The success trap: "That's just what we do"
- Ruth Thornton
- Sep 1, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
(Part 3 of the Harvesting Learning Series)
I can't tell you the number of times I've heard: "That's what we've always done."
Throughout my career, this phrase has echoed through corridors, meetings, and leadership discussions.
Why are we running a billion interventions during tutor time? That’s just what we’ve always done.
Why are we still inputting data into three different spreadsheets that don't talk to each other? Because… that’s just what we’ve always done.
It’s rarely about doing something badly. Often, it’s about how hard it is to stop doing something that once worked well.
I think it’s partly fear, fear that students might miss out. But I also think it’s pressure: the kind that makes us feel we have to tick a box. X didn’t get their target grade! But at least we did x, y, and z. When I first went into leadership, I felt brave. I wanted to change things. The deeper I got, though, the harder it became to take the risk of stopping something to make room for something more impactful. Let’s face it, the stakes are high.
It’s rarely about doing the wrong thing, yet sometimes holding on to good practices can quietly get in the way of something even greater.
And that’s exactly why finding space to step back and rethink what we do is so important, because sometimes, letting go is the first step toward something better. Coaching creates that space: to ask the hard questions, understand the patterns driving ourselves and our teams, and gain the confidence to stop doing what no longer serves us.
This pattern doesn’t just show up at school, it shows up in how we spend our time, where we direct our energy, and how we lead our lives.
Great leadership isn’t about doing everything, it’s about choosing what matters.
Which good things, at school or beyond, might actually be holding you back?
Next up: In the next post, I'll take the idea of Renewal beyond the school gate and show what this looks like in everyday leadership (spoiler: it involves my son's socks).