The document summarizes the Head of Advancement's leadership of the Advancement team at Meadowridge School over the past year. The team focused on increasing enrollment, fundraising, and community involvement while communicating the school's mission and vision. A laissez-faire leadership style was initially adopted but had to be adjusted for the Admissions Coordinator. Overall, enrollment targets were met and attrition decreased, demonstrating a more stable school community. Lessons were learned about flexibility in leadership approaches and the importance of collaboration and feedback.

1. Change Is the Only Certainty
CONTEXT
Meadowridge School is an advancement-oriented IB Continuum World School. Our Mission, “learning to
live well, with others and for others, in a just community,” is best carried out through connecting intellectual,
emotional and physical learning with meaning in a child’s life. The Advancement department is tasked with
generating the financial resources to further our Mission and Vision. We accomplish this by admitting mission-
appropriate families and administering fundraising campaigns. All marketing, communication and community
development initiatives arein support of those two goals.From 2012 to 2014 Meadowridge experienced a decline
in enrolment resulting from a series of tuition increases. While necessary to provide planned programme
enhancements, these increases lead to general instability within our community which impacted aspects of the
strategic plan.Herein lied our challengefor the year: increaseand stabilizeenrolmentand articulatetheMission and
Vision to our changing community. My role was to the lead the Advancement team to achieve that goal.
Our Advancement team is comprised of a Marketing and Communications Director and a Coordinator, a
Development Manager, a Community Development Coordinator, an Admission Coordinator and myself, Head of
Advancement and Director of Development. The team has between 1 and 4 years of experience. Following my
appointment as Head of Advancement in July, the team and I created our action plan for the upcomingschool year.
The brevity of my succession from a team member to the team leader meant that imposing authority upon my
colleagues would be ineffective. As such, I sought to utilisea laissezfaireleadership stylein an effort to develop the
confidence of each team member to not only to meet the future, but also to create it for themselves.
PLANNING
After reviewing our accomplishments from the previous year, we sat down together to develop our plans
for the future and consolidated the departmental objectives in each area.We would focus our efforts on increasing
enrolment, increasing giving and increasing volunteer involvement while supporting the whole school goal,
“Learning is central to everything we do.” All communications, events and support work would align with these
objectives and articulate the Mission and Vision to our constituents. From there our plans were developed. These
plans outlined the redistribution of responsibilities in our roles,a revised reporting structure and a regular meeting
format. After an initial reviewof the new roles and reportingstructure, I met with each team member to discuss the
changes and direction, giving them an opportunity to provide feedback and ask questions. At the end of those
meetings some minor adjustments were made based on what was voiced and then the plan went back to the Head
of School for approval.
IMPLEMENTATION
At this point,the Head of School conducted performance reviews where employees reflected on their work
and reported it. They were then asked to establish new personal objectives for the upcoming year and this
information was shared with me in order to allowfor effective progress monitoringalongthe way. We agreed that
this was a rebuildingyear, and that the changes which were initiated for would be reviewed the followingsummer.
Again, this review will take placein a collaborative setting and then inform the performance reviews and planning
prior to next September. A timeline for the implementation phase was developed and set in motion. The regular
meeting schedule was created and incorporated a distributiveleadership styleby allowingeach team member the
opportunity to chair meetings. The chairs rotated on a weekly basis and were responsible for bringing forward an
articleor excerpt of readingrelevantto our work. This was discussed in advanceof any agenda items. Agendas were
organized by items for decision and items for discussion. Each team member was assigned regular areas of
responsibility in line with their revised role descriptions and the expectation was that there would be reports from
everyone at each meeting. This gave us an opportunity to monitor progress, offer assistance and share valuable
information across our areas.As a regular matter, the objectives were highlighted often and our progress in relation
to those was shared. To further the collaboration, the Educational Leadership and Admini strative teams were
granted access to themeeting minutes. This allowed themto keep apprised on our work and offer thoughts, opinions

