As GLP enters a new year and the start of the 2017 edition of our Leadership Lab, it is a good time to report on the conclusion of our pilot Lab. In the 2016 cohort we worked intensely with first time heads as they prepared to enter headship and begin their work at school. Each new head worked individually with a GLP coach throughout last spring and summer, coming together as a group in July for an intense and productive three-day learning retreat. After returning to their schools for the opening months, supported by executive coaching, these new heads reconvened for the last formal part of the Lab with a December session in Washington, DC. During this final session, the participants gave presentations and discussed their first five months of their new headship, its challenges and joys, what worked and what is a work in progress. Going into the second half of their first year, the cohort members can continue with the coaching part of the Leadership Lab, stay in touch with each other, and will be asked for a report on this first year in June.

This July GLP held its first Leadership Lab workshop, part of a comprehensive transition program to help new boarding school heads prepare for their first year of leadership. We conceived the Leadership Lab as a highly interactive, but deeply personalized entry into headship. Sensing the need for a higher level of new head preparation, we conducted qualitative research and confirmed that a bold, fresh approach---one with small cohorts, beginning preparation months before the new heads start their tenure, and continuing with one-on-one executive coaching and feedback well into their first year on the job—was justified. In fact, our research feedback from current heads confirmed that such a program was necessary.

Start this way. Consider that a new school leader is perceived as a bundle of experience, talent, and values who needs the right content added to prepare for the work ahead. The traditional approach would be to bring new heads together, expose them to a curriculum that is full of headship content (that is, full of what the ramp-up designers feel that new school heads should know) and get as much of that infused into the new school leaders as they start their new position. External realities, internal management, board relations, admissions, advancement, and so on creates the “exposure package” new heads are likely to need and knowledge they can use as their week together ends. This model has been the primary new head of school training model for years, and it is not without success. But is it enough?

Remember always that the grand business is not to look dimly into the future but to do what lies clearly at hand—Thomas Carlyle 1829

I have not worked on my blogging lately because, well, I have been busy—you know, traveling, talking to and working with people, reading papers and articles, walking and thinking with the dog. However, with some time back in South Carolina after my last trip, it seems a good idea to consolidate some of my work experience and current thinking with another venture into the blog-o-sphere, or wherever these things go.

This is the last part of a blog series focusing on the skills required for headship in today's changing world. Here are links to part one: The Competent Leader, part two: The Good Communicator, part three: Being the Decider, and part four: The Meeting Culture.

This summer I have written on a variety of issues associated with good headship in schools, particularly but not exclusively independent schools. Part of this project stems from the urging from friends that twenty-four years of heading a school deserve some reflection, but perhaps a larger part comes from discussions with current heads of school and others in the independent school world who are in the thick of school leadership and its many challenges. With roughly a thousand headships turning over in the next five years, it seems essential to develop a body of thought on school leadership that can speak to the practical issues in this significant generational transition.

This is part four of a blog series focusing on the skills required for headship in today's changing world. Here are links to part one: The Competent Leader, part two: The Good Communicator, and part three: Being the Decider.

Beyond the daily realities of working with lots of kinds of people that have individual strengths, weaknesses, and agendas, a leader may find that the hardest thing in the daily work is getting meetings together and running them productively. In schools, where inclusion and involvement are deeply valued, this challenge can be particularly frustrating—and meetings are often the most relied upon solution.

This is part three of a blog series focusing on the skills required for headship in today's changing world. Here are links to part one: The Competent Leader and part two: The Good Communicator. 

(Jim Mooney, the deputy director of a multistate independent school organization, visited me in South Carolina, and we continued our summer conversation on school leadership.)

As we moved from our discussion on effective communication, Jim plunged right in: “The single biggest complaint I hear about headmasters and heads of school concerns the host of issues around making decisions, rolling them out, and moving forward.”

This is part two of the blog series focusing on the skills required for headship in today's changing world.  

Jim Mooney and I continued our conversation (see the preceding blog) about the challenges of leading and managing independent schools. We discussed the nature of a group of “competencies” important for leadership success. In doing so, Jim and I move from the general issue of competence to the specific traits, skills, and habits associated with good leadership. The first of these is the importance of effective and encompassing communication. Jim pointed out that the subject is essentially endless, “everything ties into communication,” so we needed to keep our discussion focused specifically on effective practices for school heads, not an exploration of the wide world of communication issues and challenges.

his is the first in a blog series focusing on the skills required for headship in today’s changing world.

Recently I was sitting out on my porch looking out on the Okatie River and catching up with an old friend. I was in the first days of recovering from a May orthopedic procedure that would keep me off my feet and housebound for the month of June waiting for literal marching orders from my doctor. From this procedure and considerable travel beforehand, my blog writing had taken a holiday as I pushed through the late spring, getting increasingly comfortable with my inner consultant, so to speak. However, having this chance to “talk shop” was a welcome break from the daily routine of recovery—watching the tide rise and fall on the Okatie River—and our conversation stimulated this blog offering—and the series to follow.

Well, I won’t mince words: NAIS blew it. When offered the chance to have a “Design the Revolution” conference-sponsored showing of Most Likely to Succeed, the new documentary on innovative responses to the present and future education design landscape, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) gave the offer a quick sniff and turned the opportunity down. And that’s a shame. Sure, the conference was over a year in planning and shifting the program around to accommodate the film would have been daunting; I mean—good lord!—the programs were already printed. But shouldn’t NAIS model good teaching and adaptability? And really, doesn’t every good teacher seize special moments, change the plan, and invigorate the educational environment when opportunity knocks?