I still remember the feeling of busy mornings clearly: dropping my children at breakfast club, finding a parking space and mentally mapping out the day ahead as I walked into school, my thoughts already turning to the first meeting of the day. At the time, I was determined to be seen as committed. I loved my job, I cared deeply about the children, and I wanted to progress. Looking back, I did not lack ambition. What I lacked was certainty that leadership could be done well and sustainably. That tension, between aspiration and endurance, is something I have since recognised in many capable women working in schools. Why progression stalls Over the years, I have been part of countless conversations where someone suggests a colleague for a leadership role, only to add, almost as an aside, 鈥渂ut she probably won鈥檛 go for it鈥�. Often this is attributed to confidence, timing or personal circumstance. But, from where I sit now, progression stalls for a different reason. People are making rational judgments based on what leadership looks like in practice. Busyness as a measure of commitment School leadership has always been demanding. That is not new. What concerns me is when endurance becomes the primary marker of suitability. In many settings, long hours, visible busyness and personal sacrifice become normalised. The risk is not that people work hard. The risk is that working unsustainably becomes the benchmark. As I moved into more senior roles, I became increasingly aware that these patterns were not inevitable. They were being shaped by systems, by habits and by leadership decisions. One of the first practical shifts I made was around timetabling. I appointed co-headteachers, two highly capable women with young families. The arrangement raised eyebrows. It was described as 鈥渢ricky鈥�. But the alternative would have been to lose two exceptional leaders. That felt far riskier. It also sent a clear message: flexibility was not an inconvenience, but a legitimate starting point. Flexibility with clarity One misconception I still hear is that flexible leadership means lowered expectations. In my experience, the opposite is true. Flexibility only works when there is clarity.聽 Clarity about what the organisation needs and what it cannot sustain. Importantly, leadership responsibility does not reduce simply because it is delivered differently. Leaders working over fewer days are still holding the whole role. Treating flexibility as dilution only reinforces the very barriers we are trying to remove. The everyday signals leaders send Policy matters, but culture is shaped just as much by what leaders do when no policy is in front of them. For example: When do meetings start and finish? How do we respond when someone leaves on time? What do we praise, and what do we quietly expect? I often think back to my younger self in the car park. What would have helped then was a leader who noticed, not to excuse performance, but to understand context. Support does not make leadership weaker. It makes it more sustainable. Leadership visible at the point of entry Some of the most effective change I have seen has come from being explicit, particularly during recruitment. Making expectations around workload, boundaries and flexibility visible rather than implied. Being explicit about how leadership can be done often produces candidates who would otherwise assume the role was not compatible with their life. If leadership progression depends on personal sacrifice, it will always exclude talented people. When it is made clear how leadership roles can be done, people make different decisions about stepping forward. Recruitment platforms such as the government鈥檚 can support this transparency, giving schools an opportunity to make those signals explicit rather than assumed. How a role is described matters just as much as the role itself. When an employer instead articulates how responsibility is shared, how workload is managed and what flexibility looks like in practice, they invite a different group of leaders to see themselves in the role. Framing the challenge differently I don鈥檛 believe schools have a shortage of talented women. I do believe we have leadership systems which too often rely on personal sacrifice rather than thoughtful design. The question for senior leaders is not why women hesitate to pursue leadership. It is whether the structures we have built reflect the lives which people are actually living. When we change what we normalise, we change who steps forward.