The Sustainability Myth

Something is breaking in school leadership, and it is not the commitment of the people doing it. Every year, schools say yes to more worthwhile work than they can carry well, and the people closest to the consequences are left to absorb the cost. The Sustainability Myth is Lee Crockett's honest and forensic argument that the leadership sustainability crisis is not primarily a workload problem or a resilience problem. It is a judgement problem, and it will not be solved by helping leaders endure unreasonable conditions more gracefully.

Drawing on years of work alongside school leaders and systems, Lee Crockett introduces frameworks that reframe how schools think about initiative load, organisational cost and professional judgement. From the Four Costs of every yes to the Judgement-Compliance Gap and Strategic Compliance, this book gives leaders the language, discipline and permission to make better decisions about what the work should be, not just how to manage more of it. For school leaders, system leaders and anyone responsible for the conditions in which educators do their best work, this is an urgent and necessary book.