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Bill Jones is Executive Principal, Leeds City College and Deputy CEO of Luminate º£½ÇÉçÇø Group, which includes Leeds City College, Harrogate College, Keighley College and Leeds Conservatoire. Bill tells us about his journey into leadership and talks about the wider system improvements needed in FE to support learners at any age to excel.

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My FE leadership journey

For me, it was the realisation that I wanted to do more to support students – so that I can enable them to progress, achieve and go into that next step. I wanted to do that on a bigger scale, so now I’m the principal of Leeds City College, which has 20,000 students, my aim is to have a big impact on many lives and communities as well as the economy of Leeds. 

Collective impact

The most exciting thing about leadership is getting to work with other brilliant leaders. So not only the wonderful staff within the college, it’s also about connecting with the civic leaders within the region, from local authority and universities to large employers, health trusts and politicians. Collectively we can work on shared objectives to support our region. Everything from reducing carbon emissions and contributing to net zero as well as boosting jobs and skills and contributing to economic growth. There is a real strength in what we can contribute by working collaboratively, and I very much value being part of that wider system.

The importance of CPD 

The biggest challenges of leadership are keeping your staff motivated and engaged when we are all facing big issues such as the impacts of the cost of living crisis and still seeing the impact of post-COVID on students’ and staff mental health.

Obviously funding is the forever challenge and ensuring that we can attract and retain the best staff with the right skills is so important.

That is why we invest a lot in supporting the professional development and career progression of our staff – it plays a vital role in building a motivated and engaging staff team. Our staff are the ones that make the change for our students. If I can keep staff excited and enthusiastic about their job, it ensures the very best learning outcomes for our students.

Stepping up to leadership

I am always looking for opportunities to support my staff to progress. It is really important that we motivate more people, particularly from a diverse range of backgrounds, to take on leadership roles.

We do that through mentorship, advocacy, removing barriers, providing positive role models as well as providing secondment opportunities and encouraging staff to go on the leadership courses run by the º£½ÇÉçÇø and Training Foundation. We are also keen to make jobs as flexible as we can – looking at flexible working hours, job-share and hybrid working where we can and encouraging people who work part time to step up to leadership roles.  

Championing inclusion 

I passionately believe that the more diverse your workforce, the more diverse your leadership teams, the better ideas you’re going to get and the more creative they’re going to be. 

Leading for system change 

Everyone of us has a role to play in contributing to and shaping the whole of the FE and Skills system. We have been talking a lot in my college recently about ‘systems thinking’ and what this means for us as a sector.  

That’s why it’s so important that we are able to work collectively, to have a voice and have input into those decision-making processes that we can control ourselves. The more people that input into key fundamental decisions like that, the better and the more workable policy is likely to be. And ultimately the skills system is going to work better for everybody.

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Find out more

Find out more about our Together we transform initiative, and view other case studies, highlighting the transformative impact that the further education and skills sector has on lives across the UK.

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