Going on a Bear Hunt

Dear Beloved Head of School Friend,

 I see you, so accomplished, so accustomed to swiftly solving problems in your school, feeling you are going through something and frustrated that you are not your typical optimistic, ebullient self.

 So many women like us climbed a linear ladder to attain our roles: teacher, dean, department chair, division director, head of school—each path distinct, few breaks. We were on the move, ascending. Along the way, perhaps we dreamed of running a school. Perhaps someone else put the idea in our heads. We met consultants, entered searches, interviewed, and, if we were lucky and in the right place at the right moment with the right search committee, we were chosen.

 We believed we were in control all along. After all, we are endlessly competent, we women heads. We have reservoirs of talent and patience and humor. We know how women leaders are perceived, so we are mindful of not coming on too strong, of listening deeply, of building consensus. We take time to build coalitions in our schools. We are interested in everyone—parents, teachers, staff, children, alums, neighbors. We smile and soothe and fix, seamstresses of a sort, stretching fabric to cover a tear, mending a seam, making beautiful patterns. Or maybe we are more like feudal lords, meting out justice, smoothing ruffled feathers, refereeing disputes over turf and power—or circus ringmasters, taming lions and getting horses to march in formation or conductors of grand orchestras who know just how to keep the piccolo from being drowned out by the tympani. We know these things and do these things as they apply in schools--always with a smile. 

 And, one day, we discover, we have “made it.” We lead schools we love. We serve boards. We stand before children, modeling what leadership looks like. We resolve conflicts, think about what’s best for the institutions, consider budgets and deferred maintenance and the regulations governing athletics, and whether or not APs are good for anyone. We seek to understand the needs of our post-pandemic faculty and staff. We wonder about the changing needs of the workforce, the tuition models of our school, demographics, what to say when the world combusts or another school shooting occurs.  Some of us do more with less. At work, we stay calm—temper is a luxury forbidden an independent school leader.  Our email boxes overflow, cascading with messages and questions and meeting invitations. We go to lots of meetings. Our time is not our own, and the days we plan are rarely the days that happen. There’s always something unexpected; sometimes, the surprises please us—the 3-year-olds parading through our offices, a Senior confiding joyous college news—often, there are tougher interruptions: a colleague fighting ill health, someone behaving badly. Our days are long—some days, we get to school at 7, welcoming children at car circle and go home after 7.

We come home to dogs or children or spouses who love us or don’t, to friends and families. We manage the complexities of all those relationships, too, remembering birthdays and who is gluten-free, and which relatives need attention and who needs tough love. We water the plants and order holiday gifts. We cook and prep for classes or meetings. We read more email; perhaps we take care of ourselves—a massage, a walk, a session with a coach or therapist—but often, self-care is pushed aside because we are taking care of others.

 You confide that  you’re not sure why you feel the way you do right now—a little off, less positive than is typical for you.  I ask if you can be curious, if you can sit with not knowing why you feel as you do? I suggest there is knowing and there is feeling, and you smile. As heads, we like knowing. Knowing is certain, sorted, tidy. Feelings, on the other hand, can be messy, complicated, hard.

 You share you have a parent who is dying. And you do not know when that will happen.  What you don’t say is that you also don’t know how you will feel when that parent leaves you. We are grown women, but it is hard to be without a mother or a father, no matter how old we are. And if we did a study of all the women heads we know, I suspect a lot of us are the care takers in our families. When we keep moving, keep all the plates spinning in the air above us, we can keep feelings at bay—those familiar feelings of wondering if we are enough?  As the leader of a girls’ school, this is the one feeling I’d like to shield my students from.

 When, as a much younger woman, I first read about Imposter Syndrome, I felt a frisson on recognition. No matter how accomplished I am, I wonder if someone yet will come along and unmask me, crying, “Fraud.” I am a woman of a certain age; this reckoning is not likely to occur. And yet, that fear is a version of the self I was in 7th grade when I stood in the dark gym at the boys’ school and hoped someone would pick me. And no one did.

 So, here is what I offer you. Be how you are, even though it’s uncomfortable. If you can, ease up. Wonder about how you feel without criticizing or judging it. Live in what my friend, Paul, calls “the land of I don’t know.”  Do you remember the children’s book, Going on a Bear Hunt?  “You can’t go under it, you can’t go over it; you just have to go through it.”

 There is something on the other side of how you feel. Remember that some fields have to lie fallow before new crops can surge forth. So, it may be for us. We, too, have seasons. And while you are waiting for what comes next—something that may be wholly unexpected--practice tenderness with yourself, practice grace and gratitude—a tiny bullet journal works for me. I write three things most night that I am glad for in my life. Reach out to the people who fill you up, who love you not because you are a head of school but despite the fact you are one.  And set yourself free from urgency, from controlling what might come. Sometimes, we are so accustomed to putting out fires, we think a pause is cheating, but it’s not.

 Know you are enough—just as you tell the girls at school that they are.  You are, too, my beautiful scarf-loving friend.  You are absolutely enough.