The Private School Leader Podcast

I want you to use your imagination. I want you to think about two different prospective parents: Asher and Amanda. Asher lives in Albuquerque, NM and is moving to your city for work. Asher and his wife want to check out the private schools in your area. They have three children enrolled in a private school in Albuquerque. Amanda is a single parent and lives within 10 miles of your school. She has...

I want you to use your imagination. I want you to think about two different prospective parents: Asher and Amanda. Asher lives in Albuquerque, NM and is moving to your city for work. Asher and his wife want to check out the private schools in your area. They have three children enrolled in a private school in Albuquerque. Amanda is a single parent and lives within 10 miles of your school. She has...

I call it the “August Apology”. I will be sitting at my desk in early August and a teacher walks into my office. They say something like, “ I never thought that I would do this, but…..” Then they proceed to tell me that they have taken a job at another school. Typically, it is for more pay and better benefits and it makes logical sense for this teacher to take that job.  That said, an “August...

We all have them. Difficult teachers. I wonder if you have an “Underminer” or an “On The Job Retiree”. Behaviors of Underminers They agree with you or sit silently in your presence, but engage in negative conversations behind your back.  They fail to follow through on a new initiative or work actively to sabotage the effort by stirring up negative feelings among other staff.  They underm...

Have you ever seen a shepherd leading a flock of sheep? I have never seen it in person, but I have seen this happen on a documentary or two. It is amazing to see how hundreds of sheep follow one person using just their voice and a wooden staff. The shepherd helps the flock travel long distances, find new areas to graze, avoid danger and return home safely. Recently, I have been struck by the role...

“According to most studies, people's number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. Death is number two. Does that sound right? This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you're better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”     Jerry Seinfeld I see it happen every year on Back To School Night. Amazing, highly skilled teachers melt into a puddle of goo whe...

Understandably, a lot of people are wary of artificial intelligence. That is probably because we don’t understand it, we worry about it replacing human workers, wrestle with the ethical concerns, are concerned about the erosion of important skills in our students, not to mention the existential fears of AI surpassing human intelligence. All of those are valid things to study, consider and discuss....

The best selling leadership book in the world is The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. Over the last three episodes of the podcast, we have been taking a look at the 21 Laws and applying them to your life as a private school leader. To wrap up this series, we will do the same with laws 15-21: Law 15: The Law of Victory  Law 16: The Law of the Big Mo  Law 17: The Law of P...

I am doing something that I have never done before on the podcast. I am doing a three episode series on The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell. Last week, we took a look at Laws 1-7 and I applied them to your life as a private school leader. This week we will do the same with laws 8-14: Law 8: The Law of Intuition Law 9: The Law of Magnetism Law 10: The Law of Connection Law 11: Law...

In May of 1998, I was struggling. I was wrapping up my seventh year as a Head of School and I was feeling very rundown from all of the demands of the board, the teachers, the parents and the students. My leadership needed a boost. I needed a boost. That summer, I discovered The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell and it was exactly what I needed. This book is full of common sense, wi...

I have been a private school leader for 32 years. I have read a lot of books about leadership, private school leadership and leadership in the corporate world. Many of them are very valuable for private school leaders to read. But, what if I had to pick just one? There is only one book that I would say that EVERY private school leader in the world should read. Let me say that again: There is only...

We all have so many things that we need to do during the summer. First, we have to wrap up the school year that just ended by meeting with teachers, finishing off report cards and sending out achievement test scores.  Then, we immediately need to start getting ready for next year by hiring teachers, ordering curriculum, finalizing the master schedule and supervising the summer cleaning projec...

When I get home from an event at school, my wife always asks me the same question. “How did it go?” I usually say the same thing. “It went really well!” Then she always says the same thing. “Well, that is worth celebrating. You put in the same amount of work if the event goes well or if it is a disaster.” This is such an important reminder for every private school leader. We are so busy putting ou...

