Three Things that can “Bite” You in Your First Year

Your first year will be filled with challenges that may at times feel like being caught in a whirlwind. Everything from curriculum improvement to budget development and planning board meeting agendas to responding to parent concerns will compete for your attention. However, these are not the tasks and responsibilities that typically will define success of failure in your first superintendency.

These tasks typically come with relatively explicit expectations and judging whether you have successfully addressed them is not difficult. However, there are at least three areas of action that likely will make a crucial difference in your short and long term success. Unfortunately, they typically are not accompanied by clear expectations and unless you act to clarify them, you probably will be acting on instinct and intuition, not the way to ensure success.

The good news is that these areas of significant early challenge are knowable and can be clarified if you know what to ask and focus on. Research and years of experience show that three aspects of leadership often will determine how you are perceived and whether your leadership will be supported. Let’s explore these areas of challenge and how they can assist or detract from your early leadership success.

The first challenging area relates to how much of a mandate for change you really have. People often talk of the need for change during the selection process and you can easily be convinced that this is the expectation. However, the voices heard are not always representative and may not be consistent with the expectations of the school board, staff or community. In fact, their may not be agreement among these three groups. The school board and others may assume you know how much change to introduce and how much you are expected to accept and assimilate with the culture and structure that already exist. If you do not clarify what is expected initially and throughout your first year you place yourself at significant risk. In fact, you may believe that you are doing exactly what is expected only to be severely criticized later for know being a better judge of what is expected. If this happens, you are likely to be left either dealing with the consequences or retracing your steps and risk undermining of your leadership authority.

The second challenging area concerns with how things get done. In some school districts processes and polices are well defined and consistently followed. Often they are written in detail and compliance is assumed. In other school districts, tradition and relationships are the more common vehicles for managing issues and responding to problems. It may even be the case that many staff members do not know how things get done and cannot tell you. They may even assume that the idiosyncratic preferences of those in charge determine what and how things get done. Unfortunately, if you are accustomed to operating in one environment, but are hired into another, you can accumulate a good number of bumps and bruises before you figure out “how things get done.” Meanwhile, your bewilderment and uninformed errors will grow.

The third challenge relates to deciding how much to move forward as a champion, individual leader or torch bearer versus moving more slowly and generating consensus and commitment within a larger group before making change. Similar to confusion about a mandate for change or assimilation, expectations in this area are often left to be figured out rather than clearly explained. Further complicating this challenge can be our own leadership style and previous leadership experience. We typically are most comfortable with what has worked for us in the past and leadership models we have followed earlier in our careers. When the pressure is on, we are more likely to retreat to past behaviors and examples, especially if we are not clear about current expectations. Unfortunately, if you do not take action to gain clarity in this area, conflicts can be full blown and relationships strained before the cause is even obvious.

Fortunately, there is much you can do to prevent these challenges from diminishing your early success. First, schedule time early in your first year to meet with the school board to clarify how much change and how much assimilation is expected and likely will be tolerated. Include in the discussion what expectations other stakeholder groups might hold. If you sense that key groups have varying expectations, clarify how the board’s expectations will be communicated. You also need to think through how you will handle any conflicts in expectations regarding your leadership. However, don’t confine your attention to this issue to the first weeks or months you are in the position. Check in with the board throughout the year to seek more clarity and specificity as issues arise and situations unfold. Also continue to monitor the reactions and perspectives of other stakeholders to avoid misunderstanding and surprises as you move forward.

Second, seek as much clarity as you can about the culture of the organization and the ways in which “things are done.” Schedule time to visit with key employees, including support staff members, exploring traditions, areas of potential confusion about how organizational work gets done and the existence and potency of policies and procedures to guide your work. If the organization generally operates by contract, policy and established procedures, be sure you know how to access and use expected processes. Conversely, if you find that few things are put in writing and problem and conflict resolution tend to be more fluid and informal, you will need to listen and watch carefully. This is an area where your secretary or administrative assistant can be particularly helpful. Often people in this position know a lot about precedence, tradition and “land mines.” You will want to avoid having to learn this aspect of the position by trial and error to the extent practical.

Third, pay close attention to the level and types of risks and actions you are expected to take as the leader. And how much time you need to spend building awareness of need, commitment to act and gaining support among staff and community before moving forward with changes and new initiatives. The school board can be helpful in establishing initial clarity, but you will want to go back from time to time check signals regarding new situations and initiatives. You will also need to monitor and remain sensitive to how your actions, strategies and initiatives are received and perceived by staff and community as you go along. This information can be crucial to making adjustments in pace, inclusiveness and focus.

Interestingly, research reported recently in the Harvard Business Review from the private sector shows a close parallel in challenges faced by new executives hired from outside of organizations. The research shows that the outside executives generally fail at about the rate of 40%. However, when they pay attention to these three factors, the failure rate dropped to below 10%.

Research Source: Shaping the Game: The New Leader’s Guide to Effective Negotiating and Help Newly Hired Executives Adapt Quickly, Harvard School Press 2006 and Harvard Business Review, June 2007, author Michael D. Watkins