What I Wish I Knew When I First Became a Head of School. Part 1. Vision.

Written by Brad Bates, Senior Search Consultant, IndySchool Consultancy

One of the first questions a new head of school will often hear is, “what is your vision for the school?” I remember being intimidated by this question when I started my headship eighteen years ago. Without having a clear vision to share I responded to one especially persistent member of the community by boasting that my vision was to make our school “the very best small boarding school in the country.” Well, that statement spread quickly and began to take on a life of its own.

Looking back, there are a number of problems with that vision statement. First, it is not very collegial, and I quickly learned that if small boarding schools were going to survive, they would have to work together and not try to continuously “one up” each other. There is a difference between “differentiating” and “surpassing.” Second, it was impossible to measure what makes one school the “best.” Fortunately, I spent enough time at one school and surrounded myself with enough smart and enterprising people that eventually people talked about other aspects of “my vision.”

I worked at a small school in the mountains of New Hampshire that had a storied history of skiing throughout the first half of its existence. By the time I arrived as head, the school’s three rope tows and miles of alpine and cross country ski trails were overgrown with trees. Changing priorities, low snow years, dwindling enrollment, and increased insurance costs took their toll on the ski program. One thing I learned from another head of school was that schools are started for a reason and schools that are connected to their past often thrive more than schools that stray from their founding culture and ethos. We started a “back to our roots” campaign and reinvigorated original programs like skiing.

To help get the program rolling I hired a highly experienced independent school teacher and coach named Bill Farell. Bill might have been in his sixties at the time and could run, kayak, ski or bike faster than just about anyone on campus. With his unbridled passion for getting kids outside at all times of year, he helped us build up our cross country ski and mountain biking teams. 

One day he walked into my office and handed me a multipage document. He told me he had been waiting for a head like me with similar interests to share his vision for a school that emphasized endurance sports. The manifesto suggested that there were too many schools competing in the “helmet sports” and Dublin was perfectly situated to focus on sports like rowing, running, skiing, and biking. He encouraged me to raise money for new trails, a crew boathouse, snowmaking, etc. His excitement about the idea was off the charts. Mine was not. 

The vision was too big, too controversial, and too expensive. I put the document in a file in the back of my desk and didn’t look at it again for three years.

Over the last few years more than a few heads have talked about my “bold vision” for focusing on endurance sports at my school. They project that I came to the school with a clear vision and executed it. The truth is much more complicated and much more collaborative than they think--and I believe there is an important lesson here. Most of the ideas that people give me credit for came from other people. The most significant thing I learned to do during my career was to listen and allow ideas to marinate. An idea can be ahead of its time, and it can also be too late. Timing is such an important skill for heads of school to master. 

We were an early adopter of adding robotics and a maker space to our school and it paid huge dividends in attracting great kids. We dragged our feet when it came to adding more screens to our school in the form of Smartboards and iPads, and I could not be happier that I listened to our faculty and didn’t adopt these technologies. Our faculty wanted to spend more time with our students in nature, so we embarked on a campaign to build a summer camp-like campus. Do you notice a pattern here?

Ideas like these require a head of school to take the lead and make them happen, but they don’t have to be responsible for the initial vision. My advice to new heads is to see vision as developing a culture where people in your community feel empowered to share ideas. Your job is to listen, let ideas combine or marinate, and then lead your community in bringing an idea to fruition–that’s vision. 

While saying I wanted to make our school the “best in the nation” might have been misguided, the impulse behind the statement, to have an answer, was not. If you focus on empowering others, listening, timing, and leadership, your ideas will evolve very quickly and you will have a great answer to any questions asking you about your vision.

This post, and future posts, are meant to share what I wish I knew in those early years while I was a stressed out rookie head of school in the hopes that I can help others see a path for themselves in this increasingly complicated, rewarding, and challenging career. 

Brad Bates is a Senior Consultant for IndySchool Consultancy after serving for eighteen years as head of Dublin School. Brad specializes in helping schools develop a vision, find outstanding administrators, coaching new heads of school, strategic thinking, and working with boards. He can be reached at Brad@indyschoolconsultancy.com