Do you know Luke Hladek? Have you heard his FDR voice? Have you received a 10:00 p.m. text to go outside and see the northern lights or a meteor shower? Have you seen the way he looks at his wife and children? He will tell you how much he adores “my Liz” and is equally adored by her …to say nothing of how they cherish their clever and curious children, but he doesn’t want to jinx it. 

Luke: [Liz and I] worked together for 10 years, and a lot of people would comment, “My God, how do you do that?” Meanwhile, we’re texting each other all day long, “Hey, I’m above ground, or, Hey, I’m over here. Just come out and say what’s up.”

And if you passed by them in one of those moments, you would witness the bliss of their marriage. They respect each other. Indeed, they make each other better people and quite frankly they can’t get enough of each other. 

Luke: Yeah, I wish we were awake more.

While I wasn’t around when he was teaching her to drive a car when they were students at Bethany College or aware of the bird mites that drove them from their New York City apartment back to the Ohio Valley, I have heard the stories. I feel like I lived through it with them because Luke knows how to pull you in with his words.

I was around when he proposed. Luke was my colleague at Wheeling Country Day School at the time. Being in that ecosystem also meant he was in my mother’s orbit. Ginny Dulany volunteered for lunch and came to truly admire Luke. That’s not accurate. She held court in the Dulany kitchen at WCDS – telling stories, listening, cracking jokes, offering advice all while (wo)manning the dishwasher. I venture to say she barely saw her granddaughters and rarely stopped to see me, but she loved joking around with Luke. In fact, she created an elaborate tale that she moved back to Wheeling for him and was giddy when she heard he was getting engaged – her prince charming had arrived – only to have her heart broken that he had proposed to Liz. It was all in good fun. 

People are drawn to Luke. He offers a safe space to be yourself and brings out the fun in every person and situation. He doesn’t take himself too seriously in the best and worst of ways. He elevates an experience with his creative vision yet keeps you grounded with his moral code. Trust him with the space and time and he will curate an inclusive mission-driven experience building community, deepening culture and amplifying your brand. He is a genuine leader although he would never define himself that way.

Luke: I honestly think what I probably brought most to that position was one, a willingness to laugh at ourselves, to recognize I’m trying to take myself super seriously when I recognize that 90% of the most serious problems are not at my doorstep. You know what I mean? So let’s have some fun. If we have an opportunity to have some fun, let’s laugh. We’re teaching kids, we’re in an elementary school, which means we’re all basically a bunch of big kids. So let’s embrace that part of it. And really encouraging, not following a set anything, just allow yourself to try and not succeed or fail. I know we talked about failure a lot. But, yeah, just to try cool things because they’re cool things. Who cares? Do events because they’re fun and they can be something and do this weird part of the event because it sounds funny. 

That instinct made us a better school and a stronger community. He lives and breathes school and personal advancement. He personifies, “What if we…”

Luke: Even that second year of my internship, I think you were like, hey, I can see that you want to do this, this, and this. What I want you to do is improve any project you’re a part of. And so it would be. Instead of presenting a book report and passing the mic, let’s create an interactive, you know, walkthrough of something. And then you can still have that small presentation piece, but it’s not as rote, … It’s not something you did 10 years ago. 

We did not have the finances for me to hire Luke when his graduate internship ended, so he took a job with the local county and worked at the high school where he had been a smart ass student himself.

I missed him. I missed his spark. I missed the way he made a project or event better while simultaneously respecting the teachers involved. I missed the way he elevated other people. 

Luke: I like being a person that people can come up to and say, I know I should know how to plug this in, but can you help me out? Even if I’m stressed and I’m like, done. I’ll drop whatever, for better or worse, sometimes, but I’ll drop it and come do it because that means something to me. 

His absence taught me that people were more important than profit or policy. I never courted anyone like I did Luke. The guy who sweats through his suit during our first summer interview was now the force I knew I wanted on faculty. I reminded him how strong our work family was by having him play Santa (Ginger Claus) for the faculty Christmas party… give him a costume and he is smitten. Later, we met for coffee and he made it clear, “I don’t want to be in the same place for 40 years.” He wasn’t “a school man” as they say. I persisted and in time he was sitting in that same office – dressed much more casually under much cooler temperature and he told me he was coming back. I asked two colleagues, Bridget Rutherford and IJ Kalcum, to come join us. The four of us in the room could feel the energy – it was one of those electric moments when you are aware that something extraordinary is about to unfold—a convergence of individual potential and collective purpose so genuine that it bordered on lightning in a bottle.

Luke: Thankfully you were like, come talk to me if you have an idea. And I don’t know how many people do that, but I was like, I got 10.

I trusted him and those ideas. Luke rose quickly from intern to administrator. How did he do it?

Luke: I was given an opportunity to. I wasn’t annoying. I don’t try to be “knock on your door” annoying, but if you say, hey, I really want you to come and talk to me, I’m probably going to show up.

Liz: I just want you to know, in all the years we worked together, I never thought you were knock on the door annoying. It was much more like, does anybody know where the hell Luke is? Because you were always somewhere taking a picture, helping somebody…doing a video, setting something up.

