Letter to New Heads, 2025
An edited version of a 2023 post - plus more thoughts on head transition
Welcome to the Talking Out of School newsletter! If you were forwarded this email, hit the subscribe button to get weekly insights into applied leadership for your independent school or nonprofit. Thank you for your support!
Here’s more information on program offerings from Julie Faulstich and Stony Creek Strategy. Contact us - always happy to chat!
Rainbows don’t happen without rain… Photo by Alex Stone on Unsplash
I just returned from doing a workshop with a school getting ready to welcome a new head. It was a big learning experience for me and (I think!) a positive experience for the school. We discussed moving through change, how head searches mostly result selecting external candidates outside a school’s culture, how it can be hard to enter a new culture when you’re the Big Boss and what school communities can do in day-to-day practice to assist in that transition.
It made me wonder how many schools take time out to do intentional work around coping with change and how to welcome a new head. I’ve been on both ends and I would say mostly it’s “hold hands and jump off the cliff.” Maybe with a dash of “we are such a great community, it’ll be the best year ever!” Which I don’t think works terribly well, especially as schools have been so buffeted by change in general since 2020 and the hits keep coming.
One workshop is not going to ensure of a smooth head transition but taking some time to think about change and to think about the good, the bad and the ugly of school culture (and ALL school cultures have the good, the bad and the ugly!) and how to welcome a new head into the culture is a step in the right direction. My approach is always to just try to help people have honest conversations about the whole mixed bag of it all - schools are wonderful, schools are complicated and far from perfect, people are complicated, management is hard, change is exhausting and yet there’s lots of hope and opportunity out there, too.
It made me think a lot of about being a new head, so I am resending this piece addressed to new heads I originally posted in 2023, with some edits and changes. After I do some more processing, I’ll write more about head transition as well.
Dear New Heads:
Headship presents a multi-year opportunity to think deeply about priorities and values and, at the risk of sounding melodramatic, the meaning of life. What is education but, in the end, a provider of tools so students can explore the meaning of life? Education is life itself - the mundane day to day, the absolute magic moments of serendipity and grace, the deeply meaningful and transformative instances of interpersonal connection. And there is also the unexpected, the catastrophic, the nonsensically tragic. Life.
Leading a school makes it impossible to avoid the Big Questions. Back in 2023, I saw this quote in a LinkedIn post by Eve Jardine-Young, Principal at the Cheltenham Ladies College in the UK. And it just resonated so instantly and completely, the way a song lyric hits you on an emotional level before you can parse the meaning.
“It's dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply.
Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them."
~ Aldous Huxley
Headship will temp you every day to become enmeshed with your role, that you as Head and you as you are interchangeable. I would advise, “feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.”
However exhausting it might feel to carve out that space for yourself, it is essential. And this is not about massages or taking a walk. It is about the psychic space to recognize that you exist outside your role, that you and headship are not one.
People will push and pull you in all kinds of directions, filtered through their lens. Most people aren’t ill intentioned but no one has the same perspective as the leader of the organization.
What’s a “good head” anyway?
If you have been offered this position, you likely kicked ass throughout your career. You’re an accomplished, high achieving person. The school is lucky to have you. Congratulations!
And now here’s the bad news. There’s very few metrics everyone can agree on that measure what being a “good head” is. You can hit the quantitative metrics and some people will think you’re lacking. You can hit the qualitative metrics and some people will think you’re lacking. You can hit both - and yes, you guessed it, some people will still think you’re lacking because they just don’t agree with how you’re moving forward, or just don’t like you, for some reason you can’t control.
Or, even more boldly, you have decided that even if you could control this, it’s too big a sacrifice for the person you are. And brava to you! Because in the end, you will learn more about leadership and hone your skills more effectively by preserving those parts of yourself that are authentically you, and if there is a price to be paid, so be it. Because there is always a price to be paid!
