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As Bob puts it, continually self-assessing and focusing on growing my strengths and weaknesses raises both the ceiling and floor of my potential, better preparing me to make meaningful contributions in the future.

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I greatly appreciate and need to keep in mind Bob’s insights into self-awareness and feedback. Bob recommends inviting feedback to develop self-awareness so that you can build on your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses. For me, at this moment in time, this means not only relying on my innate ability to communicate and form relationships, but also to conscientiously work on my organization skills and expand my curricular acumen.

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I could really relate to Bob’s process of self-discovery. Like Bob, my pathway took a circuitous route to education. In college, I was inspired to pursue a degree in Political Science with a focus on environmental policy. However, like Bob, I realized soon after school that I should pursue a career in an area where I felt I was instinctively strongest, working with kids and families.

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Aspiring school leaders should invite feedback, as “the biggest obstacle to professional growth is a lack of self-awareness.” Leaders should be humble enough to work collaboratively with others for both their own growth and that of the organization.

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Bob knows that we have incredible people in our organization, so we “don’t need a system that doubts them,” but rather one “that liberates, affirms, and supports them while helping them to aspire.”

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This year, Bob helped our faculty move from a top-down, summative evaluation system to one that is collaborative and formative. The evaluation system that Bob introduced is based on peer-to-peer conversations with department heads or supervisors that results in meaningful goals and pragmatic action plans. The conversation "helps you understand yourself a little bit better as a teacher, your strengths and your challenges. Then the idea of the professional development activity is that it’s customized and targeted towards your specific goal.”

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Bob holds a broad position with a myriad of responsibilities:

Academic: hiring teachers and working with other administrators and teachers to ensure a learner driven pedagogy that serves the students well. Viewpoint offers him the opportunity to be creative in areas where he can be helpful, such as curriculum, instruction, and professional development.

Committees: building and grounds committee, finance committee, strategic planning committee, and campus master planning process

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"One of the things that I think is really important to have, I’ll call it a skill for lack of a better word, is self-awareness. There are so many people who don’t understand themselves. They don’t give themselves credit for their instincts and don’t hold themselves accountable enough for the stuff that they don’t do as well. They underrate the one and overrate the other and I think it should be just the other way around. We should lean heavily on the things that we do instinctively well and we should be honest about the things that we’re not instinctive about and do the best to remediate those, but be honest about them. "

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Head of Upper School at Rockland Country Day School, New York, NY

Upper School Head at Heritage Hall, Oklahoma City, OK

Director of Studies/Assistant Headmaster at Holland Hall, Tulsa, OK

Director of Middle School at Marlborough School, Los Angeles, CA

Associate Head of School at Viewpoint School, Calabasas, CA

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Bob realized that he is instinctively a teacher and decided to shape his pathway according to his innate strengths.

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Bob’s pathway towards independent school leadership provides a good example of “finding your voice:”

He grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma and attended Southern Methodist University, where he followed a favorite professor into the Comparative Religion department, studying Asian thought and Islam. Bob describes his exposure to Asian thought as paradigm shifting, in that it introduced him to "the idea that we can liberate ourselves through knowledge and practice."

In keeping with the idea that he could help liberate others with knowledge, Bob obtained a teaching certification and taught history and religion for several years at an independent school in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Later on, feeling burned out from teaching and inspired by his undergraduate exposure to Asian thought, Bob relocated to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to earn a Master’s in Modern Chinese History.

Then, wanting to learn Chinese, Bob moved to China, teaching English and American culture to support himself.

One year later, upon returning to the United States, Bob faced a critical career decision: would he go into government or the foreign service, as he had envisioned when he moved to China, or would he follow his instincts and go back into education?

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BA in Comparative Religion, Southern Methodist University

MA in Modern Chinese History, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Spent a year in China learning Chinese and teaching English and American Culture

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Find Your Voice. Give Your Best. Go Beyond.

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Find Your Voice. Give Your Best. Go Beyond.

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Get to know Viewpoint School (Optional)

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This is "Viewpoint" by viewpointvideo on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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Associate Head of School
Viewpoint School