I have spent some time reflecting on my bosses over the years, bearing in mind that I never worked for large companies.

My bosses for the most part were school principals.

I have considered all of them and one stands head and shoulders above all others.

Her approach was one of empowerment. She knew the strengths of individual staff members, she knew where individual weaknesses were, and to that end we did a lot of sharing teaching methodology, and inservicing happened at points of need.

In collaboration with her, some of us went into the local universities trained student teachers, who subsequently visited our school to observe.

So this is not what some would see as high-level management, but t was an era of huge growth for staff and students alike.

At some stage there would have been some top down management, but there was an awful lot of collaboration involved in that.

At no other time in my career did I feel so valued. Most of us felt the same.