Luke: I don’t know, I’m sure it’s some kind of ego, you know? But I like to be the guy that people come to. You know what I mean? Because I like to be. Not to be important. I don’t mean it like that. I mean it more that I like knowing that someone else knows they can come up to me without concern that I’m going to sh!# on them for asking a question, you know?

Add that quality to the list that makes him an effective albeit humble leader. People seek him out. He asks, “How are you?” and he means it …and he listens. At his core he understands your story, empathizes with your pain and offers that safe arena to be authentic with him and with yourself. I cannot count the hours we spent in the office after hours talking through personal or professional challenges. I would try to push him out the door to get home to his beautiful family, but he wouldn’t leave until he knew I was ok. They say being a Head of School is a lonely position. I never felt that way. I had Luke. 

The man who masterfully weaves narratives in text, audio and video that are captivating and fun has very few words when I ask him about being a dad. He doesn’t want to jinx it. He worries that they have been too lucky. It’s the hardest part of being a dad for him. He doesn’t want his worry to affect them. When he isn’t feeling at his best, he knows they don’t deserve for him to be struggling in their presence.

Like all good polarities in life, within that very worry is what he sees as the best part of being a dad.

Luke: When I feel my worst, I recognize that I have a responsibility to not just dump that on somebody else, and especially not on somebody else that just wants me to pick them up and hug them.

Liz: And pretty soon you don’t feel your worst anymore.

Luke: Yeah. You know, you trick yourself into maybe being your best, you know? And again, I don’t love saying that because it’s… It just feels like the best part of being a dad is my kids can mask my, you know, unhappiness sometimes, but it, you know, it’s a beautiful thing. It helps. And it’s not me hiding it necessarily. I mean, sometimes it could be, but most of the time it’s me forcing a new perspective on myself, you know?

Liz: They give you that?

Luke: Yeah, they give me that. 

His children bring him back into the present. They get him out of his worry and land him in the middle of the moment at hand. He loves it. He is in it to win it. 

A fan of Modern Family, he reminds me, “You never know when it is the last time you are going to pick up your kid.”

So he picks them up and as he throws them into the air, he looks up at them. Luke looks up. That is his trademark. For over a decade through the death of a student, a pandemic and a passion for space, he has made us all turn our faces to the skies. He lifts us individually and collectively.

If Barb Buchwach suggested I make more Liz Hofreuters, I have to ask, How do we make more Luke Hladeks? How do we develop leaders who share their vision with a compelling story, who support your potential as well as your failures, who balance family and work, and who do it with a sense of humor that builds community and culture? 

I would venture to say it started with his grandmother who truly “saw” Luke. It is thanks to Mimi, Ginnie Benedett. 

Luke: My grandma thought I was smart when no one did.

Liz: Really?

Luke: Not that nobody did. My parents do. My parents are great. But she was like, “you’re different about stuff.” And not just in a… Maybe it was… And maybe I just bought into it. Maybe it was a standard. You’re special, you know, and can do no wrong and stuff. But it wasn’t, it was very much like, “No, I want you to help me with this, because I like how you talk to me, and I like how you think” …and so as I kind of came into my own, she was the one who I felt actively saw me the way that I was hoping, you know, or at least in the way…maybe not the way I was hoping. That’s probably not the way I want to say it…

Liz: For who you are.

Luke: Yeah. Or the best that I could be.

I left his words just as he spoke them with his humility tripping over his ideas and his self-effacing bias downplaying his genius.  As someone who has worked by his side in good times and in bad, I can tell you Luke has a spectacular gift. He makes you a better person. There is simply no one else I would have as my creative partner. Like Mimi, I want Luke to help me with this, because I like how he talks to me, and I like how he thinks. I also like that there is nothing about this walking project that has to be perfect. There is always a 2.0 version we can work toward. Then a 3.0 and so on. With that mentality, we are both dropping pieces of our imposter syndrome – and focusing on incremental steps of growth and improvement.

I like to think that Mimi and my mom, the two Ginnies who were neighbors in the final years of their lives, are damn pleased by the partnership Luke and I have and the work we have done. I am sure they inspired this platform for people to know that they are actively seen as the best that they are… and are compelled to be the best that they could be… but I don’t want to jinx it.

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I chose very well for my first virtual walk. Actually, I didn’t choose. It was written in the stars that arvind grover and I should walk together while in two different states. While I strolled through my neighborhood on a gray day in West Virginia, he stepped out into the sunshine in Massachusetts. Each time I looked at my phone during our video chat, I was looking at sunshine – literally and metaphorically. I have found arvind to be a source of energy and joy in every encounter we have had.

We are K-8 colleagues by profession, and friends by choice. Like others whom I have met through ESHA, arvind is an extraordinary leader – even among our committee of leaders. He exudes a sense of serenity as he dissects data and determines a way forward. I would love to observe him in action among his team on the 35 acre campus of The Meadowbrook School. I got a glimpse of its grandeur and immediately felt the weight of the responsibility of such a sprawling Pre-K – 8 campus. “We have an amazing team to oversee it, but we operate on a lean budget. We invest all of our money into teaching and learning.” And once again we are centered where we should be – the focus is learning and the adults who facilitate it. As an independent school leader we wear many hats. It is easy to be distracted by the numerous “crises” of the business of doing school, but our very mission is learning. It is our core. As school leaders, we must be steadfast: learning above all else… for everyone on our campuses…especially ourselves.

