Interim Head of Junior School critical to maintaining stability and leadership and providing continuity to staff, students and families.
The Brief
A leading Victorian independent girls’ school required an Interim Head of Junior School to commence in January 2025. This was a strategic decision prompted by the close timing of the permanent search process to the end of the school year.
The interim role was critical to maintaining stability in leadership and providing continuity for staff, students, and families. It also provided the selection panel adequate time to appoint the best permanent candidate without being constrained by immediate operational needs.
Increase in General Management Skills
According to the American Management Association, only 14% of businesses consider themselves “well prepared” to handle a sudden loss in senior management. Add to that the fact that it takes at least four months to fill an executive role, and an Interim Executive experienced in operations makes a lot of sense!
Increase in Customer Experience Skills
These days experience is everything. What truly makes for a good experience? Speed. Convenience. Consistency. Friendliness. And human touch. Our Interim Executives deliver a great experience while improving your customer experience!
Increase in People & Culture Skills
Organisations are constantly changing as they respond to internal and external pressures. Continual process improvement can enable team engagement and lead to growth. Interim Executives bring fresh eyes and effective industry best practice to the execution.
Increase in Data Analytics
Complex challenges require critical thinking and in the age of information-overwhelm it is imperative to have analytical minds at the table. These skills range across finance, data science, systems and more. An Interim Executive can be the right person to optimise your inputs to maximise your output.
The Process
Future Leadership embarked on a comprehensive search for the interim position, leveraging its extensive experience in the independent school’s sector. Recognising the complexity of the assignment, the team adopted a collaborative and multi-faceted approach:
- Global Reach: The search extended beyond Australia, encompassing networks in Singapore and Vietnam. This international scope ensured access to a diverse talent pool of highly qualified candidates with both local and global expertise in education.
- Candidate Identification: A total of 15 candidates were identified as potential fits for the role. Each candidate underwent a rigorous assessment process to evaluate their qualifications, experience, and alignment with the school’s culture and strategic objectives.
- Shortlist Creation: From the initial pool, 8 candidates were shortlisted for further evaluation. This process incorporated detailed interviews and reference checks to ensure the selected individual could meet both the operational and cultural needs of the school.
- Strategic Collaboration: The Future Leadership team worked closely with their permanent executive search colleagues to align the interim and permanent recruitment processes. This ensured that the interim appointment supported the school’s longer-term goals while addressing immediate leadership needs.
The thorough and meticulous search process culminated in identifying a candidate who could seamlessly integrate into the school community and uphold its values during this transitional period.
Emerging Capabilities
Adaptability and Resilience
Demonstrating positivity, curiosity, resilience and the ability to pivot when confronted with change, pressure, adversity and disruption. Anticipates and enhances organisation’s capacity to respond quickly to strategic environmental, social and corporate challenges and opportunities.
Emotional Awareness
Demonstrates commitment, sensitivity and responsiveness to the emotional needs of different cultures and people. Gathers and reviews the preferences of stakeholders to understand their feelings towards the organisation. Guides and mediates the alignment of the organisation’s culture and values with the external operating environment, society and stakeholders.
Culture and Engagement
Engages stakeholders inclusively with sensitivity and regard for diversity and facilitates a psychologically safe environment for social or cultural differences affecting behaviour.
Communication and Influence
Communicates with clarity and impact to facilitate individual and collective understanding, inspire action and enable information exchange. Leverages human-centric communication and storytelling to effectively influence stakeholders across the physical and virtual realms.
Stakeholder Relations
Works strategically and systemically to encourage diverse thinking with all types of people. Actively contributes to teamwork, and deliberately builds relationships and networks across a range of people and communities.
The Outcome
Future Leadership successfully placed an outstanding interim candidate as the Interim Head of Junior School. Their extensive experience as an educational leader in Victoria and Vietnam, including four successful years as Principal of the Primary and Kindergarten at an International School in Asia made them uniquely suited for the role.
The candidates appointment allowed the School to maintain operational stability and uphold its strong traditions of academic excellence and personal development. The appointee’s leadership during the interim period provided a seamless transition while reinforcing the school’s values.
This placement exemplifies Future Leadership’s ability to deliver exceptional executive search and interim appointments in the independent school’s sector, highlighting their expertise in identifying leaders who drive positive outcomes and align with organisational culture.
