Confidently You: Women in Leadership · Rebecca Malotke-Meslin & Lynne Macziewski

Wellness and Belonging

June 20, 2024·41 min·3 clips

Dr. Susan Perry arrives with a clear focus on wellness and belonging. Rebecca Malachy-Messlin and Lynn Michesky keep the conversation rooted in school life, and the discussion quickly turns to how leaders make those ideas real for the adults and students around them. The guest keeps returning to shared practice. That matters because the conversation is not framed as one person in one office doing good work alone; it is about building something that board members, heads of school, and other professionals can actually recognize and use in their own roles. The host says that plainly. She presses on the idea that if people are expected to practice something, they need to be invited into it and given space to learn it, because people rarely learn well when they are pushed. That invitation becomes a steady thread. As the episode moves forward, Dr. Perry and the hosts talk through the pressures schools are carrying, including the teen mental health crisis, the political climate outside the building, affordable childcare, and the reality of medical leaves for employees. The list feels familiar. So does the sense that some pressures are external and some are internal, with both showing up in the same school day and both asking leaders to think carefully about how students and teachers are supported. The conversation stays practical. Even when it moves into the more abstract language of culture and belonging, it remains tied to concrete people and concrete roles, from very talented and committed professionals to the adults making decisions at the top. It also keeps its attention on access. The point is repeated in different ways: if a practice is worth having, it should not be reserved for a few, and the work gets stronger when everyone can see themselves in it. That includes the board. The host makes room for that idea, then widens it further, treating the invitation itself as part of the work rather than a nice extra, which gives the episode a steady, humane rhythm. There is no rush to smooth it over. Instead, the discussion lets the difficulty sit beside the commitment, so the listener hears both the weight of the problems and the patience needed to build something that lasts. By the end, the show draws a line from listening to action. It leaves the sense that belonging in an independent school is not a slogan or a one-time initiative, but an ongoing practice that has to include the people leading, teaching, and governing the place.

As heard by us

A school culture conversation that treats belonging as shared work, not a side project.

Confidently You follows Dr. Susan Perry as it connects wellness and belonging to the larger duties school communities carry. Its strongest point is simple and firm: these practices cannot rest with only a few adults in the building.

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Why you'd press play

You want a leadership conversation that treats wellness as everybody's job.

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