9 Ways School Leaders Can Self-Promote Without The Ego

A Leader’s Guide to Self-Promotion: How to Raise Your Profile Without Raising Eyebrows

As school leaders, headteachers and principals, we work tirelessly behind the scenes to advance learning and support students. Modest leadership can lead to missed opportunities to progress your career or even open doors to other opportunities being offered. In this post, I share 9 evidence-based strategies to give your achievements due recognition while not coming across as an egotist if you self-promote.

1. Use Dual-Promotion

Complimenting peers alongside your wins prevents appearances of grandstanding. Highlighting pooled effort demonstrates collaboration skills that top Headteachers and multi-academy trust leaders value. Don’t be scared to lift and praise everyone in the project, department etc. If you are a leader your role is to demonstrate the impact of your leadership, you can do this by making sure your teachers and middle leaders shine.

2. Offer Genuine Praise

Name specific contributions from colleagues to authenticate compliments. Vague statements ring hollow and self-serving versus recognition with care, respect and appreciation. Genuine and specific praise also indicates to your headteacher, executive head or governors that you know the details of the project, that you had an active role and were paying attention. This can be looked at as a willingness to “Listen to Learn“.

3. Share Strategically

Target promotion to appropriate audiences. Frame excitement over milestones professionally for the Governor’s meetings versus casual excitement among friends. Consider the medium, tone and goals for each channel. One of the questions you always get at leadership interviews is about communicating with stakeholders. Part of this is knowing what is appropriate to share with different groups. I have worked for headteachers who have overshared with the school community and leaders who have guarded their every act (and the school development plan) like MI6.

4. Spotlight Your “Why”

Beyond your role, people connect through shared purpose. Articulate motivations driving you to be the best school leader you can be. I spent a long time determining my “Why” but not until I had been a leader for a few years. I wonder what would have happened if I had done this exercise earlier. This is not about vulnerability but about allowing people to know what drives you and therefore what is going to shape your decision-making.

5. Show Humility

Acknowledge obstacles overcome on the journey with lessons learned to build rapport. Own imperfections to show growth from failures as much as triumphs. Plain sailing doesn’t make great sailors, it is the storms that build our skills, and we have had our share of challenges in education over the last few years. If you self-promote don’t be afraid to talk about what you would do differently.

6. Provide Context

Place accolades within fuller stories demonstrating grind behind results to avoid seeming slick or detached from realities. Colourful anecdotes enlighten dry facts and data. Don’t be afraid to tell a human story behind projects, how did the pupils react, what did you learn, and who has impressed you?

7. Solicit Feedback Privately

Solicit candid feedback from trusted colleagues to gauge how your sharing of accomplishments affects perceptions. Use this input to continuously hone your professional presence with self-awareness. Asking for authentic appraisals from a soundboard group, friend or even worthy rival helps ensure recognition of milestones comes across authentically in a spirit of growth, not gratification. Their perspective helps develop the presence of mind around talking about yourself.

8. Practice Active Listening

Make others comfortably share in conversations through open body language and follow-up questions validating their importance too. You are aiming for balanced dialogues not talking about yourself so the other person is sneaking glances at the clock above your head.

9. Thank Support Networks

Acknowledge spouses, parents and community. You haven’t got to where you have alone. Uplifting your work to maintain life-professional alignment brings authentically to overt or subtle self-promotion.

Summary & Further Reading

Strong reputations arise from substance, not spin. Before you self-promote you need to have the results, the impact of your leadership to back this up. The following links are all free to access (at time of publishing Jan 2024) and provide evidence base for the ideas above

Amabile, Teresa M., and Steven J. Kramer. “Inner work life.” Harvard business review 85.5 (2007): 72-83.

Frahm, M., & Cianca, M. (2021). Will They Stay or Will They Go? Leadership Behaviors That Increase Teacher Retention in Rural Schools. The Rural Educator, 42(3), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.35608/ruraled.v42i3.1151

Peifer C, Schönfeld P, Wolters G, Aust F, Margraf J. Well Done! Effects of Positive Feedback on Perceived Self-Efficacy, Flow and Performance in a Mental Arithmetic Task. Front Psychol. 2020 Jun 10;11:1008. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01008.

Weston, Hindley & Cunningham (2021), A culture of improvement on teachers working conditions – working paper