Our walk begins in the realm of parenthood. “Let’s start there,” arvind chose, “I talk about leadership all the time,” but I knew full well we would wind our way to leadership in no time. The two are intricately connected. 

I learn quickly that arvind has twin nine-year-old boys. Being their father has offered him a rare glimpse into the “secret society of twins” whose members curl into one another to watch television almost intertwined. “Even at nine. It’s unbelievable,” he muses. I can visualize the entangled body parts on the couch as if it were a living sculpture. The twins are simultaneously individual and collective. Their first relationship was with each other, a bond so basic that it predates any external connection and continues in the family room on any given Saturday morning.

These walks plant seeds and trigger responses for me – as they are intended to – so I wonder if Grace’s body and nervous system naturally search for Nicolas, her twin brother.  I wonder if that is the reason she still often leans her weight against me or curls up on my lap even at age 20 and standing at least three inches taller than I. How does a surviving twin find that home base? Has his heartbeat echoed for her throughout these years? Have I given her the grace she deserves as she navigates life without her kindred spirit? 

For arvind, the anticipation of finding a heap of entwined arms and legs the next morning brings a smile to his face as bright as the sunshine behind him. He talks of the gift of having his boys with him at school and sees the benefits far outweighing the challenges of playing dad and Head of School simultaneously. “It’s my wife that’s left out. I get to eat lunch with them, see them in class, be present for all performances. She sometimes worries that we’re vulnerable all being at one place.” Per usual, the glass is half full for arvind. 

Per usual. Usually… defined as “under normal conditions.” The thing we know about parenting is there are too often NOT normal conditions. At nine months, one of his twins was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). This was a difficult diagnosis to obtain. It gives light to the institutional bias living in the medical field – no one is at fault – no one purposely overlooked anything, but the normal conditions were not at play here. 

arvind: Close minded thinking left my son undiagnosed for many, many months unnecessarily. Actually, he was flagged on a traditional newborn screen that every child takes as a potential carrier for CF. There were no symptoms of that originally. They just kept saying he can’t possibly have it because his father’s Indian and because during our attempt to get pregnant, they had done a screening on both Carolyn and me, they knew she was a carrier and they “knew” I was not. Working through months and months and months and months and months of testing, they couldn’t rule it out, even though they kept assuring us there’s no way he has it.

So they finally did a genetic workup for him, for me and for my wife. And that’s where they could conclusively map the genome and see that he had cystic fibrosis. 

Until you go through all these hurdles, insurance won’t pay to do the testing. 

It’s too expensive to be approved. That’s the bottom line. There is a script or a flowchart that must be followed. We know life doesn’t follow flowcharts. As is the case with so many families. Carolyn knew. Yes her son “just had reflux,” but her mother’s heart knew something else was happening. Her intuition drove them to keep after a diagnosis. 

As a mother, I have so many times trusted my gut… and encouraged other mother’s to do the same. It can be maddening as you meet opposition. You begin to second guess yourself, but I urge other parents to hold on to your resolve. Keep asking questions. Find someone who will listen.

arvind: Imagine, I have a biology degree in undergrad. My father is a pulmonologist – literally the people who specialize in CF. My wife is a school counselor. We couldn’t be more educated on such things … we speak English … we have access to money … we have insurance and even we couldn’t navigate this system effectively. I can only imagine what it’s like if you don’t have any of those factors working on your behalf.

No matter who we are or what our experiences, at a base we parents want our children to be healthy and happy. “For one of my sons, that’s not possible.” Before age one, healthy was off the table. The gray cloud rolled in. 

There is a point after the acceptance of a diagnosis that you pull yourself up. It is not resignation, but fortitude that teaches you, “Now it is like this.” You embrace the moment in front of you. His wife became an expert in the disease: curating various treatments, reacting to missteps in his care, identifying possible studies, fundraising for a cure, and designing daily routines. In the midst of such a challenge, you find and seize the opportunity to learn. 

arvind’s son needs good food and exercise as all children do, but for him it is a non-negotiable. While arvind can doubt himself asking if he’s doing enough, his son’s twin brother instinctively understands and champions his brother’s medical journey. He anticipates medical and nutritional needs revealing yet again the most profound dimension of human connection.  If we are watching and listening, our children will impress us. We find ourselves doubting if our actions are enough and then look to our children, especially in their innocence, and see them focused on positive action not doubt, grief or regret. How then do they learn to worry like an adult? How can we temper that? In them? In us?

arvind seems to be mastering it. What I see as serenity in him, he calls equanimity. Indeed, a colleague asked him recently how he shows up so calmly to a meeting no matter what the height of the emotions of others. It’s hard to get too worked up about what math class a student should be in when you are facing the challenges he has in his personal life. It doesn’t mean the concerns of others aren’t important to him. It is just the opposite. It means he has a lens of the bigger picture in the life of a family. This hard-earned wisdom creates an effective leadership approach. arvind has an intuitive capacity to hold space for complexity, to sit with discomfort without becoming overwhelmed, and to guide others through challenging terrains with a steady, understanding presence. He knows full well the strength of human resilience. He gets to witness it in his sons every day.

