The Talent Management System
for Schools and Trusts
- Build your leadership pipeline from within
- Attract, develop and retain the leaders your school needs
- Turn leadership growth into measurable, lasting impact
Developed by Anne-Marie Duguid,
delivered by Osiris Educational.
A Continuous Cycle of Leadership Talent
Enabling Leaders is a leadership development system that runs on a continuous cycle, recognising potential, developing capability, empowering leaders to act, and planning long-term retention and succession.
It combines a clear and bespoke leadership framework, structured professional conversations between leaders and their teams, and a purpose-built tool that tracks progress and gives you the data to back it up.
Enabling Leaders will equip your school to:
- Identify leadership potential early and fairly
- Build capability through personalised development
- Empower leaders to lead change with real autonomy
- Recognise achievement and reinforce great practice
- Retain leaders through genuine career pathways
- Plan succession, so leadership never depends on one person
65% of new secondary headteachers don't last three years in post,
while replacing a teacher costs schools up to £20k before disruption is even counted.
Why Enabling Leaders?
A strong school depends on strong leadership, at every level, not just at the top.
The problem is, most schools are better at spotting leadership potential than they are at growing it, and better at growing it than they are at keeping it. Good people leave. Good practice leaves with them. And the search for the next leader starts from nothing, all over again.
Without a clear, consistent approach to developing leaders internally, schools face the same blocks again and again:
- Leadership development that stops at a single course or event
- No shared language for what good leadership actually looks like
- Talented staff who leave because there’s no visible next step
- Leadership knowledge that walks out the door when someone does
- No reliable way to evidence the impact of leadership investment
Recruiting externally is expensive, and it doesn’t fix the underlying gap. Enabling Leaders is built on the belief that the leaders your school needs are very often already in it, they just need the system around them to help them grow.
Download the full brochure
How does Enabling Leaders Work?
Enabling Leaders runs as a continuous cycle, not a one-off course. Once it’s in place, it becomes part of how your school develops leadership every year, rather than something you do and finish.
The cycle has six stages:
- Recognise Potential
Identify strengths, aspirations and leadership potential early and fairly - Develop Capability
Build skills, confidence and knowledge through personalised development - Empower Leadership
Give leaders the opportunity, autonomy and support to lead and make an impact - Recognise Achievement
Celebrate success and reinforce positive contribution - Retain Talent
Create a culture where leaders feel valued, supported and motivated to stay - Succession Planning
Prepare future leaders and ensure a strong pipeline for tomorrow
Alongside the cycle, leaders take part in structured, one-to-one Professional Conversations, built to develop real leadership skill through honest, focused dialogue rather than generic training. Progress is tracked throughout using the Enabling Leaders tool, giving you the data to see where your leadership talent stands today, and evidence the impact of your investment over time.
By the end of the first cycle, your school will have a shared language for leadership, a clear view of where potential sits across your team, and a pipeline built to outlast any one person’s tenure.