Beyond Authority: Building Stronger Institutions Through Shared Identity Leadership

Walk into some schools and you can feel it almost immediately. There’s a hum in the corridors. Students are engaged, teachers seem energised, and everyone, from the principal to the front office, seems part of something larger than themselves…

These schools aren’t always the best funded, nor are their facilities particularly new. Yet they achieve strong results, attract committed staff and maintain high levels of engagement.

What sets them apart is not simply good management or inspirational posters. It’s leadership, but not in the traditional, top-down sense. It is leadership that builds a shared sense of “us”. The evidence is unequivocal: enduring success in schools and universities depends not on heroic individuals but on collective identity. When leaders foster shared belonging and purpose, trust, performance and engagement follow. This is the promise of the Social Identity Approach to Leadership (SIA-L), a research-backed framework that moves us from leading over people to leading through them.

From “I Lead” to “We Lead”
Traditional leadership models focus on the individual leader — their style, their charisma, their decisions. In schools, this often places the Principal as the central driver of every initiative. But experienced educators know institutions don’t thrive because of one person. They thrive when people feel connected: to each other, to their purpose and to the community they serve.
SIA-L, originating in the work of Henri Tajfel and John Turner and advanced by Haslam, Reicher & Platow (2020), is built on a powerful insight: people are motivated by group membership and shared identity. Leaders are most effective when they represent, advance and embed the identity of the group. As Professor Stephen Reicher notes, “Effective leaders are identity entrepreneurs.
They don’t just lead people, they shape the sense of who ‘we’ are.”

Applied to schools, leadership becomes less about a single person’s vision and more about forging a shared sense of “us” across teachers, students, and the wider community.

Why Belonging Matters in Education
Belonging is not a soft variable. It is a structural driver of motivation and achievement. Students who feel they belong attend more, participate more, and achieve more. What’s become clearer is how leadership shapes that sense of belonging.

A 2024 longitudinal study of more than 6,000 school staff (Cárdenas, Reid, Zhou & Reynolds) found that when leaders created and represented a shared sense of “us,” school climate improved the following year, which, in turn, predicted higher staff wellbeing and engagement.

Similarly, Maxwell et al. (2017) showed that students’ identification with their school strengthened the link between school climate and academic performance. Climate and belonging are not abstract ideas; they are predictors of learning.

The Climate–Performance Connection
Where school climate is strong, students identify more with their school. And where identification is high, outcomes such as NAPLAN writing and numeracy results improve. Leadership that strengthens identity strengthens performance.

Measuring What Matters
Tools like the School Climate and School Identification Measure – Student (SCASIM-St), developed by Lee, Reynolds and colleagues, now allow schools to measure both climate and identification, turning SIA-L into a measurable, trackable practice.

The CARE Model: What Effective Identity Leadership Looks Like
Haslam, Reicher & Platow (2020) summarise identity leadership using the CARE model:

C – Create a sense of us
A – Advance us
R – Represent us
E – Embed us

Schools, with their rituals, traditions, structures, and stories, are uniquely suited to this work.

Advancing Identity Leadership in Practice
Four practical strategies for Advancement professionals:

Co-create, don’t just communicate
Lead through symbolic action
Build identity into structures
Distribute identity leadership using the 5Rs:

• Reading the group’s current identity landscape
• Representing group values in behaviour
• Realising shared identity through collective action
• Reinforcing it via rituals and symbols
• Re-visioning to ensure relevance over time

Why This Matters Now
Schools face teacher shortages, wellbeing concerns, increasing complexity and pressure for strong results. Authority alone cannot meet these challenges. Connection can.

Identity leadership offers a research-grounded, practical way to build that connection.

Getting Started: Five 5 Steps for School Leaders

Listen deeply – Discover existing community beliefs
Name the narrative – Define the shared story
Model the identity – Lead visibly through behaviour
Embed it everywhere – Infuse identity into culture
Measure and adapt – Track belonging and improve

Looking Ahead: A Cultural Shift in Educational Leadership
Identity leadership reminds us that schools are communities first. When leaders build a shared sense of “we,” strategy becomes more meaningful, achievement grows, and people thrive. As Haslam writes, “Effective leadership is not about getting people to follow you. It’s about creating a sense that you and they are part of the same journey.”

That journey begins by asking: Who are we?

Randal Tame
Managing Director
Influence Consulting