Throughout twenty years of leading schools, my two young children admitted, a little sheepishly, that they never really understood what I did. They knew I gave speeches, stood outside in the morning, and addressed the problem when something big went wrong. They saw me stressed, and they saw me teary with joy; they knew how much I valued my colleagues. Sometimes they’d mention something they had heard at school and then stand in awe of my mind-reading skills when I told them I already knew about it. When I visited kindergarten classrooms, I explained my job this way: I keep everyone safe and learning. To do that, I talk with a lot of teachers, staff members, parents, students, and community members, and I work every day to solve problems. That seemed to satisfy them.  

Since stepping away from headship, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to lead schools today. In many ways, I think our charge is simple: “hold the center,” or, more cheekily and maybe more accurately, as I’ve lived it: “gather the blob.”  

Schools are communities: groups of people who are, by design, many different types and styles, all joined together for a shared purpose. Leadership, in my view and experience, is the ability to hold that group together, allowing people to sit in different places on many spectra, while moving the whole group forward, in the same direction, together. The shape of the “blob” changes as people grow, sprint ahead, pull back, or drift out to one side or another. The leader’s job is to hold the center of gravity and to move it forward with intention.  

This work is joyful. It can also be hard. It is always deeply meaningful. Much of it is nuanced, and the right answers don’t always come easily. However thoughtful they are, parents are understandably passionate when it comes to their children and teachers care deeply about their work; emotions can run high. Schools absorb and often become lightning rods for society’s hardest social and political dilemmas. The leader stands in the middle (or in front, or behind) of all of it. That requires self-knowledge, resilience, patience, fortitude, excellent communication, and the many other “personal and professional qualities” we list in a search position description. It is not for the faint of heart.  

One cannot fully prepare for the nuanced side of this work before it begins. However, some parts of the job can be more concrete, including: understanding the mechanics of school finance; overseeing enrollment, advancement, athletics, and college counseling; and practicing good governance. One can learn foundational aspects of the headship and engage in intentional self-reflection well in advance of the first day as head.  

With that in mind, we’re launching The Headship Mindset, an eight-session virtual program for independent school senior leaders who may consider headship in the not-too-distant future. I will be hosting and facilitating these sessions from January through May 2027, and together, we’ll explore the topics addressed in this article. Please click the link to learn more about the institute. Feel free to pass this along to senior leaders you may know who would value the opportunity to consider headship and participate in the series as well.