Dr. Sudha Govindswamy

0:05 Welcome to the Leadership Passport. I'm delighted to welcome my special guest today, Doctor Sudha Govan Swami. Sudha is one of four Associate Directors in school Support and evaluation at the Council of International Schools. Sudha overseas schools and support schools regionally in Middle East, Africa and India. She's a strong believer in school improvement through internationally benchmarks. Suda served as ACIS Affiliate Consultant since 2015 and in this capacity she supported school improvement initiatives in international schools across 10 countries including the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bangkok, India, Egypt and the US. In 2018, Suda joined CIS as a full time School Support and Evaluation Officer and in this period continued to expand her work in supporting schools in East and West Africa as well, and then in 2021 took on the role of Associate Director.

1:01 Welcome, Sudha. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kevin. Thank you for having me on the Leadership Podcast. I really appreciate this opportunity. It's great to have you here and I'm looking forward to our conversation today. So you shared with me earlier that you ran away from home when you were nine years old, but it was it was relatively short lived. What were you? What was going on? Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? As a child, you begin to show what your some of the traits of what your adult life will look like. But thankfully, I haven't run away from home ever since I became an adult. But as a child, it was just, I always felt, you know, one could, one could make a difference if you tried and sometimes very poorly, but at least you knew you had the agency to try. And this was my nine year old self telling myself, I'm going to go out there, make a really big come back and make my family so proud that there will be no more problems at home. And I recall this.

2:00 We lived in a colony of, you know, houses in Rose. And at the end of where our Rd. led to, there was this lower primary school in the colony. I didn't go to that school, but this school was a very prominent feature of the colony. So I said, I'm going to run away from home. I'm going to really make it big. I put on a few things in my bag and I left and I reached until that school, I saw children playing, I saw their parents coming to pick them up and I saw a lot of fun. And I said I'd lingered around there for quite some time and I said, you know what, maybe I'll go back later. And so it lasted about 3 hours. So I really think, you know, but it just makes me reflect and think that was something quite adventurous those days to think about it when I was just lying and in the culture that I grew up in particular, so. Very good.

2:46 That's good. So if your leadership style was a song, song or a movie, what would it be? And Wire. You know, I've always kind of sung this along. Of course, I'm an 80s kid in in the sense that that's when my college years where and I really like the song Don't Stop Believing by the rock band Journey. I don't know if our younger counterparts would would recall it. It just speaks to me at various levels. It's about a small town girl, you know, going into the city, looking around and the idea that don't stop believing in what your dreams are for yourself and for the community that you belong to. And so that's a very special song for me, not only in terms of my leadership approach, but in life itself. So yeah.

3:33 Well, continuing on from there and to talk I guess a little bit more about your leadership journey. So what inspired you to embark on this world of international education and and supporting working alongside schools around the world? Yeah. And and that's such a great question, Kevin, because, you know, I wasn't intending to be in, I never started my journey thinking this is where I want to be. And I've kind of dabbled around in different fields throughout my journey. I started off in marketing and finance, business administration, then went on to information technology because in the late 80s, nineties, that's what everyone said has a future and kind of dabbled thinks, you know, listening to what would really work, formulas of what would work, which was the way my culture always approached success in life until eventually I reached at a point when I said that is it that I really enjoy doing and want to be doing. And through these multiple points, I realized what I really enjoy is empowering and being with people. And it's interesting because I'm not generally an extrovert, but when I've seen the power or or the spark in the eyes of people when you've really empowered them to be their own learning agents, it really brought me a lot of joy. And I think that's where I began, began to kind of hone into the opportunity of working

5:03 with people. Education and international education was again, by by not by design, but by default because I was a trailing spouse back in the 90s, I followed followed my husband to the Middle East. And what would one do the 90s? When you are around here, you have a lot of time. Well, I can become an educator in a school for a short while and let me give that a try. And that's how it began. But it's fascinating that the my first entry into the world of education with my grade two students back in the day who now write to me and say, Miss Sunder, I wish my child got a got a teacher like you. And I'm thinking, wow, when did I become that old?

5:46 But you know, it's just an opportunity again to be amongst children, be amongst people who think alike and the fact that we have the agency to empower others really made a difference for me. So that was my journey, Kevin. It wasn't intended, chalked out and I didn't have a plan. But once I arrived, I knew this is where I belong. I knew this is where I wanted to spend the rest of my life, empowering, supporting, but also being a part of that learning myself. Because that is the beauty of being in education, the fact that journey of learning never stops. And we mentioned before in terms of learning never stops, you've mentioned before, you know, the range of different countries and regions and continents that you've worked across all kinds of different cultures and, and languages. What's been some of your your biggest learning or aha moments in your your interactions around the world? Yeah, You know, it's fascinating because when I started off in the journey, initially, my aha moments were always related to tangible aspects like, you know, the curriculum or frameworks or going deeper into a particular approach in pedagogy or leadership development.

