This is Talking Out of School, a weekly newsletter about schools, change, leadership and being a human in the 21st century. Thank you to all the subscribers who support this work!
If a subscriber passed this on to you and you’re enjoying this work, please consider subscribing! More subscribers means growth and growth increases my ability to attract interesting guests to be interviewed, more readers to send me interesting ideas, more community members to start a resourceful comments section etc.
This is a weird post. I decided to forge ahead and share some process thoughts in case any of my fumbling around this week makes anyone else out there feel less alone in their fumbling around. I found it exceptionally hard to focus between the war in the Middle East and the fact that one of our major branches of government is paralyzed. It feels kind of like the spring of 2020 where I would sit and flip between cable news channels and surf the web for long stretches, searching and hoping for what exactly, I’m not sure. The occasional helpful insight? Not feeling alone in the mess?
For those of you navigating all this instability and leading schools, I send you support!
It’s a lot.
Sometimes I write a draft that is a big monster mess but usually I see the through line, or the part that feels particularly timely and relevant and I can edit and craft a coherent essay. I originally had a topic in my publication calendar that is still worth writing about - about undervalued management skills - but it just didn’t feel timely or currently relevant or that it would be meeting anyone’s needs. Maybe writing about that wouldn’t meet my needs?
Then I saw the NAIS article about their polarization in schools qualitative research analysis and I read it and I was frustrated. The qualitative data was old, was gathered in August, 2022 and was published in the spring of 2023 and then again in the 2023 Independent School fall magazine. (For some reason, I’m having trouble with the link but it appeared as “Division and Heads” by Margaret Anne Rowe in the fall IS magazine) And overall, it felt well meaning but didn’t provide any insight or direction we haven’t heard before.
So I started a document I labelled “Power, polarization, leadership and management.” I ended up with a three headed monster of a draft that was trying to say too much, and not any of it particularly well or with enough clarity. Is that a metaphor for something?
And then a few days ago, working with a group of school administrators, I unexpectedly experienced a wave of emotion towards the end of the session, tearing up after witnessing the level of care and attention the group was bringing to one another, despite all the pulls I knew they must be experiencing in their roles. They were all so present for each other. It was just so human and moving.
This is one side effect of not being a school leader right now. Back in the day, I had an internal compactor and I shoved raw feelings down deep so I could keep my head clear and keep moving because in a time of tumult, you need to keep that emotional corridor free from clutter in order to do your job as a leader. And the thing is, I think it used to be that the time of tumult would come and you would smush your stuff down, and then it would pass and you could let your stuff float back to the surface. In my memory, that’s how it felt in managing the 9/11 crisis as a senior leader at a boarding school. But the hits just keep on coming, for years now, even pre pandemic. And then those feelings all sat down there, cubed, uniform and unrecognizable like the cars that went through a car crusher, not budging but waiting to be recycled.
Now my feelings have loosened up and are so much closer to the surface and it is an unfamiliar, somewhat disarming but beautiful thing to let them out. I’m adjusting. I’m grateful. I remember so clearly what it was like when you just had to get it done and haul all your stuff around to be dealt with later. It’s heavy. Maybe I’m projecting, but work in schools can be demanding and draining on a sunny day and managing a community that is once again emotionally convulsed is just complicated and difficult.
So here are ten thoughts I touched on in my monster draft, in case any of you out there read this and think - yeah, I’m thinking about that, too!
The world is changing so rapidly. We can’t just keep rehashing old solutions in what is becoming a completely new context - post pandemic, an era of war when countries are so intertwined with one another, a volatile and evolving domestic economy, the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, the ubiquity and vague menace of social media, the epidemic of loneliness. I worry about the fragility of both kids and adults.
How do we gauge how our communities are feeling and what they are experiencing - and not just the extroverts, the quiet people, too? And then what do we do with what we learn? How do leaders not feel hopeless when they can’t make it all better?
“Free speech” and “hate speech” seem to be all tangled up and that is making communications even harder.
Our conflict aversion is worse than ever in a world where we can create media ecosystems that confirm out beliefs. I saw two university president letters last night that, to me, seemed to be thinly veiled reasoning to sidestep a statement of any kind because of what is essentially conflict aversion, not principle. (I am definitely writing a longer post in a few weeks about the university president response since October 7. I am both sympathetic to their communications challenge but on the other hand, maybe announce you are no longer issuing institutional statements when you opened school in the fall, rather than during a crisis?)
And are we are creating media ecosystems to substitute for community - our podcasts, streaming choices, news sources, etc. - are those parasocial relationships our new communities? And how are they serving us at moments like this?
How there are no norms anymore and that makes leadership, and by extension, leadership communication, extremely difficult.
And how do we support introverts as heads when so many of the celebrated characteristics of leadership and leadership communications are characteristics of extroverts?
Once again, I think how much the work of schools has changed but the expectations of the jobs have not and it’s creating burnout and frustration. It is impossible to maintain a sense of purpose when it feels like you suddenly only have a hammer to weed your garden but everyone expects the garden to look exactly as beautiful as it always did.
How do heads change their jobs in media res to course adjust to do the job in front of them in a way that is a human sized expectation and not the idealized version of the job? How do we bring along board chairs and maybe even more important, how do heads get real with themselves? It’s hard to admit it’s too much, but conditions have legitimately changed. And how do we start to shift the head of school job for the future heads?
