If the SAS Survival Guide was a Leadership Manual.

This handy little guide aims to equip you to deal with any challenging situation. But can we apply it to the challenges of school leadership? No Copyright infringement intended buy a copy here or preferably here .

1. Contingency plans.

Solid advice here, have your plans ready, and a backup plan, I have made plans at 7.30 to have them dashed at 8. Then again at 9. If you have procedures in place to deal with the myriad of mini disasters that occur during the day then you will avoid panic and any long term problems.

 2. Keeping your skills and experience current.

When you find yourself in a difficult situation or caught off guard by an unexpected turn of events you will need all of your knowledge and experience ready to deal with that. Whether this be the right frame of mind, confidence or just the ability to make a decision on the spot, the more knowledge of your organisation you have the better equipped you will be to deal with this effectively. #notice what is going on around you, get out of the office and #connect with those around you.

3. Planning

If you are trying to drive change in an organisation planning is the key to success. The mention of timescale is really important, demands on our time are immense and we need to respond and mange those demands effectively. In our case the emergency procedures will be staff absence, dealing with urgent student needs. Maybe even our own wellbeing. we should plan for high impact projects being realistic about our capabilities and the amount of time we will require to complete without exhaustion occurring.

4. Working in a group.

  The key to leadership, identify the strengths of your team members. Nominate the roles each is to undertake. The more well defined the more efficient the project will run. Drop the unfit…? this I’m not so sure can be applied to leadership. it is our role to develop others. Find their abilities, support and mentor.

“Ensure everyone is familiar with the equipment” making sure everyone is trained and has the skills they will need to complete the tasks given is vital.

5. Research

Saving the best advice until last. It is essential to develop not only an in depth knowledge of your field. But also your team. The better you know people the better you can support them to achieve your desired outcomes.

Climate can relate to the ethos and culture of you organisation. Speed of the river could be the capacity your organisation has to change, how resistant will people be, how fast can you expect the flow to take you?

So as a Leadership manual the SAS survival guide is not far off the mark. Do you have an idea for a book that could be an unexpected source of leadership advice?