Most search committees tend to hire heads who are the polar opposite of the one who has just left. The longer the previous head has served the more different are the background and style of the successor. For example, Jane came from Canada from the independent school world and landed her first job in Europe. She had been a senior school head in her home country and replaced a head who had been there 15 years. He was an intellectual, a bit aloof, stayed in his office, ran a tight ship, and had strong board support with little parental interference over the years.

Towards the end of the former Head’s tenure, parents began to bypass him and engage in direct conversations with teachers and parents. When Jane arrived the crossing of boundaries and channels exploded.  She soon found that the Board resented that they had been kept out of operations, and it established new subcommittees with some non-board parents as members. For the first time, there was an education committee, an innovation committee, and a personnel committee. The age-old conflict of the parent “hat” versus the board “hat” was causing constant intrusion into management.

The Board had put all its energy into the search and none into the transition period. Pressure from the Board, faculty and/or parents forced Jane to make decisions without the political capital and good will needed to fend off those who disagreed with them.

By Jane’s second year, a powerful vocal minority of longstanding teachers and long-term families felt that she was ignoring traditions and changing teacher schedules, workloads, and evaluation protocols. This frightened some faculty and the parents who supported them.

The Board support was beginning to crack by the end of Jane’s third year. Fortunately, a Chair and a few other rather quiet Board Members began to see the risks to the School and the Head if they did not speak up and stop this highly organized group of disgruntled stakeholders from driving out the new Head. Meanwhile, competition for students had increased in the region, and even loyal alumni were exploring other options for their children’s schooling.

Jane’s conundrum was how to keep the board strong behind her, mollify some key unhappy players, and slow down her agendas even as enrollment decline and fiscal stress called for more immediate action.

Ultimately, the temperament, wisdom, and experience of the Chair and Jane’s vision, dedication and passion came together first to educate the Board about good governance practices, and then to isolate or win over a few unhappy but influential Board Members.

This scenario has occurred repeatedly worldwide but more often than not, the happy ending for Jane (so far) is not the outcome. The characters change, the schools change, the countries change but the core themes occur all the time in independent and international schools. The solution lies in the choice of a chair, the transition planning for the head, the head/chair partnership and wining over the key stakeholders in the order of their importance: board, leadership team, faculty, parents, alumni and ultimately students.

If a new head has won over the board, then even in times of change and stress, she will survive. If she has won over the leadership team and a few key respected teachers, then parents and students will be positive as well. Alumni are always a risk factor. In some schools they are powerful and in others they are almost totally absent.

Day school boards should never be 100% current parents. A good formula might be at most 60% parent boards in K to 12 day schools and perhaps 70% in K to 6 or K to 8 day schools. The rest of the board should be former parents, grandparents, one or two alumni and possibly an outsider of stature and influence.

People in certain professions make good board members in general and those in certain other professions often think they can solve an issue personally, given their expertise and experience. Generally, every board needs at least two or three currently active CEO’s of public companies or large private companies with actual governing boards. CEO types quite often recognize that the head is a CEO who must make tough decisions and reports to a board. Those board members also tend to see the forest for the trees.

Boundary crossing and channel jumping by stakeholder groups to access the board is always a threat to any head potentially at any time. It is important for all boards to remember this: You do not represent the parents (or alumni); you represent the mission. You represent the past, the present and the future. If boards select strong chairs, participate in regular governance training, and nurture their heads, then they can manage periodic stakeholder issues effectively.

A final set of warnings: At all cost, avoid the following: town meetings, frequent executive sessions without the head, and “360” evaluation of the head. The job of school head is challenging enough without boards engaging in these practices, which are unwise, unsafe and ultimately can be dangerous. We have seen these practices undermine really fine leaders worldwide. When the board and head is facing a crisis “circle the wagons” i.e., do not break ranks; “be quiet”, meaning do not break the confidences of the board room; and support your head. Undermining the head at any time is risky but doing so in a crisis situation is potentially very damaging to the school’s reputation and financial status.