One of the qualities that a subject leader must have, in my opinion, is the ability and willingness to stand one's ground. I think that this applies especially in the case of the ICT (or educational technology) leader, given the sorts of pressure he or she is often under.

For example:

• It's perceived as expensive....
  
  
• ... Consequently, there is often pressure to demonstrate that the investment has been worth it. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that I wonder if other subject leaders find themselves under similar scrutiny to prove, say, that the class set of textbooks 'worked'.
  
  
• A good rule of thumb is that around 90% of staff in a school use information technology in a basic but perfectly acceptable way, and most of the other 10% (excluding you) pride themselves on not understanding any of it. Unfortunately, much of the time that small proportion tends to be more influential than their numbers suggest. I have no scientific evidence for that statement, by the way, only my (casual) perception and experience!

The word 'politicians' is not usually found sharing a sentence with the term 'role model'. However, whatever you may think of Michael Howard's 'performance' in this video clip, I think he shows an admirable ability to stick to his guns and to manage to not answer a question which he clearly does not want to answer. (At the time he was bidding for the leadership of the UK's Conservative Party, which gives his stubborness/toughness a context.)The issue here is this: leaving aside the actual issue and politics in general, does Howard demonstrate a trait which ICT leaders should seek to emulate, or not?

This article was first published on 22nd September 2009