Dr. Megan Khairallah

0:05 Welcome to the Leadership Passport. I'm excited to welcome my guest today, Doctor Megan Cruella. Megan is an experienced educator, leader, and researcher with over 30 years in the field of education. She runs her own consultancy supporting schools in accreditation, strategic planning, and leadership development. She holds a doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University, an executive MBA from the University of Balamont. She began her career as a middle and high school language teacher before becoming Professor and Chair of the Department of Education at the University of Balamont. From 2021 to 2024, she was secondary school principal at International College Beirut, leading the school through the post COVID transition and national crises while overseeing 4 academic programs and advancing multiple accreditation processes. She's now an adjunct professor at the University of Belmont. Welcome, Megan.

0:58 Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. And Kevin, I want to say I'm a big fan. I've been watching your podcast and I'm so happy to be on it here today. Well, I'm looking forward to our our conversation. So I wonder if we could start with what inspired you to get into international schools and education and become an education leader. Well, so it's just a lifelong journey. I'm a third. Well, I'm what was then considered the third culture kid between Lebanon and the United States because of the war moving back and forth. And so my love for international education and leadership has helped me along this path. I think nowadays the, the term third culture kid is a bit old and maybe we need to think of new definitions for that. But really the defining moment to become a leader was I think COVID because I had been at the university for, for 15 years and, and working in higher Ed, but but as an education professor.

2:00 And so I felt COVID gave me the chance to think, OK, maybe I need to switch in a career and become a leader in a school. And I was lucky enough to be able to go back to my school and to be able to go back to the school in which I taught to to be a leader. And it must have been such a challenging time. It certainly was for so many people during COVID. And you know, as the shift to online and in person and hybrid and, you know, looking after people's well-being, you know, staff and students, such a challenging time. You know, one of the biggest challenges is was around inclusion, how to to make sure that people were included in that sense of belonging still existed. So how do you kind of define that inclusive leadership in a school and how has that maybe evolved since Covad? I think, and I and I keep on the thinking about it and talking about it and I think we're at the at the very beginning of what what has been a paradigm shift in education overall. Kovid was global, but also Lebanon and specific had many, many issues at the same time.

3:05 We had we had the COVID epidemic, we had the financial crisis, we had the Beirut explosion, we've had political unrest. And so all of these aspects have come together. And I think redefining education in general, but international education probably in specific because we have moving, you know, families who are moving all around. Inclusion has to be at the heart of all that we do because it's not just academic inclusion, it's it's socio emotion, emotional well-being. How do we create a places in international schools that really create that enormous sense of belonging? And that's what we need. We need to look for especially that, you know, not only just technology, but AI and looking how AI effects our creative and critical thinking.

3:53 It's, it's a big conversation, but also AI juxtaposed with, with student agency and then then of course, social media. So technology is going to have a big impact. I think our generation and I, I want to include you in my generation, but I think you're a bit younger. We, we, we can begin to study and look at it, but I think we, we definitely need to include the, the younger voices, the voices between all, all learners up until, you know, in, in their 30s because they were impacted by COVID and, and they're going to have to redefine where we're going, especially in education. And we were talking just earlier before we started recording this a little bit about accreditation.

4:40 And you know, I think accreditation can be regardless of the the agency organization could be a wonderful driver for some of these things and a wonderful partner for, you know, school improvement. You know a lot of the work that you do as part of accreditation supporting schools With that, what do you what do you see as some of the biggest misconception about accreditation and and processes in international schools? Well, I don't know if there's a misconception because I think most international schools, at least in Lebanon, but I know in some of the other Gulf countries need to have accreditation if they're offering an international program. So accreditation agencies offer frameworks and, and the accreditation agencies that I work offer frameworks for reflection.

5:25 And so the reflection is an internal reflection. The, the accreditation visitors, the, the frameworks help refine and define the pathways that that reflection should go. But each school has its own identity and its own ways in which it wants to reflect. So I, I there might be misconceptions at the beginning when the school starts what, what kind of agency they want to go with and move forward, but a lot of them don't have a choice. I, I cannot assume what choices or what decisions each school will make, but I, I do know that once they do make that decision and once they start in the reflection process, then they're, they, they get this internal joy. I think they go through the stages at first denial, you know, those stages that you can go through, but, but then at the end it's a big celebration.