In the NAIS article I referenced above, part of their research from August 2022 revealed that 47% of the 500 heads they interviewed described the job as “exhausting.” But this was the article’s conclusion: Ultimately, this study revealed that many heads feel prepared to address constituent concerns, manage conflict and disagreement, and speak to their communities in town hall settings. Though there’s never an easy time to be a head of school, it’s clear that the current cohort is able, willing, and empowered to keep their mission front and center as they guide their communities through challenging times.
I appreciate the vote of confidence in heads of school. That is entirely appropriate for NAIS. There are many exceptional people leading schools. But they are also human and I think they are tired. It’s heavy.
It made me think of that meme: This is fine!
I have probably seven different potential essays in that above list alone and much of it needs more time to develop. Some will get traction on the page and others won’t.
But really - what is most helpful to people right now? I would imagine leadership communications is top of mind. So below are what I hope are some helpful insights from an essay Lauren Castagnola and I wrote last spring. I hope, given the last few weeks, heads of school are appreciating the need for a robust leadership communications capacity.
As I said at the end of last week’s post, I think it is a fine goal to get out of the institutional statement business about events outside of your campus, but in reality, given the fractured nature of people’s information consumption, your communities are going to look to you for moral clarity. And then not saying anything is saying something. Independent schools are intimate enough to have a real shot at fostering community, which can’t be said for so many other institutions today.
So here are some guiding principles from me and Lauren to develop a strong leadership/crisis response communications function:
Strong leadership communications controls and shapes the messages about the institution as it stands, as well as the future direction. It is clear and timely. It inspires through simple, direct precision about principles rather than rhetorical flourish. It is a consistent voice that reassures and asserts with a mild but discernible authority. It resonates as the words of the leader and the words of the institution.
It is a marriage of thoughtful and authentic brand messaging, head of school vision and institutional values brought together through the craft and skill of the director of communications.
The voice of the head informs this institutional voice but the voices are not one and the same.
And one other “not” - leadership communication is not synonymous with crisis communications. Crisis comms is part of it, and having an in-house team that is capable of triaging smaller crises is, I think, an undervalued asset in schools. But leadership comms is really about advancement at all levels.
It is a marker of deeply caring, deeply invested stewardship of an institution that people are taking the time to craft these messages and convey what the school truly prioritizes and stands for.
So what elements go into strong leadership communications?
A skilled director of communications who can see the big picture, who is empathetic, and can make connections with people to draw them out, who is invested in really getting to understand the leader of the organization and observing and developing insights into where the organization is and where it is going.
A head of school needs time to think about the context of the world in which the school exists - whether that is the neighborhood, the city, the region, the country or the world. It is given that to be effective at her job, a head has to be attuned to where the school is and where it is going and have some sense of how to work within the culture to move it forward. But to excel at leadership comms, the head needs to develop a point of view on issues outside of school life and how school life relates.
The head of school and director of communications need to switch back and forth between who is conducting the orchestra and who is the first violin. There needs to be mutual respect and a certain degree of humility in approaching the relationship.
The head needs to learn to genuinely seek the director of communications’ input and listen. It is a given the head is the decision maker, but to make the best decision and to have a truly powerful partnership with a director of comms, you need to be humble and be relentless about what you don’t know and seek it out. And that means also knowing when to hand the baton over to the director of comms and take your seat as the first violin. You are still indispensable as the leader, but in certain situations, your role may be different.
The director of comms needs to refine the message so school branding is woven in so articulately and craftily that the listener or reader won’t feel like the brand is being forced fed. This isn’t something that comes easily or quickly. And it doesn’t mean that you end every message with your tagline or school motto. But a very strong messaging platform will provide plenty of material for you to work with. ChatGPT can’t do this for you.
It’s more than grammar or “correct” language. Now don’t get us wrong, grammar is important. But what are you really saying? What are people walking away with and feeling? This is where a really great director of comms has the knowledge and has earned the trust to be a true collaborator on messaging.
Learn the head of school’s voice. And not just in critical situations. Be around her socially and in formal situations to learn how she frames her sentences, injects humor, and interacts with people. Watch her interact with different constituencies. This will be immensely helpful when crafting any message in order to make it feel authentic. Because nothing quite kills a message like a whiff of inauthenticity. Once you smell it, that scent is stuck in your nose (and brain) and frankly, the message is dead.
The director of communications will have to put herself aside to write for someone else. We’re not saying that the head of school and the director of comms are in lock-step on every position. And each person deserves the time and space to have their own opinions. There are too many issues in the world right now to think that everyone will agree on all fronts. As we said earlier, the head of school is the decision maker, but the director of comms shouldn’t be a tail-wagging Golden Retriever who obeys commands. Healthy discussion and disagreement that may include the viewpoints of more than just the head of school and the comms director, are critical to developing quality leadership communications.
This is all about trust. Trust that the head of school is keeping the institution's best interest at the center of their decision-making. Trust that the director of communications is tending to the brand in all the ways we communicate to our various constituencies. And a good rapport is a foundation for such trust so that you can push back on each other and still enjoy the energy of a collaboration that has substantial results, a collaboration that matters.
Thanks for hanging out with me through these meanderings…
As always, feel free to head to Stony Creek Strategy and reach out.
Julie
Coming up in Talking Out of School:
Next week - The October digest with the handy link-o-rama of all posts and links from this past month.
Coming in November: The People Talking interview with Tom Gorman, CFOO at the Foxcroft School Part II - Cash (Flow) is King