1. Telegraph respect for your educators and the work they do.
In connecting with your new school’s teachers, coaches, counselors, support staff members, and administrators, it’s critical to meet them where they are and hear all they have to say. Take the time to connect with each member of your team, across all constituencies, departments, and divisions, and make the effort to see them in action in their classrooms or workspaces. While it’s important to introduce yourself to your educators, it’s even more important to allow them to introduce themselves—and their passions, approaches, and personalities—to you.

2. Deepen relationships with your Board of Trustees.
Engage early conversations that extend the ones you’ve already had with your board chair and members during the search process, mutually clarifying expectations and priorities. Not only is this the moment to confirm your charge as head of school, but it’s also a prime opportunity to get to know each board member—and to understand more about their relationships with one another. These discussions ensure that all parties develop a collective vision for the future, minimizing conflicts and allowing you to enrich your own fresh perspective with their intimate understanding of your new school and community.

3. Reach out to your students from day one.
Enact structured, sustained contact with your students—welcoming them in the mornings, waving them out at dismissal, leading all-school functions, appearing regularly at grade-level events, etc. Also take advantage of impromptu opportunities to connect—a quick hallway chat, a high five on the sidewalk, or a moment of engagement with a student sitting alone in the lunchroom as you pass by. Let your personality—and your personal investment—shine in interactions with students.

4. Forge ties with parents and families.
First, it’s important to get a sense of the existing state of relationships between educators, students, and parents by asking educators and current families for their honest assessments. You can learn where things are working well and where you need better policies, procedures, and boundaries—and clearly communicate them in ways that are sensitive to the needs and feelings of all involved.

5. Establish connections with external audiences.
What you’re hearing from and saying to your own community can strengthen the school’s larger communications strategies, informing recruitment tactics, influencing community partnership formation, forging relationships with peer schools, and more. Put an ear to the ground with regard to what external audiences are saying so you can think about ways to engage and shape perceptions.

6. Build a personal support network.
It’s important that you establish lines of communication that run far beyond campus, connecting you to trusted external partners or other heads of school. Such a support system allows you to talk through challenges and choices with people who understand the nuances and complexities of school leadership while also bringing clear eyes, fresh perspective, and broad experience to your situation.

Over the years, we have watched newly appointed heads of school with diverse backgrounds and personalities thrive in vastly different kinds of institutions. And they’ve followed their own instincts toward unique solutions to great effect. One constant, however, in all successful new headships is an uncompromising commitment to communication—from the very start and across all facets of the school community.