batsman is to make runs but even before this the main job is not to lose his wicket. In cricket any delivery that is coming straight at your wicket must be played, however it can be played in two ways, either simply fending off the ball or hitting it to score runs. The analogy with school leadership is that there are some tasks that you have no choice about playing, these are the must-do tasks which cannot be avoided. Such tasks could include exam entries, exam analysis, schemes of work, curriculum statements, and so on. Other tasks may come your way that you don’t have to undertake, these are the shots you simply don’t have to play but there are three likely outcomes. Going for a big hit at a wayward ball may have several different outcomes, the ball may sail away over the boundary, you may simply miss the ball and look a little foolish or you may smack the ball skyward and get caught.

Here’s an exercise for you to undertake. Consider your role and list as many of the leadership/management tasks and decisions you undertake (including those you have to do and the additional tasks that you don’t actually have to). Now assign them to the following cricket analogies according to how you have responded up to now:

The shots you have to play

• Defending your wicket (not playing a shot, just stopping the ball knocking your stumps over).
• Defending your wicket but playing a shot (whether going for a single or the boundary).
• Have you ever been clean bowled?

The shots you don’t have to play

• Belting the ball over the boundary.
• Clipping the ball and being caught out.
• Flailing at the ball, missing and looking foolish.

A little story. In my first Head of Science role I decided that we had to have a drive on “science in society”. I got up in front of my department and espoused the virtues of the undertaking and genuinely believed that we should put this a long way up our list of priorities. So I expected everyone to produce worksheets, create opportunities to talk about applicable science and then put their findings in a shared file. When I got to the end of the year our results had improved (though not massively) and so I went to the file and found that the only work that was in it came from me. Though I still firmly believe in teaching science in an applied and relevant way I probably went about the wrong way, created loads of work for myself and ended up just looking a little foolish in front of my department. Which shot did I play?

So to summarise. Before you undertake a task decide whether you have to play the shot at all. When you’ve decided that ask yourself what type of shot you are going to play. Will you go for the boundary or just play defensively? Have you developed the skills and confidence to play a risky shot that may end in disaster?