Independent School Organizational Design Resource Center

Our research has shown that these three problems are not inevitable, but a result of schools not deliberately redesigning their organizational structures to operate in today’s complex environment. Instead, as one head put it, schools just continue to tack on additional administrators using the same structure since 1950.

Fortunately, EAB identified several ways heads of school can address these three organizational challenges. Since there is no single solution to these multifaceted challenges, instead, EAB created different resources to optimize the head workload and leadership structure to successfully meet the demands of operating in today’s independent school market.

In the first section below, we’ve outlined how heads can receive structured support from EAB to address their school’s organizational design. In the second section, we’ve linked supporting resources heads can independently utilize.

Diagnose your institution’s needs

Receive structured organizational design support

If you are interested in receiving structured support from EAB on your school’s organizational design, complete the form below or contact your Dedicated Advisor. You will then be directed on how to complete the steps below:

1. Submitting EAB’s Strategic Alignment Assessment to diagnose your school’s level of alignment on mission and strategy, and strategy and org structure
2. Reviewing a personalized Success Plan created by EAB based on your assessment results
3. Scheduling a meeting with your Dedicated Advisor to discuss and plan next steps listed in the Success Plan

Access EAB resources

Heads are overworked and burned out

Heads’ jobs have expanded to include responsibilities that span academics, business, and operations. Heads are now held accountable to significantly more tasks than ever before. They feel overworked, overwhelmed, and are forced to make costly trade-offs on how they prioritize their time. Heads must recalibrate their responsibilities to focus on the work only they can do and deliberately delegate other tasks to their team members, so that they can more effectively advance institutional strategy.

• Complete the Head-worthy Tasks Toolkit to recalibrate head responsibilities. This resource helps heads determine where best to invest their time. It includes a rubric for determining which tasks are head-worthy, delegation techniques, and approaches on how to communicate the redistribution of responsibilities to the board and leadership team.
• Complete the Leadership Team Role Review Workbook to reassess leadership roles and how each role connects to strategy. This resource provides heads with a process for aligning leaders’ responsibilities with strategy. It includes a self-assessment for senior leaders to complete and interview questions to ask senior leaders.

Too many direct reports and administrators

As independent schools have become more complex to operate, leadership teams have grown to include more specialists who can take on more niche tasks and responsibilities. This also means that heads are spending more time managing more direct reports than ever.

• Use the Direct Reports Assessment to right-size reporting lines. This assessment will determine which direct reports heads should manage and which should be redistributed to other managers based on capacity and expertise, with the goal of reducing the amount of time heads spend managing direct reports.
• Use the Leadership Team Optimization Guide to right-size the leadership team. This guide will examine the head’s current leadership team size and makeup against other independent schools’ and EAB’s recommendations.