While I would beg to differ, he doesn’t claim to have mastered such calmness, but identifies as practicing equanimity. Practicing as in actively working on it… every day. In fact, he has an acronym for it, STEM: Sleep, Train, Eat, Meditate.

arvind: The S is for sleep. I need seven plus hours a day. The T is for train. I need to train my body. Right now it’s largely weight training. I need to eat properly. Healthy nutrition is a big part of my life and the M is for meditate as a more formal practice, or a less formal practice.

This is how he stays grounded and shows up with equanimity. He is connected to the present. Life has taught him to be at peace with whatever is going on. The beauty of the blue sky as we discussed the gray cloud of the months it took to obtain his son’s diagnosis remains poignant for me. This optimism – the focus on today as it leads toward a better future even with its bad diagnoses is becoming a pattern in my conversations with Heads of Schools. It is more than hope. It is a presence …and a mission to learn. It lifts us individually and collectively and we all rise.

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For the first time, a walk needs a footnote. arvind and I had no more than 30 minutes for our walk. As one would expect, I had zoom issues. I could not log in on my phone and I could not imagine walking laps in my house with my laptop in hand. With the “get it done” mentality that often plagues me, we opted to FaceTime one another. While I fumbled to record our conversation, I was losing valuable time. In a panic, I turned on closed captioning thinking I could copy and paste our dialogue as we finished. Nope.

As arvind hung up, our entire walk vanished. Poof. I threw my head back in disgust and looked up at the gray sky that reflected the dank feeling in my core. We had such a rich conversation and I lost it. And I’m old. And my memory isn’t what it once was. Gone.

In my mind, I could hear Luke telling me to rely less on the recording and focus on what resonated with me. Nothing was resonating. No echo of our conversation… only the other voice in my head, “Figures, you blew it.”

Resigned, I started walking back toward my house. Luke’s voice grew louder in my mind. “What bubbles up?” Instead of turning back, I thought I’d retrace my steps on the path I had taken. As I once again lapped my neighbor walking his dog, the conversation flooded back. As it poured forth, I found myself running home. The world tried to intervene – a package was delivered… the dryer signalled … Grace called (and my father taught me to always pick up that call). I was not to be thwarted… I picked up my pencil and scribbled thoughts so I wouldn’t lose them.

Clearly, you know how the story ends. The blog was written. I had some gaps that required clarification. Unsolicited, arvind sent me back an audio file.  You deserved to hear the serenity and presence in his voice and so you can. We should all be so lucky to have a Luke Hladek or an arvind grover as the voice in our heads. 

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Lise: It was my first semester of Law School. I sat in the back. I had all the papers briefed. Every case was briefed and color coded. The professor called on me and I quite literally lost control of the English language. There was what felt like a minute long pause and I said, ‘Sir, I’d be grasping at straws.’ And I sat there quietly sobbing for the rest of class in the back of the room, looking at the hundreds of people in front of me. 

I walked across the street after that… called my mom in Hawaii… waking her up of course… and told her that I did not belong in law school. 

Elizabeth Beske, Lise as I know her, graduated number one in her law class. Indeed, she earned the equivalent of straight A’s at Columbia Law School. This unassuming, brilliant woman with whom I shared a quad in Spelman Hall at Princeton University walks along the beach next to me recounting a memory of imposter syndrome, the thread of which is woven into so many lives.

Lise: That (the straight A’s) was actually terrifying… because then I thought, ‘Oh my God, I can’t blow it.’ With every day that passed I wondered, ‘What’s going to happen when they find out that I don’t deserve this? And the other shoe drops?’ I guess that’s imposter syndrome. Right?

I once heard it said that we need to face the dragon – invite him to tea. I have personified worry and invited the beast to sit at my table and share tea. I see the dragon’s large form through the steam of his tea and I talk to him and reason out the worry. I think through the outcomes and see how each one might turn out ok. Sometimes I have to invite him to tea on many occasions, but eventually he has no fiery breath or he turns and walks out or simply evaporates. Lise didn’t metaphorically invite the dragon to tea, she literally “forced herself” to take a seat at the table in another one of her professor’s classes.

Lise: In my third year of law school, I forced myself to take his administrative law class because I kind of needed to confront my demons. And you know, I got a great grade in his class. And I actually forced myself to put my hand up and get called on … all those things. I even forced myself to ask him for a recommendation to clerk for the Supreme Court.

The justice for whom she clerked – Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. Indeed, Lise was once picked up and twirled around by the judge for a dissent she authored that was so effective it moved members of the majority over to Justice O’Connor’s way of thinking. 

There is a pattern in our conversation. With each new topic…first leadership then motherhood…Lise’s starting point is reserved, humble, self-effacing. It would be easy to miss the richness of her influence and the breadth of her impact if one didn’t press her to say more.  How is it that this Editor of the Columbia Law Review doesn’t see herself as a leader? How could she harbor any self doubt? What happens to us to make us feel like an imposter? As children we are curious, courageous, and creative…skinned knees, banged-up elbows, knotted hair and confident we can conquer the world. When does doubt sneak in? Who introduces it? Why does it take hold? Who doesn’t have it? How can I hold up a mirror so Lise can see in herself what each one of the eight other women on this college reunion trip see when we look at her? 

