Holding the Coalition Together

Independent schools and their international counterparts are delicate ecosystems of often competing and contradictory interests. On most days, these interests co-exist without obvious conflict, but at times they collide with incendiary effects. Expectations about university placement, athletic wins and losses (not to mention playing time), and the real or imagined rigor of the academic program are frequent sources of conflict between subgroups of parents (and sometimes between parents are teachers).In the international school sector, changing family expectations that accompany changing demographics threaten to escalate heretofore mild points of tension into major battles. Fewer American, or in Asia, fewer Western expats means many schools are admitting ever more local students. What might have worked for a school in an earlier day, when more students were diplomatic or at least on full expat packages, no longer suffices when a large cadre of parents are making a choice to place their child(ren) in the school AND are paying for it themselves.Leading in this context means paying lots of attention to how to hold the ecosystem together, behaving much like the prime minister of a fractious coalition government. The coalition government metaphor might be more than apt--staying in power requires minimizing the degree to which conflict between interests "boils over." Heads of school need more than just super EQ; now, they need the political skills of a master politician and the systems thinking acumen of a consummate family therapist. As with everything these days, the bar for heads is higher than ever.