Measure the Treasure: Leadership Transition
Leadership, Organisational Culture Kevin Ruth Leadership, Organisational Culture Kevin Ruth

Measure the Treasure: Leadership Transition

Now begins the second, and arguably the most important, phase of the search process: schools and the newly-appointed head of school need to confront the realities of the appointment. Too many heads and boards consider the process as being ‘in the past,’ but, in reality, nothing could be less accurate…or less dangerous, as a perspective. Now is the crucial moment when boards and heads must chart the best way forward, relative to what we might term the FQ, the fit quotient.

Read More
The Ethics of Leadership Search
Ethics, Leadership, Governance Kevin Ruth Ethics, Leadership, Governance Kevin Ruth

The Ethics of Leadership Search

Discourse and communication are powerful aesthetic features, to be sure, when it comes to influence and persuasion. The responsibility for evaluating the epistemic and ethical legitimacy of these features, including the epistemic and ethical legitimacy of engaging the emotions of potential candidates, rests with three groups: the board (the progenitor of the position description), the search consultant (the framer of culture and opportunity, involved to varying degrees in the presentation of the position description), and the candidate her/himself (the interpreter of the position description, with an eye to securing the position and leading the school).

Read More
The Stream of Now

The Stream of Now

Curriculum providers, accreditation agencies, and recruitment agencies need to pay attention to the stream of now as well, as should those commercial enterprises that provide products and services to schools. The stream of now isn’t some notion from science fiction; it is already available. It is the nature of our age that everyone is already in the stream of now. Question: how are we responding to it?

Read More
Toward a New Typology of Professional Learning

Toward a New Typology of Professional Learning

We've spent over 150 years layering a newer 'geography' atop that one by means of trains, cars (highways), and airplanes. We might call each one of these a typology, rather than a geography. They too constitute maps (rail maps, highway maps, flight maps), but these typologies can change as a result of connection (a concept that employs two companions, velocity and time). Allow me to provide an example. How far apart are London and Mumbai? In geographic terms, that would be 4,466 miles [7,187 km], but in typological terms, we'd have to say "that depends." For instance, it could be 10 hours by plane, or it could be 0.6 milliseconds by fibre-optic cable.

Read More
On Imaginative Gridlock

On Imaginative Gridlock

More learning (data gathering and theoretical application of technique) will not, on its own, change the way people see things or how they perceive them. "There must first be a shift in the emotional processes of that institution [in our case, international education as a sector]. Imagination and curiosity are at root emotional, not cognitive, phenomena. In order to imagine the unimaginable, people must be able to separate themselves from the surrounding emotional processes before they can even begin to see (or hear) things differently. Without this understanding, it becomes impossible to realise how our learning can prevent us from learning more." (Friedman, A Failure of Nerve, 31). In the event that this doesn't make sense, consider Galileo, who offered naysayers an opportunity to utilise his telescope to observe the movement of cosmic bodies, to look for themselves. So many naysayers, in those earliest days of his efforts, refused to observe, even when offered the chance. Consider just how much longer it took for things to evolve because their "learning" got in the way of learning, of becoming something more.

Read More