Perhaps, it starts by going for a walk.

The anxiety of straight A’s doesn’t end when one clerks for a Supreme Court justice. It can also play out in the next generation. Her third child followed two siblings “who checked all the boxes.” Third in line and trying to meet an unspoken and unintentional standard, he faltered. And whenever he did, his mother tried to fix things. 

Lise: He would slam a door, and I would open a window. 

A bumpy ride through high school culminating in a COVID graduation parade catapulted the third Beske to the Kenyon College campus for the 2020-2021 academic year. By October of 2021 Lise and her husband were driving him home from Gambier, OH. “It wasn’t going to take.” His parents gave him until the end of the calendar year to figure out what was next. “It has to be something,” they told him.

I can only imagine the sleepless nights and tear stained pillows in the weeks and months that followed. Lise had no template for this. No script to follow. No fix. The helplessness and worry is palpable. She had been waiting for the other shoe to drop for much of her life and when it finally did, it dropped in the life of her son.

Lise: We had no exit strategy at that point other than we knew it had to be something and we didn’t know what. What were we going to do if he didn’t have anything? I mean, what do you do? Literally. What do you do?  It was terrifying. And what if he picked something and then what do you do if he can’t do it?

You can hear Lise spiraling even as she recounts the experience. As a mom, I am living it vicariously. As an empath, my own chest heaves with anxiety. What do you do with this immense feeling of helplessness?

You love them. You trust them. You give yourself grace. 

While his older siblings graduated from Georgetown and Duke Universities respectively and his parents are both Princeton graduates, Christian might very well have the coolest career of them all as a cyber security expert for the United States Navy. His graduation was one of the proudest days of Lise’s life. And since then, “he just keeps killing it…”  qualifying for successive, more challenging rounds of schooling and ultimately landing at Ft. Meade. 

Lise: I feel like the luckiest person because of where we were. When I retell this, I still can’t believe we’re here with that kid. I’m so proud, yet I’m also filled with disbelief because it was hard. I mean, so many, so many tears shed for him, so many prayers, honestly. Look at me opening windows all the time. It wasn’t until I stopped that my son found his way.

He was grasping at straws, one might say, and look at the tremendous success he saw that challenge as an opportunity. Sounds a lot like his mom to me.

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I shared a wall with Lise for a year and yet I was meeting her for the first time as we left our footprints behind in the sand. If the cumulation of these walks offers nothing more than my opportunity to better see someone whose path has crossed mine, then every step has value. If these blogs might also allow someone to see themselves with a bit more grace, I would deem this a worthy pursuit.

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Imagine you’re a PreK – 8 Head of School. You’re supposed to be the beacon of wisdom, guiding young minds and inspiring your faculty, while also worrying about whether there’s enough coffee or toilet paper to prevent a coup. One minute you’re solving the mystery of the missing lunch box (spoiler alert: it was in the cubby the whole time), and the next, you’re spearheading a transformative educational initiative. 

My walk with Rose Helm, Head of School at John Thomas Dye School in Los Angeles, CA. personifies such PreK- 8 school leadership. You’re constantly out of breath — literally and metaphorically — juggling responsibilities for which you were never trained and jumping around various issues. You’re expected to have a solution to every problem, even the ones you didn’t know existed until they showed up uninvited, like distant relatives at Thanksgiving. When you stop long enough to realize that you aren’t out of breath at this moment, you worry you aren’t working hard enough or must be forgetting something. There is a sense of urgency in school leadership. If we aren’t doing all that we can, we are letting someone down. A child only gets nine-to-ten months to be a third grader, so time is of the essence. 

It’s all in a day’s work… for which we as Heads of School are probably already five minutes late. This walk was no exception. Rose texted moments before we were supposed to meet, “Are we walking in exercise gear or was the “walk” more metaphorical?” No metaphor here. She showed up with the energy to tackle a 10K and the breathless infectious laugh that makes her the perfect workout buddy. I know before we begin, she is going to push me. 

Her tongue-in-cheek humor speaks to the truth – Rose is a born leader – destined to be a CEO, or a princess, since she was a young girl. Now as an adult, Rose has a bias toward action. Add to that, Rose is a galvanizer. She can motivate people to get behind an idea with her unbridled enthusiasm. She has the animated arm movement of a conductor increasing the tempo while supporting you to rise to the expectation she has for you. She sees your potential and knows how to hit the gas pedal.  She is a powerhouse whose energy is palpable. 

Rose: I’m using my working genius, galvanizing. I’m getting people excited about this next phase for the school. But… how do we do all the things that we have to do, we want to do and make it seem like it’s effortless? While we also have to be vulnerable. It’s so many both ands.

That’s the real kicker, right? Leadership is about balance. Be strong but be vulnerable. Be the team leader, but also be the coach. You need to know when to take center stage and when to let others take the spotlight. While you are at it – you are working with children too, so find joy in the chaos. Sometimes, the best leadership move is to step back and let others have the limelight while you watch from the front row.

