#EdInfluence

Nobody is coming to make leadership easier, and that can be the most useful thing we admit out loud. We sit down for our Series Five finale to trace the thread that keeps surfacing from wildly different guests and settings: stop waiting for perfect conditions, lead from where you are, and build momentum with the people already in the room.

From there, we explore what it takes to stay effective when uncertainty is the default. We talk self care as a leadership practice rather than a luxury, including the need for real thinking time, “time with no purpose”, and the tougher idea of “living in the gaps” instead of filling every silence with a phone, a meeting, or a hot take. 

We also dig into why curiosity matters when leaders do not have all the answers, and how experimentation can beat the fear of getting it wrong.

If you care about education leadership, university governance, organisational culture, and better decision making under pressure, this one will give you plenty to chew over. Follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review, what theme should we pull on in the next series?

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In this episode Janet Smith, CEO and Principal of Nottingham College, joins Nick MacKenzie to discuss what it takes to rebuild a college after years of mergers, low morale, financial pressure and the fallout of Covid-19. 

Janet talks openly about the personal experience that shaped her approach to leadership, and why resilience and humour matter when the challenges don't let up. 

She explains how she arrived at a college with no shared identity, an Ofsted ‘Requires Improvement’ grade and a history of industrial action - and what she did about it. 

The conversation covers how to engage staff at scale in a college with seven campuses and 1,700 employees, from strategy built with people rather than imposed on them, to principal's lunches, roadshows and a five-word mission statement that stuck. 

Janet reflects on the moments when a turnaround starts to feel real, including the collective response to an Ofsted Good outcome and the impact of small acts of recognition. She also addresses workload as a strategic risk, including the decision to reduce teaching hours before the budget was ready for it.

For anyone interested in FE leadership, college improvement or building a staff culture that lasts, there's plenty here worth hearing.

Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn. 

What does leadership look like when pressure is high and certainty is low? 

Professor Sir Steve West opens with a disarmingly personal story - a vice-chancellor in tears while mowing the lawn, unable to fix what's happening. It's the starting point for an honest conversation about the real demands of leading in higher education.

We cover authentic communication, why a leadership team that challenges you matters, and how to make hard decisions without losing people. 

Steve also shares practical thinking on crisis preparedness - and why recovery, not just the initial incident, is where most organisations fall short. We finish on student mental health and what young people are saying about sustainability, AI and the future.

If you find this useful, please subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review so more people in education leadership can find the conversation.

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What happens when the crisis passes but the impact doesn't? And why does telling people to "move on" often cause more harm than the original event? This episode covers these themes and more in conversation with Professor Lucy Easthope, a leading authority on disaster recovery. 

Lucy breaks down the disaster recovery curve, explaining the honeymoon phase, the inevitable slump and why recognising that pattern can be a genuine relief for school leaders who think they're failing. She introduces survivance, a concept rooted in courage and defiance and makes a direct case for why "moving on" is the wrong goal.

The conversation covers burnout, vocational awe, the danger of bad help and how to build preparedness in peacetime. As Lucy puts it: "One of the things that too much hope does is it actually strips us of our own agency." Relevant to anyone leading a school, a trust or any team that’s carrying more than it signed up for.

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Trust isn’t a soft skill; it’s the system that makes ambitious work possible. Nick sits down with Northumbria University’s Vice-Chancellor and Chief Executive, Andy Long, to unpack how an engineer’s mindset, a people-first approach, and a calm decision style can scale both research excellence and social mobility without losing humanity.

We start with the formative years: an academic career in composite materials, the coalitions built through conferences, and the moment the UK’s composites community asked Andy to lead a national programme—not because he was the loudest voice, but because he was the most trusted. That experience forged a leadership philosophy centred on appointing great people, co-creating a clear vision, and stepping back so experts can deliver. 

From there, we explore the personal stakes of being first in the family to attend university and why widening participation isn’t a slogan at Northumbria; it’s a regional mission. 

Andy opens up about imposter syndrome and the practical habits that keep leaders grounded: prepare well, admit what you don’t know, and don’t try to be the expert on everything. 

He maps the transfer of engineering habits into executive decisions—test, measure, change one variable at a time, act with incomplete data—and shows how those principles guided Northumbria through pandemic pivots and complex operational choices. When an inherited overseas campus no longer fit, the team closed it with compassion and clarity, treating the decision as proof the institution can take risk, learn fast, and exit responsibly.

