Recently a colleague of mine was talking about the increasing practice of appointing school heads almost two years ahead of their start date.\u00a0 For instance, amongst the people I\u2019ve interviewed, both Tim Carr and Mark Ulfers received their appointments well over a year before they officially began working at their schools.\u00a0 This practice has led to the rise of interim heads, which helps keep the school running and provides some leadership during the gap.\u00a0 If you ask me it sounds like a pretty good gig.\u00a0 You get to travel and live in a new location and work with a new group of people.\u00a0 If you do a great job you might get asked to go somewhere else for another year, and if you\u2019re horrible, you\u2019ll just build the anticipation for the new head to start.\u00a0 Where can I sign up?\u00a0 Well unfortunately for most of us, you have to be amongst the highest respected professionals in the field of international education.<\/p>\n
Monica Greeley, who has helped lead schools in Kenya, Indonesia and Burma as well as heading Cairo American College in Egypt, most recently helped bridge the gap between heads at Jakarta International School.\u00a0 If that\u2019s the CV needed to get a one-year appointment, I am far from qualified.\u00a0 During our discussion she spoke of the balancing act an interim head must overcome between moving the school forward, while also helping to bring healing to the community in different areas if needed.\u00a0 She explained that much of this work is rooted in \u201didentifying common values\u201d <\/em>that you can use to renew a shared culture and soften areas of toxicity.<\/p>\n (If not specifically quoted, Ms. Greeley\u2019s responses to these questions have been paraphrased)<\/p>\n When and why did you decide to step into leadership?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThis is, I think, one of the interesting parts about my story\u2026what happened was I thought I was going to be a teacher forever, because I love teaching.\u00a0 What happened was when I was in Kenya the head of school\u2026identified me as a leader for a number of reasons\u2026he decided to create a new position for me and I said no.\u201d\u00a0 I felt unqualified and my children were young, so I really wasn\u2019t interested.\u00a0 In fact for months I kept offering suggestions of other candidates\u2026\u201dand then finally he came to me and said, \u2018either you take the position, or I won\u2019t create the position,\u2019 which on one level is very gratifying and validating, but on the other was very terrifying.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOnce that happened [and I got my feet wet, I really enjoyed] being able to not only implement a vision, but [also the ability] to craft the vision [with others] became the reason I wanted to remain in administration.\u00a0 With that said I believe that loving the classroom\u2026should be on the list of criteria for good administrators.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Unfortunately, I wasn\u2019t able to stay in the classroom as an administrator, but think one of our primary roles as administrators is to be an instructional leader.\u00a0 Even if we\u2019re not teaching a class we\u2019re often teaching our faculty, so we can model effective practices through this relationship too.\u00a0 Really no matter what role one takes in a school we must always remain teachers in some capacity.<\/em><\/p>\n All of your positions have been in the developing world, was this on purpose?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d\u00a0 My husband was a part of USAID and our orientation has always been towards the developing world.\u00a0 \u201cIt might not be wholly accurate, but I think there is a little bit of a sense that you\u2019re making a bigger contribution [in those parts of the world].\u00a0 That may or may not be the case…[but] our comfort level is definitely in the developing world.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n You\u2019ve been in positions of leadership at schools around the globe, with very different cultures at each school, what\u2019s one of your first priorities when starting?<\/strong><\/p>\n When I first started at Cairo American College, I instituted a fairly comprehensive entry plan by inviting all the various stakeholders to come in and meet with me, as well as complete a survey to see what their major concerns were.\u00a0 \u201cWhat I do as a rule…is to talk about the school culture, [with the staff and admin team] and work to identify any areas of toxicity that need attention.\u00a0 I also believe\u2026that there are common values\u2026even amongst vastly different cultures [that can help bind a school together].\u00a0 The key as a school leader is to identify the values that you want to represent your school, and then define them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n What specific skills do you bring when you step into a role?<\/strong><\/p>\n As I mentioned earlier it\u2019s important to me to look for areas that need attention or represent some kind of toxicity\u2026I believe part of my role [when entering a school is] to \u201chelp healing to take place\u2026[however,] I want to be really cautious and not pretend that I alone [bring healing]\u2026[but] a new person provides an opportunity for change.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201c[Also] you have to be a good listener and you have to be really patient.\u201d\u00a0 Honestly, sometimes you think the issues are pretty minor or even insignificant and people need to just get over it.\u00a0 On the other hand, when you start to hear the same thing over and over, no matter how insignificant, it\u2019s an indication that there is something more serious going on that needs attention.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI can relate fairly well to people who may not be my best friends, and have [differing opinions].\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m also very direct.\u00a0 I\u2019m warm and fuzzy, and a hugger\u2026[but can also be very direct] at helping define boundaries.\u201d\u00a0 What I mean by that is as an administrator \u201cwe all want to promote shared decision making and collaboration,\u201d but once we\u2019ve identified a solution we need to be ready to get everybody to move forward.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What\u2019s your greatest priority when choosing teachers and administrators?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cI look for love of the job\u2026any teacher that works with me\u2026 will tell you how [tired] they are of hearing me say \u2018come to work with a spring in your step.\u2019 But I really believe that we are in a service profession, we\u2019re serving students, so we have to love what we\u2019re doing, because that contributes to their love of learning.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTeam work is hugely important\u2026[having] evidence of being able to work as a team [is vital], and then\u2026accept responsibility for team decisions is something else that I feel is very important\u2019\u2026 I think we talk a lot about collaboration and shared decision-making; but we don\u2019t talk enough about shared ownership, accountability, and implementation.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cThe ability to work together and ensure decisions are made and implemented responsibly and enthusiastically.\u201d`<\/em><\/p>\n Can you offer me any advice?<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPay attention to what you have learned from any mentors\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cContinue to be a good listener<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cFocus on student learning.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMake missions and strategic plans\u2026alive, viable and dynamic.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Use accreditation to your school\u2019s benefit.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently a colleague of mine was talking about the increasing practice of appointing school heads almost two years ahead of their start date.\u00a0 For instance, amongst the people I\u2019ve interviewed, both Tim Carr and Mark Ulfers received their appointments well over a year before they officially began working at their schools.\u00a0 This practice has led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1014,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[49,134,148,172,244],"class_list":["post-1012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-leadership-project","tag-cac","tag-interim-head","tag-jis","tag-monica-greeley","tag-the-leadership-project"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/mgreeley.jpg?fit=900%2C220","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5BJbv-gk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}