6:18 And then, then kind of like, OK, we celebrate, we got accredited, but we have to start again in five years. Yeah, we have to do it all again. But, but for me, the opportunities that accreditation throughout. So I'm going to speak for Lebanon, for example. So you have many, most private schools who offer international programs going through accreditation, Then some schools that don't that offer just the Lebanese back, they want to go through the accreditation process themselves. This creates a community of shared practices, shared understanding, shared learning. And really my hope, my wish would be for these schools to come together and benefit and really tell their stories in order to help support other schools.

6:59 And that, and then the next stage would be, I hope would be going into the, the, the public school sector as well, working with the ministries of education to help them just, you know, come into what, what private schools have defined as best practices. Maybe they will have an impact in the public schools. So we heard in your bio a little bit earlier, you know, some of your work in leadership positions in schools, in universities as well. How do you balance that kind of research and scholarly work with day-to-day demands of of leading a school community? How do you get that kind of balance right? I don't think you can. I, I, I, I couldn't, I mean, I think it's extremely hard. They're they're schools really take up all of your time. I mean, I would, I would even say 24/7 and in the holidays, you're still working.

7:50 It depends what kind of leader you are. But if you're this conscientious leader who's who puts students first, it's, it's very, very hard. So really my leadership journey started with being an education professor and thinking of looking at all these theories, theories of best practices and, and in my research, just touching on what is actually happening in schools. And then I had this yearning, this real urge to go back into the schools. And those three years I've learned the most the three years of, of being the school leader, principal. It was a big school. The school itself was 3600 students, but in the secondary school 700 and 5000 and 10 teachers, 35 staff, you know, double that amount of parents, very concerned parents.

8:38 And then the, you know, dealing with, with all of the executive decisions and, and the governing body. So it, it was a very, very busy place. And on top of that, we had just come out of COVID. There were a lot of, of, of not just discipline, but just socializing, You know, students coming back to learn how to socialize once again, full of energy, had missed two years. And so in the secondary school, they had missed middle school those years. And so there was a lot of socio emotional learning and psychosocial work to be done. And that also with the the challenges of Lebanon. So, so it's very, very hard to be a reflective practitioner in a, in a very, very busy school. And so the balance, so my advice would be is really you have to prioritize that that slot that you want. The second thing is you have to be in a school that validates and wants that kind of of a research mentality that really wants to push forward along bringing in, you know, new, new research.

9:47 So it has to be, it has to be decision making. It has to be part of strategic planning and, and there has to be a system in it. And, and so this, I would think bring in the team. So if you want to have research in a school form, little action research projects really, really make that happen to get that done. But definitely it's worthwhile and it will push your school forward and it will push you as a leader forward as well. And you were talking there about some of the the challenges coming out of COVID and particularly in leadership positions. What's the the toughest leadership challenge you've faced and how did you navigate it? I was really thinking about this because there were many, but one, one story that is symbolic and, and I'll explain to you why.

10:38 So there was a day that there had been some kind of shoot, shootout in a different part of town. Two different groups were shooting at one another. And it happened to be next to a school. So, you know, social media. So our school, we were all the schools in the country. We're getting these images coming in and it caused a mass panic. You know, 3600 students have all the parents wanted to come and pick up their kids. And so that was emergency decision making, you know, at at its best. And, and it was chaotic or it had the potential to be chaotic because not only were the parents panicking, the kids also wanted to be let out of school because they, you know, whether they were scared or not, they wanted to be let out of school.

11:24 And then also you had teachers and you had teachers who, some of them had their kids in the school and some of whom had their, their, their kids outside of the school and also staff. And we weren't getting the immediate decision making from the very, very top. Each school had to kind of navigate on their own what we were going to do because the really, I mean, to be very honest, had had the, the president of the school said, OK, parents, come get your, your kids, that would have caused chaos and, and traffic jams, you know, and, and had we said, don't come get your kids and the responsibilities. It kind of, it was like this Gray zone and, and it was a very, very high tense situation.

12:10 The success story was we had the systems in place. We had a really, really strong team of staff of, of, of middle leaders and the system just fell into place. You know, we, we had about 10 minutes of a leadership team meeting. 5 people will receive phone calls, One person will, you know, bring in all of the information. This group will deal with the teachers, the teachers who have their kids outside, we'll send them home. But the other teachers have to stay in because we have to, to control advisors would take care of each class. We'd have the checklist and and within half an hour we developed this amazing communication system because other thing too is we needed the signatures of the parents or guardians in order to release the, the students.

