Schools run on stories. I get that.
I once worked with a headteacher who began assemblies by saying, “What I am about to tell you never happened, but it is true nonetheless.” He was signalling that what followed was not meant as factual reportage. His aim was to surface a moral truth and, in that sense, it was effective.
In leadership development, we do something similar. We tell ourselves stories about commitment, professionalism, resilience, and “what it really takes” to make a school work. Frequently, those stories arrive disguised as metaphors, often borrowed from business, industry, or popular leadership literature.
Like that headteacher’s opening line, these analogies are usually offered casually and with good intent. But they share a crucial feature: a willingness to set aside literal accuracy in order to illuminate a chosen point. In doing so, they can slip past our critical faculties, carrying with them assumptions that sit uneasily with the moral purpose of education.
Over time, these analogies don’t just describe culture; they end up shaping it.
Here are five commonly used leadership analogies that I increasingly find troubling in school contexts, not because they are always wrong, but because of what they reveal about how we think about people, commitment, and belonging.
1. The oil rig analogy
”When you’re on the rig, you’re on the rig.
This metaphor is often used to justify intense workload and time commitment. The implication is clear: once you’re part of the operation, you accept that normal boundaries don’t apply. Long hours, sustained pressure, and personal sacrifice are framed not as problems to solve, but as the price of admission.
In an oil rig, this logic makes a certain sense. The environment is remote, isolated, physically dangerous, and logistically complex. Work happens in concentrated bursts, followed by enforced rest.
At the risk of stating the obvious, schools are not oil rigs.
Yet the metaphor encourages a mindset in which availability becomes a proxy for commitment, overwork is justified and expected rather than alleviated, and questions about sustainability are viewed as evidence of insufficient dedication. The message is not that the work is hard, which is undeniably true, but that real commitment requires the suspension of professional judgement and the tacit acceptance of unreasonable demands. In a profession already struggling with burnout and retention, that is a particularly dangerous, if not astonishingly short-sighted, story to normalise.
2. On the bus / off the bus (and “right seat, wrong seat”)
This language is often used to signal clarity, decisiveness, and alignment. It appeals to leaders under pressure to move quickly, reduce ambiguity, and demonstrate control, particularly in moments of change, inspection, or crisis.
But in schools, the metaphor risks recasting people as passengers rather than participants. It frames disagreement, hesitation, or struggle as misalignment rather than as information to be understood. The slow, relational work of asking why someone might be dissenting or faltering is replaced by a quick judgement about whether they are “on board.”
Over time, this way of thinking reshapes leadership behaviour. Coaching gives way to sorting, and support becomes conditional. Belonging is no longer assumed but earned, and professional loyalty is treated as something leaders receive rather than something that is reciprocal. The language sounds pragmatic, even reassuring, yet it steadily narrows the space for trust, candour, and professional agency.
This metaphor works best in organisations where relationships are transactional and roles are fluid. Schools are neither. They are long-term human communities, shaped by shared commitment, moral obligation, and the accumulation of trust over time. Treating people as if they can simply be reseated or removed misses this complexity entirely, and risks mistaking compliance for commitment.
3. Radiators and drains
This analogy is often used as a shorthand for morale: some people are seen to lift the room, others to lower the temperature. On the surface, it can sound intuitive, even helpful.
But it quickly becomes moralised. Those who are tired, anxious, or carrying unseen burdens risk being labelled as “drains,” while constant positivity is rewarded. Once that distinction takes hold, emotional performance begins to matter more than professional honesty.
Over time, staff learn which emotions are acceptable and which must be concealed. Struggle is internalised rather than shared, producing a culture that may look upbeat but is often brittle and is sustained by silence rather than trust. This sits uneasily alongside many schools’ stated commitments to staff wellbeing, psychological safety, and care.
