Nice what he said about you…

‘Nice what he said about you’ is Leo McGarry’s comment to Jed Bartlett in S6 E21 of the West Wing, responding to Arnie Vinick’s acceptance of the republican nomination for President of the USA.

To which Bartlett replies: ‘Yeah, the bastard. He’s just picked up 5 million Democratic votes’.

One of the reasons that Vinick’s speech is so interesting and attractive (to swing voters, in this case!) is its precision. He identifies accurately the kind of character, temperament and commitment that the presidency requires and then says how well Jed Barlett has done this, and how much he deserves respect and gratitude for doing so, ‘despite our political and philosophical differences.’ Yes, it is a politically canny and deliberately pointed speech, but it incorporates a weight of sincerity.

The exactitude of praise, the precision of gratitude and the accuracy of affirmation: all of these are key in the way that we express our praise for one another, the manner in which we give thanks for what we have received, and the clarity of our affirmation of another person, especially in public. And good leaders do this for their people. You see it a lot in the letters of Roman officials (especially the younger Pliny), for whom their legacy was everything. And you see it frequently in formal inscriptions, especially from the late 17th century onwards, in churches and cathedrals. They are worth reading, and worth pondering on.

On Thursday, we visited Holkham Hall on the north Norfolk coast, for the first time. We have often been to that coastline, but never to Holkham. The excuse was their candle-lit Christmas displays, which were well worth seeing, but it was not those that stayed with me. What I came away with and have been thinking about ever since, have been two inscriptions, one erected by Norfolk yeomanry and others in commemoration of Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester, and another erected by the same Thomas Coke about his bailiff, one Edmund Wright. The former is on the base of a large monument visible from Holkham Hall, the other is found in the chancel of St Withburga’s church, on the Holkham estate.

Both inscriptions contain precise language, and even if it is somewhat dated (the language of superiors and inferiors, though completely of its age, does grate), it seeks accuracy of esteem and clarity of praise: to perpetuate the high sense he entertained of his abilities as an agriculturist, or affording an illustrious example of birth and station activated by duty and inspired by benevolence.

These inscriptions are in stone. They will last, and for this reason, it is important that we cultivate the habit of writing down, even in an email or a WhatsApp message, the precision of what it is that we value in another. Recently a friend of mine wrote in a Christmas card that I had raised her own view of herself as an academic and as a teacher, simply by taking interest, asking questions, and providing references to help.

When I left Christ the Sower, I received a gracious letter from Michael Bracey, the then Director of Children’s Services, who to some extent was instrumental in my leaving, pointing out all the things I had done for him and for the local authority when I was a head. It was an important letter, despite our differences, and I treasure it.

Last month I sat my viva with two eminent scholars in my field, for the award of my Ed.D. I was thrilled to have passed, but what I am hanging on to is the letter, sent me the following day, from Julian, my supervisor, who saw what went on in that viva with far more clarity than I could, and had the wit and grace to put his observations in a handwritten letter. When I die, you will find that letter ‘among my effects’ as the saying goes.

The accurate, clear and generous giving of praise to one another is not a terribly English thing to do, I was led to believe as I was growing up. I have relatives who have deliberately put me, and others, down, so ‘it doesn’t go to my head.’ Well, I have, fortunately, found it progressively easier as as leader to give praise to those with whom I serve. It is important. The late and much lamented Tim Brighouse once told me that he spent two hours a week writing cards and notes to his headteachers and advisory team. That is time very well spent, and an example set out clearly for leaders.

This accurate praise and gratitude starts by careful noticing, rehearsing and practice. It is what Mikhail Bakhtin described as ‘excess of sight‘ coming from the ‘I-for-the-other’ part of our ‘architectonic selves’ – but because it gives us the ability to see in others that which they cannot see in themselves, we have to work at how we deploy such a gift.

I got in the habit, every year, of writing a Christmas card for all of the people who worked for me, in both schools I led. Each year I would try and articulate exactly what it was that they had contributed specifically: a character trait, a particular piece of work, a particular challenge they had met, and then said what the impact of those actions, traits, successes, had been on the school as a whole. I could not always find something, so had to content myself with more general language of gratitude, but then the next year there would be something, and I could notice it, bring it to light, and celebrate it.

Wendell Berry writes that much of the discourse around identity is (his words) poppycock. He prefers to see identity as accruing through what we have achieved, for ourselves and for others. I think that this it right, but it requires others to affirm it, cementing it into our record of achievement. Not for pride’s sake, but so that we might have what the apostle Paul calls a sober view of ourselves, not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought. Humility and sobriety consist not in being a doormat, but in knowing the worth of our achievements and celebrating and affirming, with gratitude, the skills and achievements of others.