I strongly believe that the most important trait of a successful private school leader is integrity .  I think that resilience is a close second. The word “resilience” has an extremely interesting definition: “the capability of a strained body to recover its size and shape after exposure to compressive stress.”  Think of yourself like a NERF football. Someone squeezes and twists it and t...

It’s that time of year. You are likely having your year-end conversations with your teachers. Most of them will be positive and upbeat, but a few of them will be difficult. Perhaps you need to speak with one or more of your teachers about performance issues like poor classroom management, not updating the online gradebook, avoiding parents, unkind interactions with colleagues or other unmet expect...

Does the number 1,440 mean anything to you? What about the number 86,400? Well, we each get exactly 1,440 minutes a day. We each get exactly 86,400 seconds a day. As private school leaders, we are so busy. We never have enough hours in the day.  We are always trying to catch up. Most of the time, our days are ruled by the tyranny of the urgent. Well, I can’t give you more than 24 hours in a d...

George Bernard Shaw said, “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” As Private School Leaders, effective communication has never been more important. It has also never been more difficult. One effective framework that private school leaders can adopt to improve communication with parents is the “7-38-55 rule.” The 7-38-55 rule, formulated by UCLA psycho...

I’m going to tell you something that you already know. You have a VERY stressful job. You must respond to every email, return every phone call, attend every meeting, handle every discipline problem, keep everyone safe, motivate and inspire every teacher, retain every student, beat last year’s test scores, come in under budget, keep every board member happy and keep every parent happy. We all know...

The first stop sign is said to have been erected in Detroit, Michigan in 1915. It was a simple, square, wooden sign with the word "STOP" painted in white letters on a black background.  The sign was designed to control traffic at a particularly dangerous intersection where several accidents had occurred. Far too often, stop signs are erected at intersections after someone has gotten seriously...

I love a good oxymoron. Of course, you know that an oxymoron is a figure of speech that pairs two opposing words. Plastic silverware, Unbiased opinion, Minor miracle, Controlled chaos, Original copy, Near miss, Minor catastrophe, Seriously funny, Small crowd, and my all time favorite oxymoron: jumbo shrimp! As private school leaders, our jobs are often accurately described by an oxymoron: “Isolati...

I want to start today’s episode by asking you to use your imagination. First, I need you to think of “that parent” . The one that immediately came to mind will be part of the following scenario: It’s a Tuesday night, around 7:00PM.  You are sitting on the couch with your spouse or partner, getting ready to watch an episode of your favorite TV show.  You turn to your left. Sitting right n...

There is an old saying: “You can’t judge a book by its cover”. Of course, we understand the meaning. When we meet a person for the first time, we should not make snap judgments about them by their outward appearance. I get it. But, let’s be honest. We do this every day. Some of us used to do it on a Friday night at Blockbuster Video. Most of us do it when we check out the thumbnail images on Netfl...

I’ve never really been a big fan of strategy games. Games like Connect 4, Battleship, Chess and Risk don’t really interest me. Maybe it is because of all of the strategic thinking and problem solving that I do at school. Maybe my brain needs a break. As private school leaders, it is so easy to get caught up in the day to day. That is just the nature of our job. They “tryanny of the urgent” , “no t...

I love ice cream. My favorite flavor is Cow Patty (a mix of chocolate ice cream, chocolate chip, peanut butter and brownie cookie doughs and pieces of chocolate-covered sugar cone), which is a specialty flavor at a dairy near my house. But, there’s an old saying, “Too much of a good thing is a bad thing.” A double scoop cone of ice cream on a warm summer night is a good thing. Eating a gallon of i...

Your day starts before your alarm goes off. You wake up early because you are stressed out about a meeting that you have that afternoon. Your phone starts dinging with texts from two teachers calling off sick. The snow has stopped, but the parking lot needs to be plowed.  You are going to open on time, but the guy that plows your parking lot just called and says that his truck has a dead batt...