A HOD sits in your office,frustrated.
“I’ve told my team they have more freedom to innovate,” she says. “I’ve said, ‘You don’t need to wait for me - try something new.’ But they just keep asking what I want them to do. It’s like they don’t really want agency.”
You recognise the pattern. At a system level, you’re being told to “empower middle leaders.” At the same time, you’re held to account for results, consistency, and parent expectations.You’ve been handing out more latitude, but somehow it isn’t translating into the confident, creative leadership you hoped for.
The issue may not be a lackof agency at all. It may be a lack of co‑agency.
Agency is not “you’re on your own now”
We often talk about agency as if it means individual freedom: “You’re empowered. Off you go.” But most meaningful change in schools doesn’t come from lone heroes. It emerges from people working together, sharing responsibility, influence, and risk.
For HODs, “You’re empowered” can sometimes land as “You’re now responsible for fixing everything yourself.” That’s heavy. In an already stretched environment, it’s understandable that some will pull back or default to familiar patterns.
What if, instead of handing HODs agency and stepping back, you invited them into partnership?
Start with a shared curiosity
Imagine this conversation with a HOD you trust.
You say: “I’ve been wondering how we might give students a little more voice in how they show their learning in your subject. I don’t have a full answer. Would you be interested in exploring a tiny experiment with me?”
Now you’re not delegating a task. You’re inviting a colleague into a shared inquiry.
Together, you choose one class and one upcoming unit. You agree on something small, like:
- Letting students choose between two or three task formats
- Co-creating one success criterion with the class
- Asking students to help generate one question for assessment
You decide how you’ll both pay attention to it. Maybe you’ll look together at a sample of student work. Maybe you’ll drop into the lesson together for ten minutes. Maybe you’ll simply have a structured debrief afterwards.
Then you set a short follow‑up meeting in the calendar.
Notice what changes when you carry it together
After the mini‑experiment, you and the HOD sit down. You ask:
- "What did you notice students when they had more say?"
- "What felt better or worse than our usual way?"
- What would you keep? What would you change?"
The conversation feels different. You’re not evaluating. You’re both learners, looking at the same puzzle from different angles. The HOD is not “performing innovation” for you; you’re co‑investigators.
What you’re modelling (quietly) is co‑agency:
- Shared purpose: you're both interested in richer learning.
- Shared risk: you both own the experience and its outcome.
- Shared learning: you're both willing to adjust based on what you saw.
This experience begins to rewrite the story in the HOD’s mind from “I’m supposed to fix things alone now” to “I have a partner in this work.”
Try it tomorrow: co‑design one tiny experiment
Pick one HOD and try this process:
- Name a curiousity, not a problem: "I'm curious about how we might,,, give students more meaningful choice/deepen discussion/connect learning to real contexts."
- Scope it down: One class, one unit, one small change.
- Co-design the tweak: Sketch it together in 10-15mins.
- Plan how to observe: Decide what evidence you'll look at and when you'll meet again.
- Debrief as colearner: Talk about what you both learned, not just what "worked".
Reflection prompts for you and your HOD
- "Where did we see shared responsibility between teachers and students, not just teacher direction?"
- "What support helped you feel you weren't carrying this alone?"
- If we scaled this up just a little, what might be a realistic next step?"
Agency grows in relationships that share power, not in speeches about empowerment. When HODs experience co‑agency with you, they’re more likely to create it with their teams and with students.
