by Terri Pham
A Bag, a Dream, and a One-Way Ticket
Sixteen years ago, I boarded a plane with two duffel bags, a bachelor’s degree in education, a teaching credential, and a calling I did not yet fully understand. In those early years, I did not realize that the calling would demand more than talent. As the years progressed, I would learn it would demand more than preparation.
I thought I was pursuing adventure for one year. I did not realize I was stepping into a formation that would unfold over many years and many places. I was a classroom teacher with big dreams and limited clarity around what was to come. I loved children. I loved learning. I loved building community.
I had always dreamed of owning and operating my own school. I created draft plans, syllabi, ideas, and organized frameworks as a hobby from a young age. Yet school leadership remained a distant thought in my adult life.
Responsibility Before Title
In the beginning of my career, God did not hand me a title aligned with my dreams and creative plans for what my own school might look like. He handed me responsibility and it was steady, over time, in many different places. He handed me chapters that required reflection, growth, ambition, and faith.
It started with ten students, a small classroom, a borrowed set of textbooks and tools but, most of all, the quiet invitation to be faithful with what was in front of me. I was truly grateful for that first placement. The intentionality of my teaching, the love from the students and faculty, and the feeling of making a meaningful impact.
When Growth Felt Like Discomfort
From Montgomery to Seoul. From Seoul to Saudi Arabia. From Saudi Arabia to Shanghai. From classroom teacher to coordinator — in various capacities, across various schools. From coordinator to curriculum leader. From curriculum leader to principal.
The journey was not a ladder. It was a refining. There were seasons of discomfort. Seasons of doubt. Seasons where I wondered if obedience would ever lead to opportunity. But each season produced deeper layers of clarity around my “why.”
I was told I had no idea what I was doing in my role as curriculum coordinator. I was told I was defiant. I was told I was a problem. Those opinions were just that — the opinions of a few people who wanted me out of the way. This season, I would later understand, was about alignment.
I recently read in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for Women: “Learn from the mistakes you make and the ones you see others make.” How powerfully that resonated. Those seasons of confusion and self-doubt remind me to never impose that kind of experience on another person.
“When the season shifts, those who question your belonging will have no choice but to witness your becoming.”
I truly believe that when you invest in someone who has humility, curiosity, and a genuine desire to learn, you unlock something powerful. Skills can be developed through guidance and experience, but a strong heart multiplies the impact of those skills.
The Hummingbird: a Metaphor for Leadership
Over time, a metaphor began to shape my understanding of leadership. It was born from a season of doubt and determination. The metaphor was the hummingbird: a small creature, flexible in nature and relentlessly persevering.
A hummingbird’s wings beat up to 80 times per second. It can hover. It can move forward. It can move backwards. It survives on precision and endurance. My leadership journey has felt exactly like that. The constant movement, constant adaptation, constant repositioning.
But here is what I love most: the hummingbird does not look powerful. Yet it sustains life. That is the kind of leadership I believe in — leadership that is not loud, not controlling, not self-serving. Leadership that moves strategically but with purpose. Grounded in mission alignment, personal values, and faith.
What Leadership Abroad Really Costs
I did not know that living abroad would reshape not only my career, but my identity. I did not know that leadership would cost more than ambition, or that my calling would demand more than competence.
As an American educator living and working in Asia for the past sixteen years, I have learned something most leadership books do not teach: leadership abroad is not just about strategy. It is about transformation. And most of the time, the transformation is your own.
When you live abroad long enough, you stop asking, “Where am I from?” and start asking, “Who am I becoming?” Leadership abroad forces you to answer that question honestly.
“In international education, change is constant and so is the invitation to grow.”
What no one tells you is how deeply international leadership and cultural adaptation collide. When you step into leadership abroad, you lose more than convenience. You lose the comfort of familiarity. The cultural instincts that once guided you no longer function the same way. The credibility you carried at home does not automatically transfer. Your family support system is far away. Even the quiet confidence of belonging disappears.
You find yourself rebuilding everything. Learning new languages while leading teams. Navigating unfamiliar systems while making high-stakes decisions. Trying to understand unspoken cultural norms while people are watching you for clarity and direction. And sometimes, you may be doing it as the only woman in the room, or the only foreigner or both.
But somewhere in that tension, something begins to shift. You stop relying on instinct and start listening more carefully. You stop assuming and start asking. You stop performing and start grounding yourself in who you truly are. The collision between leadership and cultural adaptation does not just make you stronger. It humbles you. It strips away the version of you that was built on familiarity and begins forming a version built on awareness, resilience, and faith.
Leadership abroad does not simply expand your résumé. It exposes you. And in that exposure, you begin to grow in ways you never would have chosen — but now would never trade.
A Reflection for You
As you prepare to step into your next chapter, I leave you with this:
Your past effort is proof of your ability. Continue to grow, continue to lead, and continue to honor the light within you. You are enough, exactly as you are — and more powerful than you may yet realize.
Draw a mental picture of yourself as you accomplish your next chapter. Hold that image. Let it call you forward.
Recommended Reflection Questions for Your Team:
1. What season of leadership are you currently in — and what is it asking you to develop?
2. Where have you been invited to rebuild yourself rather than rely on past credibility?
3. Who in your community has humility, curiosity, and a strong heart? How are you investing in them?
4. What metaphor best describes your current leadership journey? What does it reveal?
Share Your Thoughts
What metaphor describes your leadership journey? We’d love to hear from you.
Reference
Sun Tzu (adapted by Becky Sheetz-Runkle). The Art of War for Women. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013.
Terri Pham, International Elementary School Principal, True North International School, Hanoi
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