Looking ahead, we confront funding headwinds, fee freezes, volatile international flows, and the need to prove value to a sceptical political climate. The response is concrete: experiential learning for every undergraduate, from the student law office to the business clinic, building confidence, networks, and outcomes. 

The 2030 ambition is clear and measurable—equal graduate success across backgrounds, higher for all—backed by an on-campus presence, hybrid communication that reaches thousands, and a culture with real “change muscle.”

If you care about leadership that feels human, access that changes lives, and strategy that delivers results you can measure, this conversation offers a playbook you can use tomorrow. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway so we can keep the conversation moving.

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Edward Vitalis, CEO of Invictus Education Trust, shares how auditing governance in war-torn Liberia taught him resilience and shaped his leadership approach. 

He explains why his finance background is a superpower for education CEOs, breaking down the modern leadership "pie chart" where governance, estates, risk and growth outweigh pedagogy. Edward argues schools should lead innovation like industry, describing AI hackathons where staff and pupils solve real problems, yielding funded app ideas. 

He discusses creating sustainable environments where staff can "kick for the top right-hand corner of the net 20 times, fail 19 times, but get that big win on the 20th occasion". His mission: widening life chances.

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Charlotte Blant, founder and CEO of Tiro, shares how childhood adversity shaped her leadership approach. "The obstacle is the way," she explains, describing how early experiences taught her "respect over rescue" and gave her "empathy for people whose lives don't fit in neat boxes".

Charlotte discusses how Tiro evolved from Youth Force to a science-focused apprenticeship provider, guided by three core values: think win-win, have a growth mindset, be a pace setter. "We are fusing technical excellence and education with human growth," she says, describing their mission to create shared value.

She explores practical strategies for maintaining culture in hybrid work, including daily huddles and six-week goal cycles, whilst warning that "fear is creeping in" to British education and leadership. "You can't innovate with one foot on the brake," Charlotte argues, advocating for "courageous, values-led leadership that plans for success, not just avoiding failure".

Drawing on psychoanalytic leadership training, Charlotte explains her shift "from reaction to reflection", and why "trusting people to be brilliant" is the antidote to fear-based control.

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Paul Estes joins us to trace a line from a high school election loss to leading teams at Dell, Amazon and Microsoft. His lesson: “innovation isn't about the idea - it's about the how”.

We explore what makes organisations perform: a clear mission, an operating rhythm that works, and success signals sharp enough to guide decisions. Paul argues for practical AI experiments - prompt labs, cross-functional hackathons and shared libraries - that build literacy and judgement. We discuss why most AI agents stall at the last mile and why borrowing expertise beats reinventing it. 

Paul believes that what keeps leadership human is ritual and care. Real leadership shows up in small acts: recognition, pizza at 9pm, a personal card for a well-earned dinner. Listen to this episode to learn more.

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How much impact can a simple note have on a child's life? In this conversation, Andrew Warren shares the story of a young boy who kept a tattered "Make me proud" note from his headteacher for years, revealing the extraordinary power of authentic connection in education.

Andrew shared experience from his 40-year career, from primary school headteacher to Department for Education regional director, whilst chairing the Teaching Schools Council and being a Founding Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching along the way. 

Having shaped national education policy and worked extensively as a coach and professional mentor with headteachers and senior leaders across the country, Andrew offers valuable insights into leadership that resonate far beyond the education sector. 

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What makes truly exceptional educational leaders? In this final episode of Series 4 of #EdInfluence, host Nick MacKenzie is joined by colleagues and fellow executive coaches Emma Hughes and Ian Blatherwick. Together they reflect on the leadership insights, learnings and their favourite highlights from the conversations with inspiring leaders published this year. 

The trio explore the transformative power of being influenced rather than always influencing others, captured beautifully in the phrase "cherish the people who change your mind." They discuss how this openness to having thier perspective shifted stands in stark contrast to traditional leadership models that emphasise unwavering certainty. 

Through stories shared by guests like Caroline, Hugh, and Sarah, they examine how diversity of thought becomes the bedrock of effective leadership. 

Whether you're an aspiring or experienced leader, this reflective conversation offers rich insights that challenge conventional thinking and inspire a more human, connected approach to leadership. 

Let us know what you think of this episode - drop us a message and connect via LinkedIn.