{"id":718,"date":"2012-04-18T05:06:38","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T05:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/?p=718"},"modified":"2012-04-18T05:06:38","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T05:06:38","slug":"tlp-harlan-lyso-retired-head-of-school-at-seoul-foreign-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/tlp-harlan-lyso-retired-head-of-school-at-seoul-foreign-school\/","title":{"rendered":"TLP: Dr. Harlan Lyso"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGive your people responsibility, mentor them\u2026and oversee their work so you can see that they\u2019ve been successful.\u201d \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em>This simple philosophy has shaped the careers and education of countless students, faculty and staff at the schools where Dr. Harlan Lyso has worked.\u00a0 It\u2019s this uncomplicated and principle-based leadership style that has guided Dr. Lyso through nearly 40 years of international ED experience throughout the world.\u00a0 Most notably, Dr. Lyso oversaw Seoul Foreign School as Head of School for 16 years as well as principal for the four years prior.\u00a0 In 2008 he was award International Superintendent of the Year by AAIE, the Association for the Advancement of International Education.<\/p>\n

Now partially retired Dr. Lyso consults for ISS and represents EARCOS on the WASC Commission, which allows him to keep his hands in the part of the world where he raised his family and built a career.\u00a0 He was kind enough to meet with me and discuss his observations on international education, qualities of effective leadership and the challenges that lay ahead for the industry.<\/p>\n

What changes have you noticed in international education over the last 10 years? For teachers and administrators?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall \u201cparental expectations\u201d have changed drastically over the last decade.\u00a0 Just a few years ago parents moving abroad were satisfied if an international school even existed, but now the expectation is that the school will be at least as good as the one they left and should be better.<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition to higher expectations, the greatest change has come simply from the explosion of schools.\u00a0 It\u2019s believed that there are currently 5000 international schools worldwide and this will grow to over 9000 in the near future.\u00a0 Much of this growth has come from the creation of for-profit schools as well as schools moving away from a student model that limits admission to only expats.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

For schools this means that many of the differentiation strategies promoted by consultants like Bill and Ochan Powell are extremely relevant because school populations are becoming less homogenous.<\/em><\/p>\n

International Education is quickly expanding, this is no more evident that in China and Korea, is this a good or bad thing for the industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>It\u2019s really a \u201cmixed-bag\u201d of positives and negatives and provides some distinct challenges for all parties.\u00a0 For schools there will be staffing difficulties because \u201call of the schools are looking for the same high quality teachers as before, but there hasn\u2019t been a large enough increased in [viable candidates].\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

For parents and students there will be problems with \u201cquality assurance.\u201d\u00a0 Many schools may appear or claim to be providing a high quality education while not meeting the high accreditation standards that parents should expect.\u00a0 As an example \u201cthere are around 120 members school in EARCOS, but there are probably over 500 \u2018international schools\u2019 in the region\u2026and parents are sending there kids to these schools with no idea whether their kids are getting a good education.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

During your time at Seoul Foreign School the school grew in size and reputation, what was the key ingredient to this transformation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

SFS celebrated its centennial this year and was originally created as a missionary school.\u00a0 Although it still holds to its Christian-ethos its need to serve the missionary community declined (mostly because of the success of the missionaries).\u00a0 About 20 years ago pressure mounted to transform the school into a high-end international school.\u00a0 At that time the school already had a high quality program, but greatly needed an upgrade to the facilities.\u00a0 So instead of changing the program we started building and adding to the campus.\u00a0 For some \u201cperception is reality.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your greatest priority when choosing administrators and teachers at your school?\u00a0 How important is leadership ability?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to identify just one quality, but generally, \u201cI look for people with a lot of energy and personality, that through relationships can move people forward.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t especially need a scholar and certainly don\u2019t want people just like me, but instead a person who can supplement our team\u2019s current skill set.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Leadership ability is important, but it really depends on their role.\u00a0 \u201cWhen I bring somebody in I want him or her to have instant credibility, and I want the community to be looking forward to their coming\u2026I want somebody who is going to involve people as opposed to direct people.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

How much freedom did you give your admin in recruitment fairs?\u00a0 Did you require the final say? \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u00a0 Not if you have the senior level administrative team that you\u2019d like to have.\u201d\u00a0 SFS only sent one person to each fair, and we covered lots of fairs. \u201cI knew that as school head that the idea of my knowing each candidate deeply was ludicrous.\u201d Of course people had the authority to hire for their own division, and then would work with other division leaders to find or suggest the right people.\u00a0 I had great confidence in my team to find the right people.<\/em><\/p>\n

Which administrators do you believe are great at developing talented leaders around the world?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to identify because if you look at where the new heads are coming from, you don\u2019t see just a handful of great developers.\u00a0 Instead, \u201cthey\u2019re coming from all over.\u201d\u00a0 However, I think leaders who are talented at developing others share a common philosophy, to give people responsibility and mentor them.\u00a0 Certainly that\u2019s what I tried to do.<\/em><\/p>\n

Are there schools or administrators that inspired you and helped you focus your goals at the schools you worked at?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Most inspiration resides in ones own personal and professional development.\u00a0 Every year at Seoul Foreign I got a significant professional development package, which allowed me to gather tools and knowledge to experiment with the direction of the school.\u00a0 As we tested out a direction I would spend time learning skills that would help support the natural flow of the school\u2019s development and as needed received the development needed to successfully lead the school that direction.\u00a0 For example as our school looked closely at building a strategic plan I went off for a week to learn from other experts about how to do this.<\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s your advice for the next generation of international administrators and teachers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFinding time for reflection is critical.\u00a0 Often we get so busy that we don\u2019t spend time reflecting like we might\u2026and we always tell the kids to reflect on their learning and that\u2019s no less true for administrators.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Many principals at really good schools want to move into headships at good schools and that rarely happens. \u00a0 Instead people need to be willing consider headships at less established schools.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGive your people responsibility, mentor them\u2026and oversee their work so you can see that they\u2019ve been successful.\u201d \u00a0 This simple philosophy has shaped the careers and education of countless students, faculty and staff at the schools where Dr. Harlan Lyso has worked.\u00a0 It\u2019s this uncomplicated and principle-based leadership style that has guided Dr. Lyso through […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":720,"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":[24,119,211,244],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-leadership-project","tag-aaie","tag-harlan-lyso","tag-seoul-foreign-school","tag-the-leadership-project"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5BJbv-bA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","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=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/learnedleadership.org\/divi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}