12:57 We couldn't just release them on the. So that was, was really a logistical, it could have been a logistical nightmare, but it was a logistical success. And, and looking back on that is that had we not had that trusting group, that group with the enormous sense of care, with the enormous, you know, sense of we will stay until the very end. We also opened a little nursery in one of the classrooms for the for the really younger kids who are coming out from nursery and elementary, where were they going to sit? And we had volunteers from all aspects. And really the day ended smoothly. I mean, it was exhausting, exhausting. But we had all the paperwork, we had all the documentation. We made sure the kids were home safe.

13:38 And, and that were, and so, you know, that was a challenge. Just I mean, these things happen in Lebanon. I think they happened in in some other places as well. But you know, we had the communication, we had the sense of trust, we had the sense of system and each we had the roles, you know, the advisors could do things. And so in that situation, it was it was a success story. Sounds like a success and very, very, very difficult and trying circumstances and definitely taking crisis management to the the next kind of level. Yeah. Following that thread a little bit more, I wonder if there's one mistake that has shaped your leadership approach.

14:20 Thank you for that. And that that was, you know, something mistakes never look at mistakes because mistakes in hindsight is, is just really something that you haven't reflected on and and moved forward. We all make mistakes and I think leaders definitely do make mistakes. You can't. So what do we mean by a mistake? I think if you're in a, in an organization, I think any organization, not necessarily just a school in which you are really supported in your decision making and your decision making is very, very clear. And, and it is supported by not just by, by, you know, the, the, the leadership, the upper leadership and worked within the strategic planning, but also you have the buy in of, of your whole team.

15:09 Those mistakes shouldn't happen very often, but of course they do. You know, you have moments where you go into meeting with a parent completely unprepared and you get railroad railroaded or, or, you know, you know, feel that. Oh my God, that wasn't, that wasn't well planned. You know, we, we do those things and then we learn from those smaller mistakes going to bring in the students file and really know what's going on before I walk in. So we, we do have those kind of mistakes, but we in our, you know, yearly evaluation or yearly reflection really have to work through those mistakes to see how, how they can fit within a system to make them better.

15:51 I think for me, the biggest mistake, and I wouldn't call that mistake, I think it was a, it was a misreading of an International School. I think international schools are places where you're dealing with different cultures. You have the international, the internationals coming in, maybe not necessarily for a very long time, five years, eight years, and then they build up their portfolio and they might move somewhere else. And that's kind of like the path, the the, the career path they go on. And then you have the the nationals, the locals, the people who are there forever. And I think my biggest mistake was not reading the vibes between these two kinds of cultures and making leadership decisions that maybe seemed to have favored one over the other. And I can think of a, you know, very specific example because as a leader, I, I really admire people who think with innovation, you know, they look at their school and they say, oh, you know, can we try this thing just to make a little bit better?

17:02 Or can we, you know, can we tweak the career fair to include to make it a bit bigger? And, and my, my leadership says, OK, let's pilot, you know, let's going to be what we're going to try to do. Let's try it on a small scale and, and I'll support you, but you know, show me the steps that you want to do and let, let's try to get it done. But when the pilot is successful, other groups feel a bit kind of left out. And this causes a lot of tension. And and and I if if I had hindsight and I could go back, I think I would have read the room a tiny bit better. And going back to your earlier comments area, I think that's wonderful advice for new or upcoming leaders or aspirational leaders is you know your description before about dealing with that crisis management occurrence and, and the learning that comes from that dealing with really difficult parents or community members at times.

18:02 You know, just the experience of of dealing with that gives you so much learning that you then can take in and do it better next time or be more prepared next time or identify those parts. And that's, I think, you know, something that, yes, you can understand sort of approaches or frameworks, but unless you've experienced it and had to deal with it and made those kind of, like you said, maybe not mistakes, but maybe missteps. And, you know, when on reflection, you think I should have really been more prepared with that thing or I should have thought about this and I'll make sure that's in place for next time. Unless you go through that, it's, you know, it's a very steep learning curve sometimes into leadership.

18:42 Yeah, yeah. And I think what's different in schooling is the students at the heart of is, are, are the heart of everything that we do. So we have to think going back to this idea of misstep or, or mistake is how does it impact the students or did it impact the students? You know, sometimes if it's, it's, it's a, you know, something which is internal politics and people bickering among each other or feel that they're not hurt, You have to really say, did it impact the students and, and in what way? And, and if it did, then that for me would be a major, a major mistake. And, and, and I think, you know, leading with the student in mind, everything that is happening in the school should impact the students positively towards their, their, their and, and we always have to focus on that. And that's where for me, egos should be left at the door. And yeah, that's the heart.

