14 January 2026
Originally featured in International School Magazine: Winter 2026
In the international schools sector, leadership is no longer defined simply by titles or tenure, it is defined by legacy – the ability to build environments where students, staff and communities can thrive long after a leader has moved on.
Sustainable leadership is now the cornerstone of successful schools worldwide, and its importance continues to grow as school communities become more complex, more diverse, and more demanding of stability and excellence. But there’s a dimension to this conversation that’s often overlooked – the recruitment process; how leaders are identified, supported, and appointed is one of the most powerful levers for creating sustainability. And increasingly, a “British approach” to leadership is proving to be a stabilising force in international contexts.
International environments can be transient – families relocate, teachers move frequently, and competing educational philosophies are constantly at play. Sustainable leadership provides the anchor, ensuring a school’s ethos is not reinvented every few years but refined, reinforced, and strengthened. This is certainly the case for British based brands that have exported internationally.
You can’t achieve sustainable leadership without a sustainable recruitment strategy – you must ensure time is factored into the process to both find potential candidates, and then fully assess them using different assessment methods.
Sustainable leadership means to me:
Schools often talk about sustainability in curriculum or operations, but rarely in recruitment; recruitment is the point at which sustainability is formed or lost, not just for appointing heads but for every level of hire within a school.
Areas that should be considered include:
Clarity of vision before the search begins is paramount; the school must really challenge their thinking on what a good leader would looks like, the values they must align to, and understand the top skills needed to deliver on their strategic vision, to ensure they find a leader committed to the school’s long-term development.
Rigorous, Values-Led Assessment, beyond qualifications, schools must assess leadership integrity, adaptability, cultural intelligence, and the willingness to invest in community rather than career-hopping.
A Partnership Approach, as sustainable recruitment is not transactional, it involves ongoing dialogue, careful matching, and post-placement support that helps leaders settle and thrive.
Succession Planning should be at the heart of every appointment, and key to sustainability, preparing future leaders before the need becomes urgent.
The “British approach” in international education does not refer to nationality, it refers to a leadership philosophy rooted in the UK’s long-standing educational tradition: clarity, professionalism, child-centred practice, and an unwavering focus on safeguarding and whole-school culture.
British school leadership typically emphasises long-term planning, structured systems, and calm, consistent decision-making. International schools benefit enormously from this steadiness especially in fast-changing cultural landscapes.
Sustainable leadership starts with safe leadership. British-trained leaders bring a deeply ingrained safeguarding mindset, ensuring schools build structures that protect students, staff, and the wider community for the long term.
The UK leadership model values certification and commitment to professional standards – ongoing professional development, reflective practice, and robust accountability all essential for sustainable school growth.
At its heart, British pedagogy remains relentlessly focused on the child. In international contexts where pressures from parents, boards, and cultural expectations can be intense this keeps the school anchored in what matters most – a child-centred lens.
A respect for cultural diversity is very important. British-trained leaders are accustomed to multicultural classrooms and multilingual communities. This helps them adapt swiftly and sensitively to international school environments, creating stability through emotional intelligence as much as operational skill.
When applied to recruitment, the British approach reinforces sustainability even further.
Schools benefit from:
This ensures that schools attract leaders who not only understand sustainable leadership, but live it.
The average tender for head in the UK is eight years compared to two years internationally; with international schools expanding rapidly, this has created urgent demand for high-quality, committed leaders; without sustainable leadership, schools risk instability, inconsistent vision, and high turnover. The cost of poor recruitment is high financially, culturally, and emotionally – families, staff and students will all feel it.
A sustainable, “British-informed approach” to leadership recruitment helps schools:
Ultimately, it helps international schools become places where leaders stay to make a difference, and where their impact lasts even longer.
Sustainable leadership isn’t accidental. It is carefully cultivated through clarity, integrity, and a recruitment process that values long-term alignment over short-term convenience. A distinctly “British approach” brings structure, stability and child-centred professionalism to this process, making it one of the strongest frameworks. When leadership is sustainable, everything else becomes possible.
If you’d like to discuss best practise recruitment processes with a sustainable approach, contact Hayley Mintern at hayley.mintern@andersonquigley.com.
