This article appeared as “Hearing the Call” in the Spring 2022 issue of Independent School.We are living in a world which seems to have been turned upside down. The 2016 U.S. presidential election revealed a staggering national divide; Black Lives Matter and diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) have become front and center in our country’s narrative; climate change is no longer a concept but a reality; we’re still in the thick of a global pandemic, one that scientists say might become our “new normal”; and humanity itself feels at stake.
We are facing all this in an era when leadership around the world feels shaky and unstable, with many constituents not knowing who or what to believe. What is the relationship between this state of affairs and how we are led? And what does this have to do with independent schools?
I’ve been working at the intersection of culture and leadership for decades. This nexus, or symbiosis, is the fulcrum that can perpetuate healthy change and transformation. If not examined or understood, people and society suffer. I’ve explored these concepts in past Independent School articles— “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast,” “It’s Not Personal, It’s Organizational,” “Shaking Up the System,” and “School Burial Grounds”—and they are now more relevant and resonant than ever before.
Independent schools exist as bastions of hope—places where children have the opportunity to develop and thrive in a world that can swirl outside their control—and contribute to the greater good. As all organizations do, they form their own cultures and draw leaders, teachers, and families who hopefully align with their mission, vision, and culture. These alignments and shared values are more important today than ever, personally and collectively.
School leaders are being stretched in ways they never imagined. It is essential that schools have leaders who can take them into the next chapter, as well as who respect and appreciate all that has come before and what is essential to preserve. Even before the chaos of the past few years, the landscape for school leadership started to look a bit tenuous—specifically head of school tenure. The uptick in seemingly abrupt departures and early retirement plans has added to the collective sense of uncertainty and anxiety in school communities and is being reflected in their cultures.
When you consider how organizational theorist Edgar Schein divides culture into three levels—values, artifacts and traditions, and assumptions—culture can, in a way, be easy to define. But it can often be difficult to discern, especially if there’s a disconnect between what is espoused and practiced. These disconnects can show up in managing large-scale change as well as in the quotidian ways people interact and fulfill their roles. What’s at the heart of this kind of disconnect in the symbiotic relationship between leadership and culture?
A Systems Thinking Lens
History informs and creates culture, and every institution’s origin story has long tentacles that are embedded in its narrative. Organizations are not created in a vacuum, and a mission is the reflection of the time, place, and people who saw needs and attempted to meet them. It is essential for all leaders and their constituents to realize that what is occurring today always has roots in the past—the past influences and shapes the present.Organizations, like humans and families, go through predictable stages of development. In the founding years, things are chaotic, idealistic, and values-driven, and there are few systems and rules in place. At some point, founding organizations become more institutionalized, and norms and systems are created, articulated, and practiced. A culture develops, and it becomes the foundation of the future.
As institutions grow, it can be more and more challenging to preserve the core values, to “walk the talk,” and stay connected to the mission. There are often trade-offs and a slow erosion of what really matters. It is essential for leaders to mind the mission and the culture, ensuring that there is alignment and integrity between who they say they are and how they practice what they preach and teach.
In “It’s Not Personal, It’s Organizational,” I described my “systems lens model,” a holistic approach to analysis that examines the parts and relationships that contribute to intentional outcomes. It uses five lenses—purpose, people, history, process, culture—through which to examine the present. This model depersonalizes what appears personal and, through honest reflection, inquiry, and analysis, gets to the root cause of all presenting issues, so that history will not unintentionally repeat itself.
In this model, we can see how people’s behaviors are symptoms of systemic breakdowns and disconnects. The degree to which organizations and cultures are clear, aligned, accountable, and explicit about their purpose (mission), shared values, processes, structures, and practices will be the degree to which people are drawn, engaged, and aligned. Any moment, issue, or event—positive or negative—is a reflection of the system, revealing what is or isn’t working. I call these reflections fractals and believe that problem-solving and leading culture change require leaders to make sense of these fractals.