19:42 The students are at the heart of all that we do. And look, perhaps you've just answered this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What advice would you give to aspiring school leaders who want to build this kind of inclusive and and culturally responsive environment? So, okay, that was the first one. I mean, students every decision. And it got to the point where where my assistant principal, she would walk in and she'd say, I know you put the, the students, you know the students are, but it it really. Is, is true because any professional development that we do as a teacher or as a leader, we're trying to improve these best practices. Any new research that comes into the school, it's to make not only the teaching and learning, but but but the whole ecosystem of the school better. But I mean, some little pieces of advice is document everything you do, all right, whether you're a teacher leader, whether you're you're a middle leader, whether you're a principal and document it not as, oh, I want to protect my back or I need to, you know, take this, this she said this, document it as if it was part of the bigger strategic plan of the school, because that becomes where do you fit in as an individual in the whole school system?

21:00 And, and if you can imagine that every, every professional development that you do, every conference that you go to, every conversation that you have. And we have a lot of interesting conversations in schools. A lot of them write them down in a little diary, document them and then take moments to reflect where, where does this fit in terms of where the school is going, the vision of the school, the values of the school, the mission of the school. And if you start to find out that actually a lot of what you're doing doesn't really fit into that school, then maybe that's a wake up call that it's not that you're doing something wrong or the school is doing something wrong, but maybe you don't really belong there, right? And I say that to my education students at the university because they come and they said to me, oh, you're teaching us interdisciplinary, you're teaching us how to do projects. You we're going to go into the schools And they don't want that.

21:56 So I say to them, what do you want to be in a school that doesn't want that? And then they look at me like, but then of course, it's a job and we all need jobs. And so the decisions we make, but I think that kind of documentation really helps with with with reflection. And that goes on to the second piece of advice is don't wait for a title to be a leader. Because what happens in schools with all of this PD is that we all think, OK, we're, we're doing the PD in order that we can get a promotion, which is great. We love it. We all want to be that kind of leader, but they're all, they're finite number of their spots in terms of that leadership. So how do you define yourself as a leader and where do you want to go with all the energy that you have?

22:41 And so don't think of the title, think of you yourself, of where you you want to go. And so that's, and then the third is, is a bit touchy, but I've been thinking a lot about it. And that's part of why I've opened this consultancy is that you see a lot of brilliant, brilliant leaders in school, you know, teacher leaders, admin leaders, and then they start to reach retirement and they're still young and energetic and they, and they, and, and, you know, and, and then suddenly retirement comes and they're like, OK, so plan your exit. And there could be many ways to plan. The exit for me is the research is the kind of exit where I want to go.

23:23 And I'm lucky that I have it, but I would really want to work with with those kinds of leaders who really have all that energy. And then, but it could be also for International School principals, always plan your exit and give yourself enough time to reshape your your career identity or even your whole identity just to try to see where you're going to go next. That's really wonderful advice and it's not often a focus, is it? A lot of people are focused on the entry points. How do I get a promotion? How do I apply? What does this look like? What training or skills do I need? And you know, rarely is the conversation about the, the tail end of that and, you know, transitions into, you know, other areas. So that's really wonderful advice. So as we look to the future a little bit, what emerging trends in education, whether research trends or otherwise, do you see that excite you and and what keeps you up at night perhaps? So I don't know if I've mentioned, but I'm, I'm a mom, right?

24:28 I have 3 kids. I have a daughter at 23 and another daughter 21 and my son is 14. And we have long conversations as a family, you know, we sit down and so it's not just as an educator, but there are some concerns, but I like to listen to them, you know, about especially AI. And, and so I have my daughter's really refused to use AI. They say, mom, it kind of like it makes your brain lazy and that's interesting. That and the other thing they say it ruins your creativity and, and it just kind of ruined and it makes you want 1. You lose your voice basically is what they're saying. And then I have my son who of course dabbles with AI. So I think that what concerns me is concerning everyone really human agency in the age of AI and generational agency, because I think we, the older generation who use AI, we can say, OK, but we controlled it. We, we control the prompts, we tweak it, we tweak it. And I can imagine I, you can say that it does help me with when I really want to critically go into something and I keep on tweaking using things for AI, but it doesn't help me with my creativity.

