I loved the first school where I taught. I loved its vision of academic discipleship: fostering the love of learning with a passion for Jesus. I loved my colleagues: we had real faculty culture, loved our students and families, and had real community taking shape. We had all the makings of something special. The people were deeply good, but the school, as an organization, wasn’t healthy. We found ourselves unable to attract enough students, which meant we lost a building and were nomadic for a time before settling into a smaller space where the budget still didn’t balance. School events, while well executed, were usually being pulled off at the last minute, and eventually, when hoped-for better times continued not to materialize, the charming vision that had once captivated began to ring hollow, first evoking scorn and then departures.
Whenever an ancient Greek city-state or one of her greatest citizens had an important decision to make, the Oracle at Delphi was consulted. This required a journey to the slopes of Mount Parnassus, a ritual cleansing, a ritual sacrifice, and finally, great stores of wisdom and patience: the responses of the Oracle (a high priestess of the god Apollo) could be challenging to interpret. Students of ancient history in classical schools can probably recall what happened to the king who was told that if he made war on Persia, “he would destroy a mighty empire.” The decisions a leader makes—or fails to make—in tending to a school’s organizational health are similarly consequential.
Ambitious city-states, erudite headmasters with lofty principles, passionate principals with big dreams, and nurturing leaders with huge hearts can all alike find themselves mired in organizational dysfunction of one sort or another, their vision ever beyond reach. The list goes on and on: poor planning, overly optimistic budgeting, lack of a unifying vision, cheap grace instead of honest accountability, weak operational discipline, ineffective meetings, focusing on what you’re good at instead of what must get done … is this what Christian schools are doomed to be? Lovable losers full of good intentions and right opinions that just can’t get out of second gear? Of course not—but organizational health is the narrow path by which few enter.
What is organizational health? Patrick Lencioni asserts that for an organization to be truly healthy, every member needs to first understand in depth the vision and precepts of their organization, and then live out their role in alignment with that vision. Moreover, every human system, “every policy, every program, every activity should be designed to remind [the faculty and staff] what is really most important” (The Advantage). We could say that organizational health is synonymous with integrity in the older sense of the word: being internally and externally consistent, coherent, and complete. As my friend and decorated school leader Matt Skinner likes to say, organizational health means that you “know who you are, and act like it.”
Matt has tapped into ancient oracular tradition here: over the head of each supplicant approaching Apollo’s temple to seek the god’s wisdom, an inscription on the architrave proclaimed in capital letters: ΓΝΩΘΙ ΣΑΥΤΟΝ. Gnôthi seautón. “Know thyself.”
This is a profound warning. When we begin leading, the first strategy most of us employ is to try to figure it all out for ourselves. When that inevitably falls short, we beat ourselves up and try even harder. I know that was my approach. If I’m honest, when I was running a classical academy in Phoenix, I wanted to solve all highest order problems myself. Part of me wanted to “earn it;” part of me wanted to prove myself; part of me didn’t want to admit that sometimes I didn’t even know what questions to ask, or feared being exposed as an imposter, and felt that seeking counsel would be cheating or quitting. Whatever the reason, many of us have a strong aversion to admitting our ignorance and learning how to lead from others. If this is a hurdle you’ve still not cleared, you’re probably the type that has a hard time laughing at yourself. You’re being silly (that is, proud) and the best medicine is to have a good chuckle at yourself, then start reading books and asking questions. I recommend starting with Patrick Lencioni. He has devoted his career to systematizing the road to organizational health.
The prose in these books themselves, though, is the second hurdle classical school leaders often encounter. Leadership books are not great books; in terms of prose they rarely even approach good book status. Lencioni’s illustrative fables are, well, something that even he jokes about. One’s sense of intellectual gravity can be affronted by “self-help books” that seemingly mechanize the human experience with no sense for poetic insight. You’re not wrong per se, but demanding good prose from these texts is like asking for a yardstick to weigh a corndog. The correct yardstick, the proper rubric in this context, is this: trees are known by their fruit. If faithfully following the course laid out in a book brings about greater excellence in strategy, operations, and organizational health—if clarity and alignment increase over time—then the book has been a trustworthy guide, however humble its composition.
The first two hurdles come down to pride: admitting our need for their help, and then coming to terms with the authors and their style. The third hurdle differs; one could say it requires great stores of wisdom and patience. It’s a challenge to wade through a swamp of leadership books in search of not merely the odd pearl or nugget, but a coherent framework and new systems that you and your team will commit to following. “What if I’m reading the wrong book?” “If I can’t trust the caliber of the prose, how am I to judge the ideas themselves?”
If you haven’t started connecting with peers yet, this is the point at which to do it. No matter how much it wounds your pride, ask your peers, especially the ones you feel competitive with (preferably those in other markets), for their recommendations and advice. Ask your board members and key donors that have knowledge on this front. You’ll be amazed how they light up and are willing to share. It shows them your humility and a hunger for wisdom which they will love, not weakness and inadequacy as we often suspect. I’ll give my own starter list: The Advantage by Lencioni, The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker, Good to Great by Jim Collins, Crucial Conversations by Patterson et al, and Getting Things Done by David Allen.
“Know thyself.” One might add, or clarify: “Get over yourself, and then you’ll be free to start serving and leading others.” The adage may sound trite, but there is a reason some statements endure the test of time.