The U.S. is a deeply divided nation. This is a fractal. There is no doubt that this division is happening; systemically this is part of a much greater narrative and needs to be understood as such. No one person is to blame—long-standing systems, leaders, and cultures have given rise to where we are. It is critical to fully recognize, acknowledge, and understand the impact of the past on the present, to clarify whom we serve and what we really stand for, and therefore draw leaders and followers who can unite us around the common good.
In a vacuum of true, clear, and shared mission and best practices, it is possible for cultures to emerge that draw leaders who align with organizational pathologies or their shadows—places where norms and behaviors are permitted that are actually in opposition to the espoused mission. How many schools and universities, for example, have “truth and honor” in their missions, but allow practices that belie, and undermine, what is supposedly held dear. Consider the recent college admission scandal, which is another fractal—a reflection of a society that often rewards shortcuts, encourages deal-making, and believes the ends justify the means. It reveals a loss of core values, personal and organizational, where children are not at the center.
If there’s truth in the idea that “what you permit, you promote”—if leaders allow certain behaviors to continue—the mission becomes compromised and cultures lose their way. On the other hand, when there is clarity, alignment, and accountability, the permission in the system is one that reinforces intentionality and deepens a healthy culture.
Attracting the Right Leaders
The fundamental way to draw and retain aligned and talented people to schools is to first fully acknowledge and embrace who you really are, and why you (still) exist. This requires honest reflection and inquiry, continuous conversation, and strategic thinking that puts children and mission at the center of all decisions.The historical-cultural mapping exercise I outlined in “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast”—which involves analyzing why a school is doing something, what gave rise to this decision, and how it needs to be understood, framed, and embedded in the school’s arc of history—helps schools make sense of situations and successfully set up relevant and meaningful programs and initiatives, as well as draw and retain the right people to lead and implement them. This exercise is especially powerful in revealing the essential culture and why it matters as well as how history informs and shapes culture. It can also be used to affirm what matters, what to preserve, and what to change.
Too often, even with the best intentions, schools don’t use these cultural anthropology practices to choose wisely before leading change, in hiring and firing, in expanding or contracting roles and authority, in choosing trustees, and most important, in managing a head’s departure and recruiting a new leader. They don’t step back and reflect on why someone failed, missed the mark, or quit before they found a replacement.
If people in varied roles aren’t successful, it’s easy to say they weren’t capable, mission-aligned, or competent, or that they had personality or character issues—anger management problems, weren’t team players, etc. But the real question is how did they land the job in the first place—and why are they later seen as “not a fit”? What was missed, how could it have been averted, and what is there to learn? And what in the system permits unacceptable ways of behaving to exist and persist? It’s necessary to be clear about why, how, and what it takes to set people up for success inside the culture.
The most important role in a school to get right is the head—this person sets the tone and develops a vision that will promote the viability of the institution. Many heads today don’t survive longer than three to five years, often due to a search process that did not dive deeply enough into the school’s history and culture, enough to more fully comprehend what the next leader was called to be and do.
It is important to remember that heads, too, are choosing and selecting a school, hopefully one that is aligned with their core values, beliefs, and philosophy, as well as their own age and stage of development. The more they know about the history and culture, its high and lows, the more they can assess if the school is really calling them, and if they are the right leader for its next chapter. Head candidates are often asked during the interview process about their vision for the school, but how can they really know anything about the true culture of the school in such an early stage?
Many heads are chosen because the school is crying out for change and the new head appears to be the opposite of the former head. In some cases, the board may want the changes and will give the incoming head mandates that are not embraced or even known by the community. This becomes a setup for the new leader. Similarly, newly appointed heads are often brought in to weigh in on the needs and workings of the school before they have officially begun. This means not only that these leaders now have two jobs at the same time, but, more important, that they are compromising their entry by being asked to make decisions and connections before they have formally arrived.
