Build Your Team's Leadership Capacity at 2021 NAIS Institutes
NAIS online institutes, including the Institute for New Heads and Leadership Through Partnership, will help your team build leadership skills and tackle challenges together.
NAIS Resource Guide: Team Development
Managing a team can feel like looking at a chess board—you want to be strategic, with the right people in all the right spots. Find support for yourself and provide your team comprehensive professional development opportunities with NAIS’s many tools, resources, and events. Building an effective team takes time and training, but once you have it, you’ll be at the top of your game.
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Equip Your Team With Best Practices for Success
Find role-specific best practices for many of the positions that make up your team, such as admissions and business officers, teachers, and supervisors of teachers.
Are You Making a Strong Investment in Your Team's Growth?
Download the DASL Professional Development and Benefits and Administrator Salary Comparisons custom reports to evaluate how your school compares.
Find the Right Candidates to Help Your Team Flourish
The NAIS Career Center offers valuable resources, allows independent schools to find qualified candidates, and connects jobseekers with great career opportunities.
Deep Dive
Head Turnover at Independent Schools: Sustaining School Leadership
This report examines factors affecting unexpected head turnover and offers recommendations for identifying and addressing the complex nature of the head-board relationship.
How the Board Can Best Support the Head of School
A school head and board chair explore what kind of support heads are looking for from their boards, and how boards can find out what heads need and offer that support.
Identifying System Archetypes to Build High-Performing Teams
By understanding positive and negative underlying structures and their potential outcomes, teams can shift their perspectives and more readily identify levers for change.
Resources to Help Build Strong Leadership Teams
Find presentations from NAIS President Donna Orem on Creating Environments Where Effective Teamwork Can Take Place, Building Effective Leadership Teams, and Leadership Coaching.
Cultivating a Positive Board Culture
An effective board is one in which trustees trust each other and engage in teamwork and informationsharing, and the chair plays an essential role in ensuring that happens.
Supporting Trustees through Recruitment and Training
Schools must regularly assess their needs and performance, cultivate talent, and engage strong board members with a carefully designed and executed cycle of ongoing activities.
Seven Reasons Heads of School Should Attend the Diversity Leadership Institute
Two heads share their experiences at NAIS’s Diversity Leadership Institute (DLI), and why they believe diversity leadership is at the core of good school leadership.
Using Professional Development Practices to Build Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Teaching
One school's Individualized Teaching Improvement Plan seeks to improve professional development opportunities and encourage a working knowledge of cultural competency.
Creating a Culture of Teacher Learning
An independent school looking to strengthen teacher learning developed a routine around sharing feedback through a study of student work.
Forging a Strong Head-Business Officer Relationship
Schools making the most progress in strategic finance have invested time in the development of a strong and unique relationship between the head of school and business officer.
Playlist: Video Resources to Help You Build an Effective Team
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Additional Resources
Developing the Team: Faculty Evaluation and Growth
This NAIS webinar investigates how schools can create systems of performance review and professional development that foster a growth mindset among faculty.
You’re Fired: Advice for Delivering or Receiving the News
Letting people go is part of business—including schools—and it’s hard to be on either side. Here are some tips for gracefully getting through the process.
Do Boomers and Millennials Approach Work Differently?
With five generations now working together, there are many perspectives on how to work most effectively. How can schools leverage different styles to strengthen their teams?
Independent School Guide to Hiring
This overview includes guidance on hiring practices, as well as sample forms and checklists for schools to use. You can also view sample job descriptions here.
- NAIS Trustees' Guide Section 7: Partner With the Head of School
- NAIS Bookstore: The Board Chair Handbook
- The Hallmarks of a Successful Board Chair
- NAIS Research: The Path to More Diverse Leadership
- How Administrators and Counselors Can Team Up on Student Health and Well-Being
- Developing Talent Through Instructional Coaching
- A Deep Approach to Professional Development
- The Power of In-House Professional Development
- Building a Career Arc for Faculty
- Building a Career Pipeline