Rose:  The spotlight is always shining on us.. And, you know, I don’t know one of us who doesn’t love that a little bit. But I’m trying to learn to give that space and those opportunities to members of my administrative team, to other people. For example, historically, I write a weekly blog as part of our school newsletter. It is a slog to come up with something new to say every week. And it’s only me. It’s as if I’m the only person to have an original thought about children or something happening at the school. So I started sharing that with my leadership team. And not only has it helped me out, but it’s helped them take more of a front seat in the spotlight to be a thought leader. That empowerment leads to more agency, which then leads to more willingness to take things on. 

Liz: Sometimes the reason we do it is that it’s easier to just do it ourselves than to make sure someone’s doing it the way we want it to be done.

Rose and Liz: And that’s not good for anyone.

I have to attribute the last sentence to us both because our words are so intertwined. We finish each other’s sentences. We had clearly both walked that tightrope. The duality of leadership is what makes it both challenging and rewarding. It’s a constant dance between ego and humility, between action and reflection, and between being the hero and acknowledging that sometimes, you’re the villain in someone else’s story. But that’s okay. Because leadership isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being present, learning from your mistakes, and, most importantly, not taking yourself too seriously. After all, if you can’t laugh at the absurdity of it all, someone else will.

I don’t know if Rose would agree, but I learned humility from two very gifted masters: my daughters. They remind me every day not to take myself too seriously. No one is better at laughing at my errors than my girls. I am grateful… not all the time.. but in due time, I am grateful. Like leadership, motherhood is not about being perfect. I’ll speak for Rose when I say, we are not perfect mothers. Our flaws and challenges might just make us good mothers and better leaders, however. Take for instance the empathy we both have for mothers sitting in front of us after receiving a diagnosis of a medical condition or a learning difference.

Rose: When you think about your kid being sick, you want to actually have a diagnosis. No one wants to know it’s a virus. You want to know it is an ear infection because my child can take antibiotics. You know, it’s so hard when you get that information and you’re not sure what the right answer is for support. 

We have both been there. There is no right answer. No silver bullet. It is a journey. Maybe I should say a process…much like grief. As a parent, we have to give ourselves the grace to go through all the stages when we find out something is wrong which antibiotics can’t cure. For Rose and me, as goal oriented, Princeton-educated, Heads of School one of those stages was to become an expert and advocate. In absence of answers, our inclination was to learn. Though the diagnoses our daughters faced are different, the impact is the same. Ego pushes in and asks, “How did I not see this coming?” or “What did I miss?” and “How will I fix it?” 

Rose: Parents are …well, they’re not educators. I had the benefit of getting this information about my child and already knowing something about it. But a lot of people don’t. And it’s scary. This image of what you think your kid is going to be is all of a sudden completely upended. When we see parents who are manifesting “crazy,” I like to say it’s actually rooted in fear.

Which is actually rooted in love. And if we can meet them in the love place… well…

It’s terrifying being a parent. You’re just figuring it out.

Knowing ourselves better as mothers for having walked that path makes us better leaders especially in the Pre K – 8 arena for this is the time when most diagnoses occur. It is in the confines of our offices that parents have to come to terms with a future different than the one they imagined for a child. We know personally what care and support is necessary to show up in the love place no matter how the parent might show up in your office.

We had to acknowledge we could not be all things to our daughters. We admit we didn’t want to be. Rose laughs, “I have no part of my identity caught up in being the chief grocery shopper.” Still, Rose and I both share the mom guilt of showing up for all of the children in our school sometimes at the expense of our own daughters.

Rose: I’m the less present [parent]. And I grapple with that all the time. And think about these 336 students that get so much of my attention. And I have one child who’s in ninth grade now so I have this pre-empty nest nesting happening in these years before she’s going to leave. I’m trying to figure all these things out. And so actually this year, it’s such a small thing, but I’m going to drive her to the bus once a week, which means I’m going to miss the morning assembly that I lead every day once a week. And someone from my team has to lead it in my place. I decided that I can make this choice; I can put my child first. 

In the car Rose and her daughter talk. So do Ella and I. Some of our best conversations happen in the car. I think it is like walking – maybe when we both focus in the same forward direction and not look at one another we can find a more honest connection. 

Rose: …and when she gets out, she’s like, thanks for driving me. It’s a small thing.

It’s no small thing. I can tell by the genuine smile that comes across her face. That 15 minute ride to the bus is everything.  Even beats the front row ride at Soul Cycle.

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From Max she learned wisdom. He was the first dog for whom she cared. 

Eli: I had a neighbor, one of my best friend’s mother’s had died suddenly of cancer, and her husband, who I’d known since childhood, worked in LA which left his lovely, brilliant poodle home alone every single day.  I started walking Max for $5 a day. He became my best friend and my teacher.

With the heart of a curious child, Eli came to know Max. She witnessed his patience, his unconditional love, and his loyalty. She also saw that the kindness Max extended to Mr. Mack took him through the darkest of days after his wife’s death. Stalwartly, sitting near him, asking for very little, and patiently offering his love, Max walked her neighbor, and Eli, toward healing.

Eli, has a superpower. She appears as if summoned by some silent bat signal. No matter the gravity of the challenge you face, she shows up when no one else does. She is loving and patient and kind – giving you exactly what you need when you cannot even articulate it for yourself. I know. Lying in a hospital bed two days after my son had died, I was handed the phone. I heard Eli’s voice on the other end. We didn’t talk long. We didn’t need to. She validated my immense pain and offered unexpected, unconditional love. I sobbed when I hung up that phone and continued sobbing as I packed up my few things to drive home for the funeral. She may or may not have been wearing a cape. Of that I cannot be certain. It was only a phone call, but life saving nonetheless.