7:04 It took me about 10 years to realize the true meaning of international education and engaging with cultures lies in realizing that sense of belonging and that true sense of identity for our constituents is what is where the real meaning of international education lies. And if we've missed that, we kind of clearly are not meeting where we really need to go in terms of the depth of having this opportunity to engage with different cultures in different regions across the world. So for me, it was again, a very long journey that started off very much at the surface level. And then the more I engaged with people across different cultures, the more I got the opportunity to reflect on where I was clearly off the mark.

7:54 I just feel that whole notion of sense of belonging and identity is where it is made a clear more difference for me in my journey. Kevin. And it's it's funny to hear how common those thoughts are amongst people who are experienced in working across international education and across different cultures and countries. And, you know, you often hear as well that the more people engage in different cultures and work around different places and with different people, the more curious they become and the more they realize how little, you know, we actually know as the more that you find out about, you know, the world around us.

8:35 Absolutely. Education is indeed a progressive discovery of your ignorance and how little we actually knew, right? And I think that's what makes the journey so fascinating because there's never a moment where I'm not feeling humbled by just this opportunity to engage with such wonderful minds and talk leaders and educators who really feel we are more continuously learning, but in that process of learning and learning, because learning always doesn't bring success. There's always failure also as a part of learning. But in that process, we are in this together. And I think that's the power and the, and the minute we realize that this is a community that really wants to make a difference, regardless of our circle of influence or not, that's where the true power lies. So, yeah, absolutely.

9:26 Thank you for capturing that so articulately, Kevin. And if we talk a little bit about some of the realities of leadership, what's 1 of the toughest leadership challenges you've faced and how did you navigate it? Yeah. You know, this is an interesting question, right, Because the tough, the toughest challenges are very contextual, they're very situational. And then you look back sometimes and then you have when you face newer challenges, you think, was that really a challenge or was that a day-to-day issue so that that you thought was a challenge, right. But if I think about conceptually the whole notion of being challenged in leadership, I would say it's often arising from the fact that there has been misalignment of stakeholder perspective.

10:12 So for example, where the board's way of looking at a particular issue is very misaligned with what the leadership is looking at, or where a parent's perspective on what a child's success should look like is very misaligned with what the teacher feels it should look like. So I think the largest of challenges or the biggest of challenges have emerged from that misalignment of stakeholder perspectives. And I think how we've always navigated through that because it's very complex, right? And the reason why that is complex is because there we are kind of questioning and challenging assumptions, behaviors, norms, cultures, right?

10:52 Because stakeholder perspectives are informed by this. And I think how we've, I've always navigated those very complex and nuanced situations is by going back to our purpose, going back to our shared values and to say, yes, we have different cultural perspectives or the way we approach this, but being a part of this organization, who we are and what defines our purpose. And that takes kind of the personal, kind of it diffuses that personal tension and allows us to realign with our purpose and our values. And I think that's been again, a very big learning for me, right?

11:33 Because back in the day where I would go into meetings thinking, how can I bring my knowledge to the table to kind of resolve the situation to shifting gears to save, How can we collectively revisit our purpose and our shared values so that we approach the situation through that perspective. And that's been a huge, I say that in a few minutes, but that's been another journey of almost a decade for me. But I think that's where the power truly lies, as far as I have seen, in helping us kind of resolve some of those deeply rooted cultural norms and oftentimes biases that we don't even realize exist within us. Values and bringing it back to shared values, because quite often when there is that misalignment that you talk about or a disagreement or a difference of opinion or perspective, we want to focus on that difference and we want to try and work that difference or solve the problem rather than taking a few steps back and looking at all the things we actually have in common.

12:37 But these are all the things we agree on. We agree depending on the situation, we agree. We both want what's best for your child or we want what is best for this school. You know, plenty of things. We have an agreement, perhaps how we get there is something we can work on together. I love how you framed that. So is there a particular leadership practice or habit or approach that has really changed the game for you and, you know, helped you to have some of these difficult or challenging conversations and interactions perhaps? Yeah, I would say listening before leading, listening to understand rather than listening to respond. And again, from the culture that I've come from where a leader is supposed to have all the right answers, the shifting gears to say let's explore this together and tell me more has been a huge learning curve for me, Kevin. And I think that totally changed the game for me when I went into situations ready to listen rather than to respond. So if we sort of cast their mind forward now to the future of education and and school leadership, how do you see international education and leadership of international schools evolving over the next 5 to 10 years? That's such a fascinating question, Kevin. And I say that because if there is one thing that the pandemic taught us, it is about what sort of approaches to leadership clearly survive the unforeseen,

14:12 volatile, completely unpredictable nature of the education landscape that we are in. And I think what I've learned from those experiences and engaging with school leaders at that period of time is that leadership should focus more on building empowered communities, building self sustainable communities of practice rather than the notion of leading from the front. And we've seen organizations emerge more effectively from the pandemic when they already had that sort of an approach deeply embedded in their value system versus where one would always look to a core group of people or a leader for all the answers.