Revolving Doors as Fractals
Much like the headship, there are other roles where there seem to be revolving doors. These are often boundary-spanning roles, systemic by definition—those in which people cannot be successful without everyone embracing and understanding their purpose, position, and authority.Turnover often occurs in the areas of development, DEIJ, and in the assistant headship. How do these roles in particular become revolving doors? In most cases, it’s not because they drew the wrong people, but rather how the leadership failed in thinking systemically and culturally about the positions. Too often, these roles exist in silos, and they need to be part of holistic and interdependent teams, where the sum is greater than its parts. These functional areas cannot be successful in isolation because they are intrinsically tied to and reflect the culture itself.
As with the headship, the people who fill these roles need to also be in sync with mission and core values and need to know—at the interview phase—what is expected from them as well as what is and isn’t working at the school, especially in their inherited position. Breakdowns occur when there is a lack of systemic clarity and alignment between “the big picture and my role in it” and “the rules of engagement,” including explicit norms for communication. And in these cases, the school suffers because there are true needs to fill.
How these roles become revolving doors can be explained in the following fractals:
Development directors will not be able to raise money unless constituents connect the need for fundraising with attracting the best and brightest teachers and having the resources to fulfill promises. How many development directors arrive in schools that are averse to or uncomfortable with fundraising? Or that have boards (and sometimes heads) who don’t understand that one of their primary roles is ensuring the financial viability of the school across time, which includes fundraising? In situations like these, schools need to ensure they hire a development director who aligns with their value set, who needs their support and the time to understand the school culture, and who they can work together with to form an intentional shared “culture of philanthropy.”
DEIJ directors will always be viewed as outsiders unless authentically embedded into the core values and culture of the community. How many DEIJ directors are asked to lead these important systemic and emotionally fraught efforts, yet are not clear about their scope, authority, and portfolio? DEIJ work has greatly evolved in independent schools, but so many people in these positions feel like they have been given a large role with little or no clarity or accountability about how it aligns with the whole culture. Without a clear mandate, the role can prove impossible to execute, with collateral damage throughout the system. DEIJ must be viewed as everyone’s work, especially the board’s, as a reflection of the school’s moral philosophical compass.
Assistant heads will not be able to bring their great gifts to bear if the rest of the school doesn’t agree with or understand how their role and authority adds value to everyone’s lives and the mission of the school. How many assistant heads are not clear about their role—who have too little or too much responsibility or authority? How many in this role don’t arrive with a clear job description or portfolio, yet are asked to lead others in that vacuum?
Intentional onboarding is an absolute necessity. It is remarkable how many people who work in schools say they had little or no onboarding at all, which means they were not explicitly acculturated—increasing the chance for cultural deviation and confusion, which can undermine not only a role, but the mission itself. This lack of onboarding and mentoring, honest and timely feedback, and meaningful professional growth models is often seen in schools where personal reflection and self-evaluation are not part of cultural practices, places that often avoid direct conversations and therefore permit the status quo. It no longer is a choice but now a necessity for schools to continue to be places that honor kindness, but also where courageous and honest conversations are the norm.
Hope for the Future
Every school is a fractal or reflection of the larger local, national, and world culture, and a potential change agent for societal transformation. Schools become the villages that support children in their human and developmental growth and, in so doing, are engaged in a world reckoning.This is a big ask of schools, one that is not often articulated, but reinforced by school missions that unfortunately often promise to be all things to all people. More and more, schools are becoming the center of a family’s hub, replacing religious and community-based centers and in a mobile world, becoming a sort of extended family. There is often a tyranny of rising expectations in these needs and assumptions, and combined with rising tuition and competition for placement and admission, an unrelenting pressure develops for schools, teachers, and staff to perform what can feel unrealistic, illusory, and even, at times, misleading or impossible.
In this uncertain world we’ve been living in, we not only crave, but desperately need, leaders who are clear and centered, seek and live by the truth, who are decisive yet include others’ voices where necessary and appropriate, and who share their vulnerability as well as their fierce faith in tomorrow. I believe schools want leaders who are inspiring and visionary, who give name to the forces and values of the past, and herald and embrace the honest needs and realities of the present and the anticipated future. Leaders who remind us of what matters, our raison d’etre, our shared purpose, beliefs, and values, our foundational touchstone—who can shape and are shaped by their cultures.