2. and insights should somethingarise.This way, the members of those senior leadership teams also had information
on any items being considered for decision.
Dashboard reports aregenerated monthly for admission and development data and these are compiled for
the board on a quarterly basis. Separate detailed reports are produced after the completion of special events. We
introduced a system of trackingvolunteer involvement in order to quantify the number of participants,their level of
commitment and area of interest. All of this information is shared to the School Staff in our monthly meetings and
feedback is solicited at that time. Adjustments to the dashboard reports are being proposed for next year. These
changes include a uniform template for all Advancement information, comprehensive data displayed against
historical comparisons, space for anecdotal information, more frequent updates and distribution to a wider
audience. Adjustments to the Admission process aimed at achieving our target included: a review of the re-
registration contract and timeline, a revision of the Ambassador Handbook and our Open House format and
increased collaboration with and support for the Admission Coordinator.
EVALUATION
The laissezfaireand distributiveleadership styles employed this year haveworked very well for most of our
team members, particularly those who have more experience, an engrained sense of the school culture and an
appetite to take on more responsibility. Examples of this success are demonstrated by both the Marketing and
Communications Director and Coordinator. They are thriving in their roles and as a result have moved significant
projects forward such as a full school rebranding and the development of our new website, all whilecontinuingto
improve upon existing communications and articulating the Mission and Vision more accurately within those. Our
Community Development Coordinator has now taken on Alumni Relations in addition to Volunteer and Event
management. She shares a senseof responsibility for both Admission and Development outcomes and understands
the impacther role plays in achievingthoseannually.Our Development Manager has taken ownership of the donor
database and the transition to a new system. Always willing to support Admission, the insight in to our many new
families and their potential to give is an invaluableasset.Movingforward, this person would benefit from a clearer
set of processes, a defined timeline for appeals and access to professional development opportunities.
My leadership stylewas leasteffective in workingwith our Admission Coordinator.In this instanceI had to
recognize the issues as they aroseand apply situational leadership to suitthe professional maturity of the person in
that role. With my experience in Admission, I should have trained this person myself. At this stage in their career,
the person in this roleresponds better to a more directiveapproach,somethingwhich I failed to recognize early on.
As a result,some of our projects were tabled until next year in order to accomplish our departmental objectives and
ensure our targets were met. After recognizing that this was an area of weakness we brought in clerical support
during the re-registration period. Subsequently, a regular meeting schedule to monitor inquiries, applications,
assessments and acceptances was set up. These adjustments have proved to be very helpful. Increasingmy level of
involvement has also given me the opportunity to get to know the new families better. This will benefit our
engagement and givinginitiatives next year. Despite the difficulties thatwe experienced, I am proud to report that
our enrolment targets are on track to be met and our attrition is under 9%, compared to 16% the previous year.
Strong enrolment figures for the second straightyear and a largepercentage of returning families arekey indicators
of a stable school community, giving us with a solid foundation to build upon.
CONCLUSION
Throughout the year I have learned a great deal about myself and my team members. It has become clear
that one sizedefinitely does not fit all in the Advancement department at Meadowridge. I have exercised a degree
of humility,learned the valueof empathy and instilled some confidence in our team. I have come to celebrate the
diversity within our group and from that, promote truly creative conflict. I need to accept and expect disagreement
with my viewpoints. While we are getting better at asking difficult questions of each other, which lead to better,
more collaborative decision making, it will continue to take practice. I will need to review the Admission and
Development processes and engage stakeholders outside of our office in that endeavour. As part of the CIS
accreditation, policy reviews will be required. We will build on the foundation formed this year and work closely
with our families and faculty, encouraging everyone to give and get involved in support of the Mission and Vision.
These two pieces will act as the basis for all of our work and live in our budget, our plans and actions. Above all, I
will striveto listen,ask questions,shareideas and learn from others while continuingto improve myself as a leader
and as a person.

3. Literature Review
Throughout the year I read a number of books and articles on leadership theory, styles and
practices and applied some of that knowledge to my work. Three books in particular were used
to inform my Reflective Inquiry Project.
Michael Fullan (Change Leader 2011) was a guiding source over the course of the year and was
discussed broadly within the Team Leader Programme. As an overarching piece, a key insight
explored by Fullan (2011) was that an effective change leader actively participates as a learner
in helping the organization improve. Only after putting our ideas in to practice, trying things out
and then thinking about how well they worked are we able to make improvements. Fullan
(2011) explored how to balance being both resolute yet empathetic and confident yet humble.
Unwavering purpose cannot overlook the fact that people are people and must be treated with
kindness. Over confidence cannot come at the cost of humility or else the ability to build
capacity in others is lost.
Max DePree (Leadership is an Art 1989) shifted my perspective on leadership styles generally in
saying that “style is merely a consequence of what we believe, of what is in our hearts.”
Depree’s (1989) belief that relationships are more important than structure is something that
will inform my role as a leader moving forward.
The most influential literary source was Margaret Heffernan (Beyond Measure 2015) in which
the big impact of small changes was explored in the context of an organization. I found every
piece of this short read meaningful to my work. Creative conflict was a central topic. Heffernan
(2015) stresses building social capital within teams is the key to success and that sometimes, if
everything is shifting around you, keeping things the same is the change that you need to make.
My experience this year and entire project are best summarized when Heffernan (2015) says
“Recognizing that we need both noise and silence, time for reflection but also for action, the
capacity to see the potential in every individual while building up our own store of knowledge,
ultimately yields the adaptive minds that respond to change with vigor and integrity.”
Michael Fullan (Change Leader 2011)
Max DePree (Leadership is an Art 1989)
Margaret Heffernan (Beyond Measure 2015)