In a pastoral profession, this matters. Schools should be places where adults, as well as pupils, are allowed seasons of lower energy without risking having their professional worth downgraded. Healthier cultures recognise that emotional load fluctuates, that regulation is often collective, and that care is built not by demanding constant radiance, but by making space for recovery and mutual support.
4. Dead wood
Few metaphors dehumanise more efficiently.
“Dead wood” language collapses complex professional lives into a single, static judgement, stripping away context (workload, leadership decisions, changing roles, personal circumstances…) and replacing it with a fixed identity. Once applied, the label implies not just underperformance, but something lifeless and beyond renewal.
What makes the metaphor especially corrosive is how it sanitises removal. If something is “dead wood,” then cutting it away feels tidy and necessary: an act of organisational hygiene rather than a morally weighty decision about a person. In doing so, the language displaces responsibility and totally removes dignity. There is little room or incentive to ask what conditions allowed disengagement to take root, or whether leadership and culture played a part.
This sits in direct tension with the moral purpose of education. Schools exist to cultivate growth and renewal, not to write people off. Where leaders resort to such metaphors, they signal that they view people as obstacles to be removed rather than as professionals capable of development and renewal.
5. High performers vs low performers
Imported directly from corporate performance management, this language reduces complex professional contribution to simplistic tiers. It flattens the varied, relational, and often invisible work of teaching into a narrow hierarchy of perceived impact, typically based on outcomes that are themselves shaped by context, cohort, and role.
What makes this framing particularly distorting in schools is its disregard for interdependence. Teaching is not an individual sport. Strong outcomes are rarely the product of isolated brilliance; they emerge through collaboration, shared practice, and collective responsibility over time. When leaders adopt “high” and “low” performer language, they risk mistaking visibility for value and individual attainment for organisational health.
Over time, the effects are predictable. Competition is incentivised, generosity of practice declines, professional risk-taking becomes more costly, and agency narrows. This sits uneasily with the moral purpose of education. Schools exist to develop people, not to rank them into static categories. Where leaders rely on such distinctions, they risk narrowing professional identity and overlooking the collective conditions that make sustained excellence possible.
6. Sweating the assets
This metaphor treats staff as resources to be fully utilised rather than people to be sustained. Borrowed from asset management and finance, it frames intensity as efficiency and regards unused capacity as waste. In doing so, it quietly recasts human energy as something to be extracted rather than renewed.
In school settings, this language legitimises the steady escalation of workload. Teaching more hours, taking on additional duties, and running extra clubs become markers of efficiency. Flexibility becomes a one-way expectation, and non-contact time is treated as indulgent rather than essential. The absence of slack is interpreted as good management, even as resilience is steadily depleted.
What is most damaging is how normal this framing has become. Leaders may sincerely care about staff wellbeing, yet continue to speak in terms that prioritise maximum output over long-term sustainability. Reflection, professional learning, and renewal are tolerated only insofar as they serve immediate performance, rather than being valued in their own right.
Where leaders resort to such metaphors, they risk adopting an extractive stance towards the very people on whom the school’s future depends. Short-term gains may be realised, but at the cost of trust, creativity, and professional longevity. In a profession built on care and continuity, that is a very questionable trade-off.
So how do we avoid these metaphors?
The problem is not metaphor itself. Schools need language to make sense of complexity. The danger arises when metaphors are borrowed uncritically and allowed to do ethical work on our behalf, shaping how we think about people without being examined.
A simple starting point is to slow down our language. Before reaching for a familiar metaphor, it is worth asking what it assumes about people, power, and purpose. Does it invite curiosity and care, or does it make compliance, exhaustion, or removal feel reasonable?
Leaders should also notice when metaphors begin to replace judgement rather than support it. When language shortcuts difficult conversations about workload, wellbeing, disagreement, or underperformance, it often signals avoidance rather than clarity. Good leadership does not simplify complexity by naming it away; it stays with it long enough to understand what is really going on.
Metaphors matter because they shape what feels thinkable. In schools, how leaders speak about people is rarely incidental. It is leadership in action.