You will get great advice from experienced heads that you should certainly think about but discard if you just know it doesn’t work for you. You also might get advice on managing a tricky situation from a person you trust and respect, but just know it’s not the right thing to do. And even when you’re new and it can be hard to trust that inner voice, give it a hard listen and think about the consequences, maybe give it a run around in the open air from time to time. Act on that inner voice to start with in places where the consequences will be manageable to test it out. The voice will get stronger and clearer. You’ll start to get a sense of when your inner voice is the one to listen to or the good advice.
And as you get to know more heads, you’ll realize there are so many ways to be a good head.
The first few years are just hard and there’s something freeing about accepting that and trying to keep your sense of humor.
People will have ridiculous and unmeetable expectations. It’s complicated to know who to trust - again, not for nefarious reasons, but just because you don’t really understand where people are coming from. You’re still getting to know how the culture really operates. You’ll accidentally step in a hole, maybe quite a few. You will be able to get out of all of them and that’s why Band Aids are easily available.
Find some outside voices you can trust. There are the mentors that love you; they are indispensable. There is also a lot of other outside support available. There was one school attorney I called my “Fifth Beatle” for the first few years of headship.
I also had talented, patient, wise help from consultants who were outside the political fray of the school in areas where I was still building up my expertise - branding and communications, finance, business office operations, fundraising and advancement, enrollment. It was a tonic to work with people who saw me as me and not just as The Head. People really extended themselves for me and went over and above any transactional, contractual relationship. I will be forever grateful. So many people want to see a school succeed.
Find people who you are not afraid to ask dumb questions although the questions are way less dumb than you think. You may start off with an internal team where you can ask these questions but if you don’t, build your own. It’s worth the immense effort.
When thinking about the first six months of headship, I keep thinking of what George W Bush said about Donald Trump’s first inauguration speech - “That was some weird shit.” New heads, you’re in for some weird shit. But you’re resilient and some of it’s fun and a lot of it makes great stories…eventually. Soon, you’ll be packing or trying to squeeze in a vacation or looking at the calendar and thinking, how it is setting someone up to succeed to move, start a huge new job and then immediately leave to attend the Institute for New Heads? You are not wrong. Just know you are not crazy for having these thoughts.
When I was at the Institute for New Heads, I thought everyone but me had it figured out. They did not. Let go of the myth of perfection right now. Whatever vision you have in your mind of a fantastic head from your past, someone who inspired you and led the school to new heights - just remember they were new once, too, and they likely were not facing the same challenges you are inheriting. They had their insecurities and they had parts of the job they did less well than others, even up to the day they retired.
Be patient with yourself as you figure out how to be the head you want to be and what your institution needs from you. This takes time and some trial and error - yes, error! It happens. Be patient with those around you as it’s exciting and nerve wracking to have a new head as boss and they probably have no clue how to best support you. Maybe think about it and tell them.
Find some people to laugh with; this is a sanity lifeline. Remember you’re a talented professional who can do hard things even when, yet again, someone walks in your office and presents you with another head-scratcher.
Headship didn’t just become complicated in March of 2020; the role has always been multilayered, performed in hundreds of different, successful variations blending the relational and the operational. At its best, it is a relationship between the current situation, culture and history of a school and the personality and skills of the head, a continuous push-pull interplay between harmony and tension.
The mundane, the aspirational, the magical. And yes, the weird shit.
Welcome to headship!
Stony Creek Strategy featured services
We are currently enrolling our third cohort for Finding and Leaning Into Your Authentic Authority for women leaders. We’ve had two wonderful groups of student-facing female senior administrators and we can’t wait to work with you! More information here and hit reply on this email or reach out to me at jfaulstich@stonycreekstrategy.com if you’re interested!
Interested in building a coaching relationship that is a space for you to be completely honest about your leadership challenges or about considering new opportunities appearing on your journey? Ready to get some support creating clarity for yourself in navigating complicated decisions? I have a few spaces left for executive coaching for next year and happy to talk or email - reach out here.