As is the case for all superheroes, there is also kryptonite. For Eli it is alcohol that had its grip on her. She lived a life of high anxieties since her first memories and found alcohol as the vehicle for self-medication. Confronting that disease landed her in a world where her bionic skills could serve others. She discovered a community where the great equalizer was the very challenge that brought them to their first AA meeting¹.

Eli: People are there as a community to get well, stay well, to lift each other up, to support each other, and do it mainly through our foibles and our humor and the fact that we can celebrate being alive and in the moment. It was just so incredibly wonderful for me. 

Before then, her life had been a series of sprints. And she was a good sprinter. She could wait until the last minute to finish a project…in fact she thrived in such a place of high anxiety. An all-nighter was an energy source.  To face this demon, however, would require the skills of a marathoner. For that she needed a support team.

Eli: My life is no longer a sprint – no longer moving through obligations and tasks. The thing about getting sober is that your brain will play games on you, saying, ‘Look at you. You made it two weeks without a drink. You deserve to celebrate with a drink.’ This cycle will repeat and repeat and repeat until you’ve lost your governor and you have absolutely no confidence that you can ever accomplish anything again. So you don’t even try. I deemed myself unemployable. I stopped working, and I kept myself safe, and I didn’t lose anything since I had nothing to lose. 

By getting into a community of people you find a purpose to wake up every day with the support and accountability of friends who will embrace you regardless of it all… we’ve all been there. All anybody wants for someone in an organization like that is the safety and care of their members.

You can’t have community if people don’t participate. It’s precisely the people that do come back after falling down to show people that it isn’t about perfection. It’s progress, not perfection. And it’s been a beautiful experiment. It’s allowed me to understand my real purpose, which is to take care of those around me.

I started with the little things, retooling my life into structure, retooling my life with caring for animals, getting involved with the idea of unconditional love.

That doesn’t sound like a little thing at all – unconditional love. I am quite certain most people love with conditions. Not Eli. Afterall all she has faced, Eli is a caregiver. Not just to her aging parents, which is one of the most challenging responsibilities I have ever known, but also to many of her friends. The dogs taught her how to show up. It started with Max and from that she just started nurturing other dogs in her neighborhood. Through the animals she became dear friends with all of her neighbors, who welcomed her into their lives. There she found another community.

Eli: I had very wonderful relationships with the dogs and then with the dog owners, which is a different level of intimacy and understanding of someone as a human being.

The dogs didn’t judge or criticize – they simply offered their whole hearts, asking nothing in return but her presence and affection. Meeting their “people” through their beloved companions had a unique way of softening the edges, making them more relatable and approachable. It’s as if the pure, unconditional love of a dog has the power to draw out the best in the rest of us. Eli does that. Her daily routine finds her making phone calls every morning to three or four warriors who have battled back the disease they all share. A disease for which the only cure is honesty, humility and community. 

Liz: Can you hear yourself? You are such a profound leader within your community.

Eli: Oh, thank you, Liz. I try to live through example, not in an arrogant way, but just reminding people you can always find community and support. I mean, the only way to do this is with people that understand. You don’t get it unless you get it. It’s a disease of the body and the mind, and the spirit. And it is genetic. 

Liz: But it’s not about the disease or the diagnosis of an underlying condition, is it?

Eli: Not at all. It’s about the person.. the humanity of the person in front of you. And I’m telling you, you’ll find the most amazing people. They’re just the most brilliant, creative people you’ve ever met in your life…honest, hilarious, humble. They say some of the wisest things you’ve ever heard. It is a joyous environment. 

Liz: It sounds like our world could use the philosophy of some AA meetings these days.

Eli: Absolutely. At the end of the day, it’s getting outside of yourself and giving back through your own honesty. That’s nourishing for your soul. Strange, but I get my biggest reward through being able to find love and humor in the most horrendous things.

It will come as no surprise that our friendship hasn’t been a straight line over the past 35 years. We lost touch at times. I didn’t know about any horrendous things that have happened. I heard tidbits of Eli’s life from other roommates. I heard at one point she was a dog walker. I had experienced far less pain at that point in my life, so I had far less wisdom. I say that because I accepted that fact – dog walker – on face value. I didn’t ask further questions. I didn’t pick up the phone and call her. It is accurate that Eli started to rebuild her life by walking dogs, but the truth is that she took her first step forward with the most accepting partner she could – Max. And they walked. There was no need to sprint. At that slower pace Max revealed his wisdom to her and she found purpose in following Max’s lead in how best to care for others. And when Max got cancer, Eli walked him home.

Eli: Max shared his love with me when I couldn’t love myself. And Max. Max took care of me, actually. I was happy I could return the favor.

Look for the helpers, Mr. Rogers reminded us. In our horrendous moments, look for the helpers. If you are as fortunate as I am, you will get a call from Eli. She will show up. It’s her superpower.

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¹ If you or someone you know has a problem and you would like to know more about Alcoholics Anonymous, visit www.aa.com.

