Mona’s Eyes by author Thomas Schlesser, his debut and my first novel of 2026, is a masterclass in art history disguised as a poignant story. It’s centered on a special bond between a grandfather and his granddaughter, and the premise of the young girl potentially losing her sight. Mona’s grandfather arranges for the two of them to spend 52 weeks looking at 52 masterpieces in the Louvre, the Orsay, and the Beaubourg to help anchor her “inner museum” before her vision fades.
While the book is a journey through art, it serves as a profound guide for modern leaders. It reminds us that how we see is often more important than what we see. Here are three lessons from Mona’s journey that we can carry into our schools and our boardrooms this year.
The Art of Deep Looking
In the book, Mona’s grandfather insists they spend significant time in front of just one painting per week. In a world of doomscrolling and rapid-fire text messages, leaders sometimes lose the ability to focus.
Effective leadership requires the discipline of deep observation. Whether it’s a complex financial report or the shifting morale of your team, don’t just glance at the data. Sit with it. High-quality decisions are rarely born from a five-second appraisal; they require the patience to see the details others miss.
I have noticed that most personnel issues have both a perceived reason and a real reason. As leaders, we often rush to fix the perceived reason (the symptom) because it is loud and visible, while the real reason (the root cause) stays buried because it requires deep observation to uncover.
Recently, an employee known for precision and high energy missed two major deadlines and was uncharacteristically blunt, bordering on rude, in a meeting. On a first glance, you could assume she was burned out and needed a day off. However, deeply looking at the timelines and reflecting on the comments, I remembered that the employee went silent in meetings about this project for several weeks and did not interject when her supervisor was describing it. Ultimately, the real reason was a breach of trust because the employee felt the supervisor was taking credit for their work. If you solve for the real reason, you help the employee as well as the culture.
Emotional Intelligence Is Your Lens
Every masterpiece Mona visits evokes a different emotional response — awe, sadness, fear, or joy. The art doesn’t change, but Mona’s perspective does.
A leader’s vision is rarely about 20/20 eyesight — it’s about emotional clarity. How you interpret a challenge depends entirely on the lens you choose to wear. By cultivating an inner gallery of empathy and historical context, you can remain steady when the external landscape becomes blurred or chaotic.
Having a conversation with a parent about something imperfect that their perfect child did is always a time for emotional clarity. In this scenario, the “masterpiece” is the child, and the “blurred landscape” is the parent’s defensive reaction. To handle this with emotional clarity, you must look past the immediate friction to see the history and identity the parent is trying to protect.
How you enter this room depends on the lens you choose to wear. With the lens of the leader on a first glance, you see a rule-breaker and a pair of enablers. You interpret their shock as denial and meet it with cold, hard evidence and rigid consequences. Or, if you look with emotional clarity and your inner gallery, you realize that for the parent, this isn’t just about a school rule; it’s an existential crisis. If the child is imperfect, their identity as a perfect parent is under threat.
Instead of just presenting the data (the incident), you can also use deep observation to guide the parent through the art of their child’s growth. You can observe that the student is a natural leader whose leadership skills this time were being used without a moral compass. He still has the talent; he just needs help with the direction. This moves the focus from the imperfect act to the evolving person. You aren’t attacking the “masterpiece” — you are suggesting a different light to view it in.
Mentorship as a Legacy
The relationship between Mona and her grandfather is the heartbeat of the story. He isn’t just showing her art; he is giving her a way to navigate the world when things get dark.
Leadership is a transfer of vision. Your primary job isn’t just to reach goals, but to teach your team how to see opportunities. True legacy isn’t the work you leave behind, but the “inner museum” you help your successors build so they can lead effectively even when you aren’t there to guide them.
My leadership team is composed of three Assistant Heads of School: Academics, Advancement, and Finance/Operations. I believe that this distributed leadership model, fueled by individual mentoring from me, builds leaders who are confident in their decision-making because they, too, can identify opportunities and because we all share the same vision for our school.
In Essence
“To see is to be transformed.” Mona’s Eyes reminds us that the world is rich with detail, provided we have the courage to stop and look.
