TL;DR:

In a recent ASBA webinar poll, 51% of respondents said their schools have multiple priorities competing for attention. Only 12% reported having a singular priority guiding daily decisions. This is not a failure of leadership. It is a structural pattern. When everything is strategic, nothing leads. Strategy fatigue is often the symptom of conscientious diffusion.

The Strategic Priority Statistic That Should Slow Us Down

During a recent webinar with ASBA, I asked a simple question.

How clear is your school’s singular strategic priority right now?

Forty-two leaders responded.

• 12% said their priority is to make crystal clear and guide daily decisions.
• 15% said it is clear at the Board level, but less clear across staff.
• 51% said they have multiple priorities competing for attention.
• 17% said they are due to redefine what truly matters most.
• 5% selected all the above.

It would be easy to treat this as an ordinary distribution. Some schools are clear. Some unclear. Some are in transition.

But look again.

Only 12% report daily decision clarity.

If we could extrapolate this across all 2965 independent and Catholic schools in Australia, whilst acknowledging that the sample size of this survey was not large enough to achieve this, we’re effectively stating that only 356 are operating with a single strategic priority.

That is not a communications issue. That is a structural signal.

What is a Strategic Priority?

A strategic priority is not a theme, a pillar, or a collection of aspirations.

It is the single outcome that, if meaningfully advanced, would make the greatest difference to your school’s long-term position.

It acts as a filter for trade-offs.

When a proposal arises, the question is not “Is this a good idea?” but “Does this materially advance our chosen priority?”

If it does not, it waits.

For example, a school might declare excellence in wellbeing, academic growth, innovation, community engagement, and facilities renewal as strategic pillars. Each is worthy. But if the true strategic priority is improving retention of high-quality middle leaders, then professional learning, workload redesign, budget allocation and performance conversations should disproportionately reflect that.

If capital works, marketing campaigns and curriculum redesign are absorbing equal attention, the school has revealed its issue.

The problem is not effort. It is concentration.

A strategic priority becomes visible when it consistently outranks other good ideas.

How to identify strategic priorities

Identifying a strategic priority requires disciplined reduction, not creative expansion.

Start by asking which single shift would most strengthen your school’s long-term position if achieved decisively over the next two to three years. Not which area needs attention. Not which department is loudest. But which outcome would change the trajectory of the whole organisation?

Test it against three questions:

1. Does it address a genuine constraint?
2. Would meaningful progress here make other improvements easier?
3. And are we willing to sequence other ambitions behind it?

If the answer to the final question is no, you have not identified a strategic priority.

You have merely identified a preference.

Why Good Schools Struggle to Prioritise

Independent schools are complex moral institutions. They exist to educate, form character, steward community, manage finances, comply with regulations, support staff, innovate, build facilities, and protect identity. None of those responsibilities are trivial.

In that context, narrowing focus can feel irresponsible.

Choosing one priority can feel like diminishing others.

And so, schools expand their strategic language. They create strategic pillars broad enough to include everyone. They design plans that ensure no department feels marginalised. They name multiple ambitions to demonstrate seriousness.

Multiplicity feels fair and inclusive. It feels like leadership.

But inclusion at the level of aspiration can quietly create competition at the level of execution.

When several priorities are declared as equally important, the real decision shifts from the strategy to the individual leader. Middle leaders decide which project receives attention. Business Managers decide which investment receives urgency. Staff decide which initiative deserves emotional energy.

Choice still happens. It just happens informally and inconsistently.

That is where diffusion begins.

When Everything Is a Priority, Nothing Is a Priority

There is a difference between holding many responsibilities and declaring many strategic priorities.

Responsibilities are permanent. Strategy is directional.

When everything is described as a strategic priority, the term loses its filtering power. New initiatives are added without displacing old ones. Professional learning stacks rather than sequences. Capital plans attempt to satisfy multiple ambitions simultaneously.

The result is not chaos. It is something more subtle.

Meetings become longer.

Energy spreads thinner.

Teams work hard but struggle to explain what matters most.

From the outside, the school looks energetic. From the inside, it feels heavy.

Leaders often interpret this as capacity strain. They assume the solution is more resourcing, better scheduling, and stronger systems.

Sometimes it is.

Often, it is concentration.

The Board Room and the Staff Room

Fifteen per cent of respondents indicated that their priority is clear at the Board level but less clear across staff.

This gap deserves attention.

Boards operate in time horizons of five to ten years (strategic/systemic). Staff experience time in terms of weeks and terms (tactics). Boards speak in positioning and sustainability. Staff experience strategy through workload and classroom decisions.

If the priority does not visibly shape budgeting, hiring, professional learning and evaluation, it remains conceptual.

And conceptual clarity does not reduce operational fatigue.

In one recent engagement, a Board was confident that its strategy was clear. The documentation was strong. The intent was sound. When we asked middle leaders to articulate the single priority guiding the next two years, answers ranged across four different pillars.

No one was wrong. Each response was defensible.

That was the problem.

When clarity exists only at the level of interpretation, coherence erodes quietly.

Strategy Fatigue as a Cultural Signal

Across the sector, the phrase “strategy fatigue” surfaces regularly.

Too many initiatives.

Too many dashboards.

Too many concurrent reforms.

Fatigue is often framed as emotional depletion.

But fatigue can also result from informational overload. It can signal that the organisation has not decisively ranked its ambitions.

When trade-offs are unclear, every new idea must be accommodated rather than evaluated.

And conscientious schools are very good at accommodation.

They care deeply about programs. They want to support staff. They want to improve outcomes across multiple domains. They do not want to appear narrow.

This virtue can become a vulnerability.

Because without a dominant filter, good ideas accumulate. They rarely displace.

Over time, culture absorbs the message. Everything matters equally.

Which means nothing leads decisively.

The Seventeen Percent Who Know It Is Time

17% of respondents acknowledged they are due to redefine what matters most.

That admission is not a weakness. It is maturity.

Strategy is not static. Contexts shift. Wage pressures rise. Regulatory expectations expand. Technology accelerates. Demographics evolve.

Re-choice is necessary.

But re-choice is different from multiplication.

It is the disciplined act of deciding which ambition will receive disproportionate energy for a defined period.

Not because other responsibilities disappear.

But because progress requires focus and concentration.

 A Quiet Invitation to Re-Choose

If your school recognised itself in the 51% percent, this is not a critique.

It is an invitation.

An invitation to ask, calmly and deliberately:

• If we could only move one needle meaningfully in the next twenty-four months, which one would it be?
• What would we deprioritise, not permanently, but sequentially?
• Where might our staff be experiencing friction because our priorities are competing rather than reinforcing?

These are not easy conversations. They require Boards to resist the comfort of breadth. They require Principals to protect focus even when new opportunities emerge.

But singularity does not diminish ambition.

It concentrates it.

Clarity does not reduce complexity.

It orders it.

If fifty-one per cent of schools are competing with themselves, the opportunity is not to work harder.

It is to choose more clearly.

And perhaps the most strategic act available right now is not to add another initiative.

It is to re-choose which one truly leads.

If you’re thinking about your school goals and crafting a strategy to realise them, I’d welcome a conversation to see if we can assist.