A New Framing for Head of School Transition

More focus on process, collaboration and the two-way street

I recently had brunch with a dear friend from high school. We are both female leaders so the conversation was full of the good stuff - about building networks, about how to get the feedback you need when you’re in the top job, about how to transfer hard-earned skills to other arenas, about middle age and life and meaning and all that jazz.

What I did not expect was for this conversation to relate so directly to the issue of head of school transition. For months, I have been contemplating the head of school transition as a major change management event for schools and about how to frame this phenomenon in a different light so boards can best set up a head for long-ish term success providing consistent, steady leadership.

It turns out, the world of private equity has stepped in to help reframe this conversation. My friend discussed her most current role as director of integration for a company that had acquired a number of other companies. Paraphrasing her:  “Sure, there are checklists and guardrails and data, but it really comes down to dealing with people as human beings and understanding they are going through a major change.” And I would add to that - a major cultural change. It’s really about how one company, with its own culture, is going to start to mesh with another corporate culture. That can be the difference between momentum or drag, profit or loss.

And while head transition isn’t two full-on school cultures coming together (unless it is an internal candidate), a new leader is coming in as the product of at least one other school culture, as well as all the other cultures we bring to bear from our life experience.

So it’s not just one “transition.” Transitions are hard but they are specific and limited. I always sympathized with parents who, when taking their crying child out of the car at dropoff, would apologetically explain, “he has problems with transition.” I have problems with transition, too! There aren’t a thousand memes about Mondays for nothing.

Integration is a process of blending and coming together. A “head transition” encompasses many other transitions: a personal transition for the head and her family; a transition from the board - which usually has a culture related to but not identical to the school’s culture; a transition for the employees, for the students, and for the families, all having separate and distinct flavors. To simply describe what needs to happen in today’s complicated, pandemic-inflected, tech-informed context as “head transition” is selling it short. 

“Head integration” also frames a two way street. It’s about how the head and the school work together. It means there is work not just for the transition committee chair of the board but for senior administrators, the board chair, and other board leaders. It’s recognizing that the new head is not Wonder Woman who will intuit exactly what needs to be done and how to do it but is a talented leader who is new and going through an expected adjustment.

This framing is process oriented rather than results focused. It takes time to get to know people as individuals and to understand the school’s culture - how the school is used to operating on a day to day basis, what the unspoken priorities are, what are the principles and practices at play, what small rituals are sacred, what unproductive and unbeloved habits can be easily replaced. New-to-headship heads don’t automatically know how to run a senior team meeting as more than a check-in/report out. It may be the first time a new head has ever had to manage people who have expertise far different from one’s own, such as a CFO. And it is the first time they have interacted with a board of trustees. There’s a huge learning curve and it doesn’t get accomplished in a few months of occasional transition committee meetings. There are programs like NAIS’s Institute for New Heads but that is literally like drinking from a fire hose.

What is guaranteed to either not work at all, or not to work as well as it could, is this: throwing the talented new head in the deep end with a blow up raft and a life preserver and having faith he will figure it out. 

Many new heads do know what to do with the blow up raft and the life preserver - or as one consultant said to me my first year as head, “It strikes me you’re a strong swimmer.” But swimming is exhausting and as a board, do you really want your new head draining all his energy just making sure they are opening the door to the bathroom rather than the storage closet when they want to use the restroom?

All head of school search firms state they include “head transition” services. But it would be smart of boards to ask firms in the vetting process what they provide and how it will be delivered. Ask ten heads of school and you’ll get ten different answers about their transition support and I guarantee you many will say it was inadequate to the level of complication and the sheer size of the challenge they were stepping into. And I know in more than one situation, there was next to zero “head transition” support from the firm despite any promises.

And a new model - support for a head integration model - is not going to be included in any current head of school search firm services. A new model would have to include a significant increase in time dedicated to facilitating this process to support trustees who already have an overflowing plate. And for executive search firms that do a wide range of industries - their core competency is the recruiting and hiring process. They are highly experienced and have a wonderful track record on placement. Great! But are they equally adept at change management and do they feel any sense of ownership over real success in year one?

It is true - head searches are already expensive. But the biggest cost to a school, both in dollars and in reputational value, is a headship that fails quickly or ends in less than five years - and really, five years goes by in the blink of an eye. The best investment you can make as a board is to carefully foster a collaborative, harmonious first year relationship between the head and the school. If the head search firm isn’t providing a thorough integration process through their typical head transition services, it is a smart investment to talk to a change management consultant who will provide insight, facilitation and guidance. 

Just like in private equity - you can invest a ton in the acquisition process but if the integration process fails, it is ultimately a wasted effort.

Thank you to all of you for reading! I’m hoping to have dedicated time next week to map out future topics. I really appreciate all the support.

Have a wonderful weekend -

Julie