14:52 So I would say the future of leadership is about empowering, building empowered and sustained communities and adding value to individuals in that way. If you could change one thing about international education and and leadership of it is stewardship of international schools, what would it be? If you had a magic wand, what would it? What would it look like? What would you pick? Yeah, I just wish, you know, my, my magic wand or probably I actually don't need a magic wand because what I think is, and I'm a very probably realize this in my conversations, I'm quite practical when it comes to when we have to get into action. And I think in my magic wand of leadership, if I were to go back, what I would do more of would be to invite more open-ended innovative dialogue versus looking for the right answers. So I think there is a lot of power in that and being open to different perspectives in a genuine way and and the approach to understand versus again to respond. So that would be my my biggest take away for leaders in the future as well.

16:03 So you know, an example, I was in the school a week ago and they invite what they call an innovation tournament where they choose. So it's not like an open suggestion box, but rather a particular focus area where community members can actually voice their ideas of innovatively problem solving. And I think there's a lot of potential in that. And I go back to the thread of community again empowered community in this approach as well. Yeah, fantastic. It's kind of the approach of crowdsourcing problems and innovation and solutions. Absolutely. A couple of quick questions to wrap things up. What's your favorite book on leadership or life or anything really? Yeah, like you and like many of us, you know, I've had many favorite books over time.

16:54 But I think one of the books I keep reading and revisiting, it's by Robin Sharma. It's called The Leader Who Had No title. And it holds a lot of power in my thinking only because it's not. It doesn't sync leadership to a title or to a position, but rather the opportunity to serve, and I think that's one of my all time favorite books. And I think we that kind of notion we see in schools all the time when we go and visit them, the those people without necessarily a title who are very clearly in leadership roles in the school, whether that be as a teacher or an educational assistant, doing just really wonderful things, leading by example without any authority or anything else as it were, but just getting on with it and doing amazing things. That's basically in my the story of my life in a nutshell, Kevin. You know, I've never waited for a title or if I saw something that could be done and that I could be part of, I've always volunteered.

17:51 It's not always brought great results. It's also led to some misunderstandings. But you know, the idea that if there is something we can do, let's do this. We don't have to wait for something to be, you know, by a title or by a by a name. If we can make a change, why not do it today? So that's always been my approach and I've been humbled by the trust that I've received over the years in my engagements. What's one thing that you do daily that helps you to lead better? I would say as I've gotten older, I would say word choice. I'm extremely mindful of my word choice because I've realized words have power. A leader, past or present, that you admire all. Leader is very tough, you know, for the number of years that I've been in this.

18:36 And so I'll quickly share three talk 3 of my top gurus that I actually go back to every single day. So I would say I'm not in any particular order, but definitely Doctor Lynn Erickson, who's of course globally renowned for the fantastic work she's done on teaching for conceptual understanding. But for me, she's been a great role model in terms of modelling vulnerability in leadership, particularly as a woman, what you go through and juggling your priorities as a family and what you need to accomplish. The other person that I always think about and sometimes truly kind of engage in deeper conversations, Doctor Mary Hayden, who was also my dissertation supervisor at the University of Bath. And Doctor Hayden taught me what it means to have a keen eye for what essentially matters.

19:24 So how do you kind of remove the noise and kind of bring to the top what essentially matters? And last and definitely not the least, Kevin Simpson, who continues to be a good friend and a mentor. And I think about Kevin, if I think if leadership had a fearless face, that's Kevin Simpson for you. So yeah, these are my always go to gurus, have been and will always be. And finally, the best advice you've ever received. Best advice? I'll talk about something that happened very recently this week and the advice I received. You cannot pull from an empty cup. And I think that goes out to all the leaders out there. Leadership is complex. It's very draining psychologically, emotionally, physically, socially.

20:08 So someone sent me a message saying Suda, take care of yourself. And that's that's what I want to showcase to the world as well. Well, that sounds like a a great piece of advice and a great thought to leave things on. So thank you so much for for joining me today, Suda. I've really enjoyed our conversation and all the best. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Kevin. Thank you for having me. Thanks so much for listening to the episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, follow, etc. 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.