25:43 In fact, it does stifle my creativity. So in terms of education, I think we, we, we cannot go into AI lightly. We have to work through. But I, I think the core for that is student agency, learner agency in the classroom, because you know, when you just say, OK, voice and choice, fine. But, but in terms of decision making and then going back to, to the word mistakes, is that does AI allow us to make multiple mistakes and go back and fix those mistakes? Because that's where we know learning happens and we we gain our agents agency or our self autonomy and independent learning by, by making those mistakes. So in traditional, we wouldn't have that conversation we were having 20 years ago just about student agency. We wanted to create a class where students were had agency, right?

26:37 Because we wanted that to happen. We wanted them to make the mistakes in a safe environment where they could keep on getting better and learning from their mistakes because that is what we wanted from them, right? And then so now AI has come in and and that takes away agency in terms of it doesn't allow us to make our mistakes. So where are we going to go as educators here and balancing time factors because we know that the curriculum is getting bigger and bigger. There's a lot more the kids have to learn. And so we want to push especially more traditional kind of, I'm losing my words in terms of, you know, when, when, when we're teaching for the test or when they're, they have exams. We have, we have to cover a certain amount of material. So it's going to be something that we grapple with. Yeah.

27:25 And and I love how you framed around student agency because and showing kids that they do have some agency. If we take in relation to AI, it's not they're not a sort of a passive passenger in that they do have agency. It's not necessarily it doesn't have to be something that just happens to them without any control. They have a say in that and helping them to to understand and to show them what you know, what control they can take in a part of shaping that for the future, I think is a really interesting question to think about. Or they can show us. They can show us. That's much more likely. I agree with you on that one.

28:07 How about a couple of quick questions to wrap things up? What is one key leadership habit or mindset that you believe makes the greatest impact? A reflection, I mean. Yeah, a reflection based on reading and research. Your favorite book on leadership or life? So Steve Bartlett has a podcast series and I don't know if you've heard of him, A Diary of the Ceoi just like him because he's he's very warm and he's funny and he's charismatic and he has good advice. I like I do follow him. Yeah, he's and he's what I love about him. He's just so calm and patient and composed.

28:49 I'm not sure how he he manages that, but he does. Yeah, yeah, but he's quick too and he calls, he calls you out and and he picks interesting people to to interview. Yeah, yeah, I like. And quite often I find myself thinking when I listen to him, you know, these are the questions I want to know, like he's asking the questions that I'm interested in hearing from his guests. So I I find that interesting. One thing you do daily that helps you to lead better. I really, I talk to my family and I have some really great mentors and especially as you, you have high, highly demanding positions, you need to have mentors, people who can call you out, who you trust, who you know will give you the best advice. It's it's really necessary.

29:39 A leader, past or present, that you admire. My husband, he's, he's one of the leaders, humanitarian leaders in the World Food Program. He's been through all crises. And yeah, I just, I admire him. I support him all the way. And finally, the best advice you've ever received. Well I would want to say this too shall pass because sometimes you you need to know that that it will pass. Well, I, I think that's a great note to wrap things up. So thank you so much, Megan, for joining me today. It's been a pleasure chatting with you. One more thing I want to add, please, because I was waiting for you to ask me what, what is the song? The song that my leadership and I, it's 100% it's Billy Joel. We didn't start the fire because it's all about history and and passing down responsibility, but also taking responsibility. And my kids and I blasted in the car and we sing it. So it's a great stress relief, but it's a really great lesson in in leadership.

30:47 Yeah, it's a it's a wonderful song, isn't it? And I'm not sure if you've heard just on that note, there's, I don't know if you're aware of the band Fall Out Boy. So they've updated that and there's like a new version with new lyrics for the, you know, kind of 1st century references in there to interesting take on it. It's great, it's great. And in both versions Lebanon is mentioned and I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's true for. That what do they say? All publicity is good publicities. Yeah, yeah. Well, look, thanks so much Megan. I really appreciate your time today and it's been wonderful chatting with you. Thank you. It's been a pleasure. I've had fun and and it was a great conversation and thank you. Thanks so much for listening to the episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, follow, etc.

31:33 Drop a comment below to let me know anything you'd like covered in upcoming episodes or suggestions for future guests. You can also connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn.