An Expansive View of Leadership

Early in my leadership journey, one of my colleagues, a woman named Leslie whom I convinced to become an Assistant Division Head as her first leadership role, said this about my leadership style: “Sometimes you lead from the front. Sometimes you lead from the middle, bringing everyone along with you.” As she made this comment, Leslie stretched her arms out wide, making a sweeping motion as she walked forward. I’ve thought about Leslie’s comment often over the years, partly because I think it accurately describes my style of leadership, and partly because it challenged what I had internalized about what a “real” leader looks, sounds, and acts like. 

Like so many of us, I was exposed to only a narrow view of leadership: leaders are extroverts, always out in front, definitively proclaiming their ideas. Leaders tend to be loud, male, very confident, and never show deference. They never apologize, and they are never wrong. As I became a leader, I realized that many of these stereotypes do not fit the description of the leaders I admire most. The leaders I admire lead with vulnerability and collaboration. This is the kind of leadership I try to model at Marlborough, hoping that it will fundamentally shape how our students develop. Women, people of color, gender-expansive individuals, and other marginalized people offer a diverse, expansive view of leadership that is very much needed in the world. As a leader, I see part of my role as modeling that inclusive, wide-ranging definition. 
 
Describing my “leadership style” is difficult for me, not because I don’t think about it a lot (I do), and not because I don’t know myself as a leader (I believe I do), but because I have come to realize that I would always prefer to be doing rather than talking about it. This leadership style has been fundamentally shaped by my experiences as a teacher. Just as I was as a teacher, as a leader, I am a warm demander: I expect a lot of others, and I seek to inspire their best work by offering guidance and trusting them to do their jobs well. I strive to always be available as counsel, to offer advice and constructive feedback when necessary. I am most comfortable working on behalf of others or on something bigger than myself. This is why mentoring women and cultivating girls’ and women’s leadership is so important to me. Mentoring and teaching are the roles in which I am happiest as a leader. I have nudged and nurtured other women as they have taken on leadership roles and even gone on to become Heads of School. Knowing that I have played a role in the success of another woman is immensely satisfying. On my urging, Leslie took on her first leadership role when we worked together. She went on to become a successful division head and then went on to run a nonprofit organization. She, in turn, has mentored other women as they have taken on leadership roles. The virtuous cycle of being mentored, mentoring, and having mentors become colleagues is a key way I envision leadership.
 
As a teacher in girls’ schools, I realized the importance of modeling behaviors that defied female stereotypes. Sometimes, that meant acting braver than I felt and avoiding the pressure to focus too much on my appearance. In the process, I have come to realize that one can “act” oneself into new behaviors. As a leader, I took those new behaviors and expanded on them, tempering my learned tendency to seek others’ approval and being comfortable having authority and using it wisely. This process of unlearning what society teaches women about how to be was accelerated and fortified by the wise counsel of female mentors who supported—and continue to support—me as I have become a more experienced leader. 

Excellent girls’ schools like Marlborough offer the opportunity for students to see and explore a broader scope of what a leader can be. Because leadership development is closely connected with identity development, girls’ schools are ideal places for students to explore who they could be as leaders and to see many different models of leadership. We expand what it means to be a girl, giving our students the opportunity to occupy a broad range of roles and to develop skills that are not gender-specific. So, too, do we expand the spectrum of what leadership looks like. Adolescence is a key time for children to decide what “is” and what “is not” for themselves. Keeping the aperture wide allows our students to explore many pathways to what authentic leadership looks like for them. They can try on many types of leadership in various disciplines and co-curricular activities to develop leadership capacity. At Marlborough we recognize this critical time in a student’s life: we work hard to ensure that students get choices, opportunities to explore their interests to support the development of leadership skills.  

We also foster an expansive vision of leadership, one that honors the full range of experience, personality, and strengths of our students: extrovert and introvert; hearty, joke-teller and quiet thinker; bold adventurer and cautious. Leadership takes on many forms at Marlborough, and we use our core values as a foundation, instilling in each aspiring leader the habit of self-reflection to help them explore who they are and what sort of a leader they want to be.
 
Marlborough also encourages healthy risk-taking. Students often apply for leadership positions more than once, undeterred by not being chosen the first time. Perhaps this tendency to fail and try again can be attributed to the wide range of opportunities, the expansive view of what a leader looks like at Marlborough, and the myriad sorts of leadership positions that are offered. Students have opportunities to lead in all areas of the School, and it is our goal that every student at Marlborough see a place where they can lead. 

As I watch each of our Violets move through their time at Marlborough and walk across the stage at graduation, I see echoes of that sweeping motion Leslie made many years ago. They are not all leading from the same position, but they are all moving forward and bringing others with them. That is the kind of leadership I believe the world desperately needs, and it is what I am so proud to be part of building at Marlborough.