Key Voices

“Heck! The reason this job is so hard is not just because we believe it to be so, but because a lot of the expectations of what headteachers have to do day-to-day... are implicitly demanding of a very high stage of adult ego development.”   This week we speak to Dr Neil Gilbride, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Gloucestershire. We discuss his research into School Principals at Different Stages of Adult Ego Development: Their Sense-Making Capabilities and How Others Experience Them. Neil tells us about why and how he conducted the research, what it tells us about leadership in a school setting and the particular challenges school leaders face.    We talk about: Neil’s career and background  Why he chose to undertake the research and the possible implications the findings might have What the ‘ego’ is, what it does and how it develops according to Loevinger’s model of the 8 stages of adult ego development  More details about the 3 stages of ego development the study focuses on  What th