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Unlike my walk with anyone else, Katie Regan asks, “Do you want to run these hills?”

This is what I love about Katie – her energy. The lilt of her voice has a strength and a cadence that exudes confidence and captures your attention. It’s no wonder she specializes in communication.

I hadn’t warned her this was an official walk. She resisted. She hadn’t thought about it – hadn’t written some ideas down with pen and paper to share noteworthy insights. Without my having to say as much, she knew that postponing was not an option and without another word, she moved from hesitation to embracing our walk. That’s Katie – one exhale and she takes on the moment in front of her. I moved gently into conversation by offering her a choice of our starting point: leadership, learning differences, motherhood.

She lands on the idea that learning differences is best to ignite our conversation, yet within minutes, we are discussing parenting as we are both mothers with two children – one of which has been identified with a learning difference. The day you find out your child is far from your tree, the elements of motherhood and learning are inextricably linked.

At four, Ella was flagged for dyslexia effects on her literacy skills. She was not being recommended for Kindergarten. For Katie, she and Brandon were told their son had autism. In each case, someone looked at an assessment and followed the prescribed script that certain test results led to a particular diagnosis. The Regans were told their son would need to attend a specialized school. Although I was the Head of School, I got the same advice. WCDS was possibly not a fit for my own daughter as well.

An unexpected hill appeared on the paths of our separate journeys. Maybe that’s why Katie likes to run the hills. Like I had years earlier, she took on the challenge presented and decided that there was no need to find another school. 

Katie: If we chose that school he would be treated a certain way every day. Expectations would be different for him. I asked, ‘Why don’t we set our bar up here…’

She reaches her hand above her own head and measures just how much she believed in her son. She acknowledges his brain works differently, but reminds herself that both boys’ minds are different from hers and from each others’. She allows that to amaze her and to teach her.  It is her nature to be curious. She is fascinated that we cannot raise our children the same no matter how we might try…the second born has a different audience: a sibling.

Katie: Whenever they’re acting differently, you’re parenting them differently. Over time, how we as adults are growing and changing, also changes the way we then parent, whether we know it or not. So you never actually raise all your kids the same way, even though you think you are.

I can’t help but think of Sir Ken Robinson. In his Ted Talk, How to Escape Education’s Death Valley, he challenges, “I’ll make you bet and I am confident I will win. If  you have two children or more I bet they are completely different from one another.” Imagine 24 or 30 of them in the room. All completely different from one another. Yet he continues, “Education is based not on this diversity but on conformity…if you sit kids down, hour after hour, doing low grade clerical work, don’t be surprised if they start to fidget.” He pushes us that children are not suffering from their diagnoses. They are suffering from childhood and the fact that schools don’t let them be natural curious and creative learners. 

You begin to live what Sir Ken Robinson preaches when one of your children receives a diagnosis.

Katie: I walked out of that room and I’m processing all this information. My head is spinning. I had my sister in law talk me off the ledge because she’s a reading specialist and she knows all these things. And she said, ‘Katie, nothing changes you or your son.’ She said, ‘He’s perfect. He’s exactly perfect. He’s exactly who he’s supposed to be. Now there’s just this piece of paper that says something, no big deal.’ She goes, ‘How are we going to move forward?’

Move forward they did. Trust me, after the fear and worry of a diagnosis subside, you see learning more clearly. To borrow from Ryan Holiday, the challenge of the diagnosis was the way. You see the possible negative paths ahead, so you take the opportunity to relish the joy that your child is exactly “who he is supposed to be.” The beauty of it all lies in the learning differences. These differences are not just challenges; they’re opportunities to redefine what education and growth and success look like. When that apple falls far from the tree, we have to remove our ego from the equation and appreciate our diversity – even in our own family. I’ve come to appreciate the concept that every child learns differently. One path forward that they all need to follow is absurd. 

Parenthood, it seems, is not just about guiding our kids; it’s about evolving with them. There’s a raw vulnerability in apologizing to your children, admitting that you’re still figuring this whole ‘being a mom’ thing out. And as our children grow, so do we. They challenge us, question our decisions, and in doing so, teach us the art of humility and patience. It’s not about having all the answers but about being open to the journey and the growth it brings.

And in parenting a child with learning differences, we find not just collateral beauty, but also a richness that redefines thriving. Who gets to define success? Is it a test score? A college acceptance? A salary? Increased profit? More time with our family? More purpose?

Katie: When I left corporate America to run my own company full time, I said, I want to live a purposeful life. I said, I don’t want to do this rat race anymore, where every day I feel like a failure in some way. Every single day I failed at something.

And I have kids. Every day, I was like, I’m not doing anything 100%. I didn’t have mom guilt. I had life-guilt. I thought to myself, I’m not excelling anywhere.

That’s what I decided to do… work fewer hours so that I can live a purposeful life. And it happened immediately. It went from every day feeling like I was not doing enough at work, not doing enough at home, never doing anything correctly or the way I wanted to, to feeling like I had the opportunity to make decisions, to do things the way I thought was right. And it changed my whole life. My whole life improved because of trying to live purposefully.

So here’s to the journey – with all its unexpected hills that will challenge us, take our breath away, but afford us a new perspective from the top.  That is a purposeful life.

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