During the toughest days of Covid, when loved ones were lost to the virus, the collective mental health was fragile and the quality of education was curtailed, I went through something of an existential reckoning.
To paraphrase my favourite poet, Horace, a man can only live his life happy and in charge of himself, if at the end of each day it is possible to say, “I have lived”.
By April 2020 I had dedicated the best part of my 30s to the school which I run in Dubai. And when I say dedicated, I mean overcommitted. Dubai College had been my morning, noon and night, my evenings and my weekends, the content of my dreams and often my nightmares.
“I wondered whether the previous eight years had been worth it.”
So, when Covid hit and I was sitting at home attempting to sustain a sense of community among staff and students in a very atomised and disjointed online world, I wondered whether the previous eight years had been worth it. If I had died the next day would I be able to say to myself, “I have lived”?
In all honesty, the answer was “no”. You can have too much of a good thing even when you live your life in service. So, I promised myself that if we got out of this alive, I would do something that would bring my often-neglected family closer together. It would help us to say to ourselves, if not at the end of each day then at least more often, that we have lived.
As such, of all possible pursuits, we decided that we would learn to sail. Sailing is after all the perfect metaphor for a life well lived: one man (or woman) in charge of their own destiny taking on mother nature, seeking new horizons, and exercising their freedom to explore the world.
“Of all possible pursuits, we decided that we would learn to sail.”
Having rapidly worked our way through the various levels of the RYA sailing courses, we undertook our RYA Competent Crew and our Day Skipper qualifications before taking the plunge and buying a boat, one of the two best days of boat ownership.
The other, as we are frequently told, being the day you manage to sell the damn thing. So far, however, we have not regretted a single moment, not least because of the sense of camaraderie which comes from joining the sailing fraternity and sharing experiences with like-minded people, who are often infinitely more experienced and yet no less humble in the face of the formidable power of the sea.
It was because of this guild of shipmates that I was recommended the book Heavy Weather Sailing, now in its 8th edition since it was first published in 1967.
“So far, however, we have not regretted a single moment.”
“If you buy no other book for your voyage, buy this one” recommends Pete Goss MBE, British yachtsman, and explorer who in his life has sailed more than 250,000 nautical miles.
In its current form, the book is divided into two parts, Storm Experiences and Expert Advice. The Storm Experiences are quite truly some of the most interesting, terrifying, and useful personal accounts which any sailor could hope to read.
Short, anecdotal and without unnecessary frills, each brief storm experience records the dangers the sailors have faced, the resilience of their crews, and the sequence of events which led to even experienced teams being overcome by the unpredictable power of the wind and waves often at the cost of their lives.
As well as being a metaphor for life, sailing is also, of course, a great metaphor for leadership. One leader and their team set a direction and then execute the journey while ensuring that everyone is safe, on board and sufficiently well-resourced. Despite the best laid plans, unforeseen circumstances often require the leader and their team to change tack, ride out a storm, or resolve conflict under pressure, or worse still abandon ship when all else fails.
“There is little appetite for leaders to declare when their ability to forecast challenges was inadequate.”
I have written before about the increasing need for school leaders to market themselves and their schools. In this process, however, there is little appetite for leaders to declare publicly when their ability to forecast upcoming challenges was inadequate, or their ability to motivate their team under extreme pressure was lacking. Who really wants to focus on the times when they lost a man overboard (metaphorically) speaking because they did not realise that they were not sufficiently secure in their position?
Imagine if an equivalent book existed for school leaders. What storm experience would you share for the benefit of fellow heads who have been brave enough to take on the challenge of the leadership of lives?
Would you admit your shortcomings? Have you sufficiently analysed the sequence of events which led to the disaster? In the expert advice section, what technical details would you be able to give to novice leaders desperate to learn what they can do to avoid similar mistakes?
“What storm experience would you share for the benefit of fellow heads?”
Unfortunately, school leaders work in what is rightly one of the most heavily regulated sectors on the planet. After all, our cargo is the most precious in the world: children’s futures. The risk of litigation which would come from admitting grievous faults as well as the need to sell schools to recruit staff and students, robs fellow heads of the opportunity to learn from our collective mistakes.
And yet as the Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana once advised, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
As such I look forward to a brave editor compiling the first edition of Heavy Weather Headship in the not-too-distant future.