Leadership and Culture

The Challenge

Salisbury Academy Upper School opened in the 2023-2024 school year. I joined the student body in 2024-2025 my sophomore year. As a founding student and now upperclassman I carried responsibility to help initiate, build, and lead our first extracurricular offerings.

I was elected as Junior class representative

in the 2025-2026 school year.

I also chaired the campus improvement committee

2025-2026

Learning Leadership from Leaders

Throughout this semester, I studied The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle and conducted interviews with leaders in my local community to deepen my understanding of leadership. After each interview, I reflected on what I learned through my leadership blog, which allowed me to connect theory with real world experience.

One theme that stood out most during my conversations with these leaders was the importance of strong principles and genuine care for employees. Every effective leader I spoke with emphasized that leadership is not conditional, great leaders care for their employees whether they are succeeding or have made mistakes. This unconditional support helps create trust and long-term growth within a team.

Many interviewees also highlighted vulnerability and empathy as essential leadership qualities. They stressed that caring for your team on a personal level fosters a sense of safety and belonging, which ultimately leads to higher engagement and stronger performance. These ideas closely align with Daniel Coyle’s emphasis on psychological safety as a foundation of successful cultures.

The most impactful advice I received was the importance of mutual trust in leader and employee relationships. Leaders must be willing to be vulnerable while maintaining professionalism, as mutual respect and support are what build trust over time. This sense of mutualism, often described as “you scratch my back, I scratch yours” creates relationships in which individuals feel valued and motivated to give their best effort.

"Vulnerability doesn't come after trust—it precedes it. Leaping into the unknown, when done alongside others, causes the solid ground of trust to materialize beneath our feet". The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle

Creative Problem Solving

Throughout my school career, I encountered many challenges, most of which contributed to my growth as both a student and a person. One significant example was when I took on a leadership role as a junior class representative. While this role presented several difficulties, I persevered and later accepted an even greater challenge as the leader of the Campus Improvement Committee. Engaging members during meetings proved to be especially difficult, as participation was often limited. Reflecting on The Culture Code, I realized that people sometimes need an extra push to feel involved. I addressed this by providing handouts and asking members to generate at least three ideas for improving our campus. This approach significantly increased engagement and ultimately led to a more productive and collaborative group.

Culture is Key

Safety is a key component of effective leadership, and I would not have been as motivated or confident in this class without the supportive environment created by my peers and teachers. This sense of safety gave me the courage to step outside my comfort zone, including interviewing influential leaders within my community. Another essential element that shaped my experience at this institution was the ability to be vulnerable with my peers without fear of judgment. Additionally, the high standards set by the juniors and seniors before me challenged me to push myself further and work harder than I ever had before, ultimately giving my work a strong sense of purpose.

Shaping Culture

To address the problem, I focused on building a culture grounded in safety, purpose, and vulnerability. Creating safety helped people feel comfortable speaking up and learning from mistakes, which increased trust and participation. Fire Chief Michael Lanning’s insight—“When you begin to train people, you first have to see them as people”—reinforced the importance of empathy in establishing this foundation. Clarifying purpose made solutions more effective by helping individuals understand why their work mattered and how it contributed to a larger goal. Finally, practicing vulnerability, such as admitting uncertainty and encouraging openness, strengthened relationships and trust. Overall, the solutions most effective were those consistently tied to these three cultural elements, leading to meaningful and lasting improvement.

Solitude and Leadership

At the beginning of the year I studied William Deresiewicz's 2009 lecture given at the US Military Academy at West Point entitled Solitude and Leadership.

Initially, I found the piece difficult because it presented several complex ideas that were hard to understand. However, through collaboration with classmates and multiple self-reflections, I began to better understand what it means to create a powerful culture and become a true leader.

At the conclusion of the semester, I return to the text and find several new connections to my learning from leading, creating, and cultivating culture.

Nowadays, institutions teach people how to follow rules and be "hoop jumpers," thereby creating a leadership crisis.
Leadership ladders in large corporations are like climbing a greasy pole, where only the most blind “rule following” individuals make it to the top.
To be able to think creatively and flexibly. To deploy a whole range of skills in an instance is to become a true leader.
True leaders do not just give in to the current culture; they shape it into something greater.

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