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View from the Top: Neal Bailey on why the little things matter

By Neal Bailey, headmaster of Pinewood School
02 November 2021

For the latest instalment of our new thought leadership initiative: View from the Top, Neal Bailey, headmaster of Pinewood School, tells us why it's the little things that truly matter...

Building and sustaining relationships is one of the most important elements of any leader’s role.  As the popular quote attributed to Peter Drucker says: 'Culture eats strategy for breakfast'. Translated for schools, you can have the greatest strategy in the world, but if relationships between leaders and staff and amongst themselves is not good, then delivery and child outcomes will not be what you want them to be.

What is rarely heard on leadership programmes is that senior leaders should spend time on little things. However, these are the things that matter to teachers and that affect wellbeing in the workplace. Little things matter to children too. Of course, the curriculum content must be covered, but children also appreciate their teacher noticing the effort they have put in with a piece of work or remembering their birthday. These are the little things that forge relationships of trust and, without these, learning is reduced.

Sometimes the best way to remember the value of small things is to look for random acts of kindness you can do for others. One must never underestimate the power of saying good morning with a smile, offering to hold a door open or stopping to ask how someone’s day was. 

It’s so easy to feel like we are being overlooked at work or in our community when we are doing the small, faithful things, because they are usually not the glamorous things. It can feel more gratifying to be the loudest voice in the room, but we need to remember that just because a voice is the loudest, it doesn’t mean it’s the one making the biggest difference. 

The more thankful we are for what we have, the less inclined we are to focus on what we don’t have. As a result, gratitude helps us value the small things we often take for granted because we start paying attention to the good things in life. 

Schools and leaders can now be more creative in how they integrate little things into the day – an email to show appreciation for a job well done or a card in someone’s pigeon hole thanking them for covering your double French lesson at the last minute. The key is to be creative. 

As Vincent van Gogh once said, 'Great things are done by a series of small things brought together'.  



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