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Here’s more information on program offerings - governance training, leadership coaching, Building Better Teams retreats, customized workshops - from Julie Faulstich and Stony Creek Strategy.
Contact us - always happy to chat!
Photo by Ioann-Mark Kuznietsov on Unsplash
First - The Big News
Stony Creek Strategy is introducing a new offering for Fall, 2025 and we’re looking for a max of TEN intrepid souls to pilot the program.
The Boss Skills Lab - a course in applied leadership
Boss skills to be a better boss
Eight sessions over three months - fall, 2025
Learn accessible leadership concepts and and practice your skill in applying them between course meetings through your day to day work as a leader and a manager
For anyone in a school who manages people and wants to sharpen their skills: heads, department heads, senior admins, mid-level directors, etc. The pressures, complication and context are different but the core dynamics are the same.
The Boss Skills Lab will present one concept or framework in each session on topics that can then be applied to every day aspects of leadership such as decision making, building trust, leading change and managing conflict. Often, material will be supplemented by short excerpts from thinkers outside of traditional educational leadership: ex: Elizabeth Gilbert on the creative process, John McWhorter on AI in teaching, Ira Glass on getting people to open up, etc.
This course will be held virtually, in 8 75 or 90 minute Zoom sessions, with frequent use of breakout rooms to share your experiences with your course peers, mid September until Thanksgiving. (Actual dates and time will be set as I talk to folks interested in what will work for them. Wednesday afternoon seems popular but we’ll see…)
The pilot will be offered at a special rate.
The only other requirements are: a willingness and interest to reflect on your own leadership behaviors, an enthusiasm for a structure that depends on each group member contributing to the experience of the whole (i.e. if you prefer to wait for the recording of a virtual webinar, or if you think you’ll end up only making it to half the sessions, this one isn’t for you), a genuine curiosity to explore leadership skills from new directions, a sense of humor about human foibles and the ability to keep what happens in the Boss Skills Lab in the Boss Skills Lab.
This won’t be book reports on HBR leadership articles. (All blessings on HBR and those articles have their place.) This will be real, messy leadership, stories from the field, tales of misfires, tales of success. And that might all be in one session!
I will also be actively soliciting feedback throughout the course as to what’s working well for participants and what’s not - so you will have influence on the future direction of this work.
For this pilot, I am also including 90 minutes of 1-1 meeting time - a 30 minute meeting before the course begins and a 60 minute meeting to be scheduled during or shortly after the course.
Just hit reply to let me know you’re interested or contact me at jfaulstich@stonycreekstrategy.com and I’ll be in touch!
Link of the Month
This is a great blog post from Emily Heim and Tony Amorello, two former school heads who now are on the team at Blackbaud. I enjoy collaborating with Blackbaud (and this is absolutely not a “sponsored link”) because they truly are committed to pushing thought leadership forward and being a value add to independent schools. This post demonstrates that commitment.
Ten Tips for New School Leaders
Recent Engagements
I had a great time last week co-facilitating a session on trustee term limits with Bethany Di Napoli for the Independent School Chairpersons Association. If you’re unfamiliar with ISCA, it’s a great resource for the school’s board chair - 11/10 recommend. Whenever I am with a group of trustees, I reminded how hard they work and how dedicated they are. And last week I posted a new article on navigating independent school governance which you can find here.
Upcoming Engagements
I’m very excited for a few upcoming collaborations with The Association of Boarding Schools:
April 8th at 2pm Building Bridges: Parent and School Communication in an Age of Polarization virtual workshop - registration link for TABS members here
June 12-13 Leadership Roundtable - more information here
I’ll be one of the program’s featured speakers - on site at Episcopal Academy
And with my friends at the Association of Academic Leaders, I’ve developed and with be facilitating an asynchronous course on Navigating Tough Talks: Managing Challenges with Confidence in early August. This course will have two pathways - one for managing complicated parents and one about managing “up” “down” and “across” at your school.
And coming up in Talking Out of School:
Managing the Money People: Advice for heads managing finance/operations, admissions and development
Top Five Tips for When Your Direct Report Says “No”
A People Talking interview about techniques for managing Gen Z employees
Next Steps When Admissions Yield Doesn’t Meet Budget, 2025 edition