In their recent book, Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders, (Boston: Accenture LLP, 2002), Warren Bennis and Robert Thomas have isolated what they believe are the four essential characteristics that all leaders share. In the process the authors feel they have defined “how leaders come to be.” Their findings should be of great interest to you as a Head of School—the day-to-day leader.

As Director of College Counseling, you are responsible for providing one of the most critical services your school can offer. While parents set academic excellence and next-level placement as high priorities when they select your school, the college-bound teenager ideally makes the primary decisions when it comes to selecting a college. It is your job to help students find the institutions of higher education that best match their interests, needs, and abilities. What are the key avenues students use today to find appropriate colleges—and what can you do to ensure your program steers them in the right direction?

As Head of School, you know that middle and upper school parents want—and students need—programs and services that extend beyond “pure” academics. Your school derives a competitive advantage from its ability to provide benefits such as caring teachers, safe environment, leadership and social opportunities, and character education.  

As with most students, teachers tend to make good progress toward achieving their goals if they are provided with both system and reward. This can be especially true when the goals relate to technology—a professional development area that still lurks as ambiguous and uncertain in the minds of many faculty members and, as well, in curricular and instructional frameworks in otherwise taut academic administrations.

Your success as Head of School depends in part upon your ability to respond to challenges successfully. That, in turn, is a function of your adeptness in recognizing potential hot spots—i.e., new problems and threats with capacity to reach real significance—before they rise to the level of “challenges.”

From time to time, a book written for the corporate sector calls out for the consideration of private-independent school leaders. Such a book is Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … And Others Don’t, (HarperCollins: 2001), Jim Collins’ second book on strategic management thinking.1

The Portrait of the Graduate is one of three definitive documents (including the school’s mission statement and the Characteristics of Professional Excellence) that capture a school’s core reason for existence. This portrait was defined as “a list of five or fewer items comprising short descriptors of your product—the student you expect to have developed over the years that she/he has spent under your faculty’s tutelage.”

The Board does not need to be involved in your school’s educational program, either as individuals or as a group. Discussions and decisions about the program are not appropriate topics for these volunteer leaders. The Board has hired you, as School Head, to determine programs and supervise their delivery.

After further review of the Annotated Head Contract published in I&P earlier this year, ISM has decided to clarify one of the sections of the sample contract. The paragraph in question (No. 14) states: “In the event Head breaches this agreement or is terminated for cause (including but not limited to gross misconduct, insubordination, failure to perform), School, in addition to all other applicable remedies, may cease all forms of compensation immediately. The parties agree that calculation of actual damages to the school would be extremely difficult and therefore agree that an amount of $______ per day, for the remaining days of the contract, will be payable to the school by the Head as liquidated damages.”

Each fall, ISM publishes a set of conversion factors to facilitate the recasting of previous tuitions into current dollars. (See the table on the next page.) We continue to use the Urban Consumer Price Index (CPI-U). However, we also realize that the CPI-U does not completely reflect expenditures in schools; it can only serve as a base figure. There are compelling arguments for adjusting your tuition at a rate 2% or more above the overall inflation rate.