The experiences and skills necessary for effective leadership vary with culture, place, and time. In the years since the pandemic, however, the range of skills that have become critical for school leaders has expanded at a stunning and unpredictable rate. In addition to a strong academic background, understanding of teaching and learning, psychological insight, and financial savvy, a head of school must bring to the role compelling management and negotiation skills, persuasive speaking and writing, deep thoughtfulness, decisiveness, empathy, patience, and infinite flexibility. In addition, the constant daily surprises of the job require sensitivity to multiple points of view and a deft facility for problem solving. These qualities are vital, but above all, as one head of school recently told me, “You have to love students and faculty, no fair just loving one of these entities, and this you have to believe in more than anything else.”
For sure, this is a daunting list of personal and professional traits for one person to possess! Here are some reflections on school leadership today, a bit of context for how and why these qualities have expanded, and a few suggestions for ways that search firms can partner with schools to recruit and build candidate pools that can meet those needs. While the list of considerations for school leaders taking on Head of School roles is long, the following four areas seem to have risen as the most pressing.
Parent Communication
A lot has changed in the workplace since COVID. As schools switched to remote work, many people felt isolated, but in an ironic twist, school communities also became more connected. With students going to school at the kitchen table, parents came to school with them—and it turns out parents had a lot to say about curriculum, teaching, and learning. That dynamic is still with us, so school leaders spend more time than ever before managing and communicating with parents—and healthy parent partnership is vital.
Public Relations and Marketing
Competing for students and status, schools need leaders who are public relations experts and fundraising gurus. Demographic shifts and the proliferation of school choices have expanded external facing responsibilities so much that the role can often feel more like managing a company than leading the academic life of students and faculty.
Politics
In our polarized political environment, heads of school now spend more time thinking about how to teach students about the world without becoming one-sided. Even as many schools adopt policies of institutional neutrality, these statements do not address what is central to a good education: wrestling with big ideas. Leading in this arena requires deep reservoirs of skill, insight, and wisdom.
Time Management
For heads of school, it’s become harder to be present in the daily life of students and teachers. Because of the growing number of external responsibilities, heads are losing time spent keeping school and seeing classes. Ceding that to someone else creates a divide between the faculty and the head and fractures those essential relationships, which are vital to a school culture. Heads of school now more than ever need support in designing their calendars in innovative ways to stay connected with their school communities.
So, is it possible to find and attract these leaders? Here are a few suggestions of how search consultants and search committees can partner to accomplish just that:
- Write a compelling job description that highlights needed skills in a way that both informs and attracts candidates. Be transparent about the challenges ahead for your school, as those challenges will attract the candidates with the best experience and skills to meet them.
- Invest time in identifying the most important core competencies and skills needed for the job and keep that list front and center as you interview.
- Rank the importance of the skills on your list; then, together with your search committee, discuss the rankings with an eye to developing a transition plan that identifies areas that might be delegated or gaps that can be supported by others.
- Invite the school community to be involved in the search via conversations and surveys. The more that faculty and staff are invited into the process, the better your chance for a successful transition to the new leader.
- Interview with empathy and use behavioral and experiential prompts to draw out and bring to light the deepest understanding of a candidate’s talents and skills.
The heartening aspect of this quest for super-leaders is that there are so many rising school leaders out there eager to take on these challenges. And, as search consultants, we are constantly inspired when we hear them say that leading a school remains the most generative and humane professional life that one could ever find.
