Ep #171: Landing Your First Principalship

Hello empowered principles. Welcome to episode 171.

Welcome to The Empowered Principal Podcast, a not so typical educational resource that will teach you how to gain control of your career and get emotionally fit to lead your school and your life with joy by refining your most powerful tool, your mind. Here’s your host certified life coach Angela Kelly Robeck.

Well hello my empowered leaders and happy Tuesday. Welcome to April of 2021. I am recording this at the very beginning of March 2021, and I am thrilled to see vaccinations are happening. It has been one year since we’ve been in quarantine and in shelter in place on and off, of course.

Here in California we have been through a really rough fall and winter season with COVID. We are now in a space where we have dropped our numbers so significantly that counties are starting to open again. My teacher friends who are still teaching, they are getting vaccinated. They are talking about going back to school in person. Some of them are going back in like a hybrid mode where the kids are on and off. Other people are going back in full capacity.

It is just so inspiring and so hopeful and so exciting to see our schools and our life moving forward. I hope for all of you out there that although we have been through a pretty traumatic year emotionally, mentally, physically. Many of us have lost loved ones, which breaks my heart. I think about the people who are getting vaccinated and those who have not had the opportunity or did not get the opportunity in time to be protected from the coronavirus. I just feel a lot of reflection and a lot of love for the people who have lost other people. Sorry. I feel hope. I feel excitement. And I feel energy.

I am so honored to be here with you today because this month we are going to talk about HR issues. Getting people on board, hiring people, gracefully letting go people. If you are an aspiring principal, this podcast episode today is going to talk about landing your first principal position. If you already are a principal, don’t tune out because there will be a day when will want to either change positions, you want to go to another school or have a new experience within a principalship position, or you want to advance yourself. The same strategies that I’m sharing today will apply.

So I’m looking forward to being with you guys. I’m looking forward to working with all of the new leaders that are coming onboard this year. If you haven’t signed up for coaching, why not? My doors are open. The next year is starting. Let’s do this. All you have to do is jump on a consult call with me and we will get started. Okay guys. Let’s dive in.

Landing your first principal position is a really big deal. It’s very exciting. It’s very scary. When you are a teacher or a teacher leader or perhaps an instructional coach. A lot of times that’s the path towards administration. In that moment prior to becoming a principal, you have all kinds of thoughts and ideas and hopes and dreams in becoming a school leader. Becoming an administrator of a school.

That is a fun place to be because it’s about possibility and hope and excitement. It’s that anticipation of being in the job. I want you to really revel in that because it’s fun to really think about who you can become, what you can do to impact and change the lives of staff and students, how you could impact your school community and the legacy you could leave behind as a school leader.

I know for me when I first started teaching, I had zero thoughts about becoming a school leader. None at all. I was teaching kindergarten. I had an amazing mentor. Mrs. Brown, shoutout to you, who was my very first mentor and fellow. She was my peer in the kindergarten grade level, but she was assigned to me as my mentor. I love her dearly. She and I are still very close friends. She is in a group of friends that I called the old guard. They were the first circle of friends I made as a very young teacher. They took me under their wing and showed me all of the things, all of the tips and strategies.

So when I was a teacher, I was just thinking about teaching. Then I taught for 15 years before I became a reading specialist. I still wasn’t thinking about school leadership. Then one of my best friends actually was my boss, Mrs. Bauer out there. She tapped my shoulder and said, “I think you should try to become an instructional coach. You have a lot of experience. You’re an expert at language development and reading and teaching kids who go from non-readers to readers. I think you’d be excellent at helping other people do the same.”

Jumped onboard. I was all in. Loved the position even thought it was met with some resistance by teachers out there who didn’t want their peers coaching them. If you are an instructional coach or you have been one, you can image and understand. That was the moment. That was the transition for me between I am only going to be a teacher for my life to shift into these thoughts of, “Wait a minute. There’s more available to me. It’s possible to have a position with greater impact and have greater influence as a teacher.”

It opened my eyes so much. I’m so grateful for my friend who told me that I was capable. I could do this because I wasn’t thinking those thoughts myself. Then I slipped into wait a minute. I am capable. I can do this. This is possible. If she’s doing it, so can I. That was really the year where my entire brain exploded about possibility for my career. That I could actually be somebody who lead a school. That I could be in charge. That I could be a manager. That I could be an administrator. That I could create change for students.

It was so new. It felt uncomfortable, actually. It was trying on mom’s clothes, right. I was a little girl trying on the big kid clothes and realized I’m going to become an adult. I’m going to grow up in my career too. I’m going to be this.

So for those of you who are aching and aspiring and wanting to be a school leader, this is especially for you. It’s spring. This is the time where you’re getting hired. So I really want you to do this work immediately. Listen to this podcast and do this work right now. Don’t wait. Don’t think it doesn’t matter. This is the key to landing your first principal position. Let me say this right up front. It is different than what you think it is, and it’s different than anybody else is telling you how to prepare. Okay?

So listen in. Get your notebooks out. Here we go. Step one of landing your first principal position or landing your ideal position. So for those of you who are in a position and you’re disgruntled and you’re unhappy, I could do a whole podcast about that. What I want you to do if you’re unhappy is I want you to start finding things you love about the current position. Feeling gratitude for why you’re in the position you’re in. Then we’re going to get you moving on to the next one.

For those of you who are in the position of your first aspiring leadership position, here’s what you’re going to do. Step one, define exactly precisely what you want. I want you to define with as much clarity exactly the position you’re looking for. Is it an elementary position? Is it a public elementary position? Is it a middle school public or private? High school?

Do you want to be an AP, or do you want to be a full-on principal? Do you want to have APs under you or not? Do you want to work in a charter school or a progressive program? What kind of school do you want to lead? What kind of staff do you want to lead? What kinds of mindsets of your staff do you want to lead? How many staff?

I want you to be as specific as possible. I want you to write down, just journal it out as if you were already in it and you can see it right in front of your eyes. This is the school. This is the name. This is the elementary. This is how many kids. These are the families. This is how the PTA works. This is how many people at each grade level. These are the number of students in each grade level. This is the socioeconomic diversity of my school. This is the ethnic diversity of my school. This I why I want to serve.

This is kind of a step one A. Define what you want. Get very clear. Then tell yourself why you want it. You need to understand why you desire what you do. Let me say this as well. The desire that you have is exactly the desire you should be having. Whatever it is you want. Whether you want to work in an urban environment or a rural environment or a suburban environment. Whether you want private or public or high school or elementary school or pre-K. There’s no right or wrong to this.

There’s no better than. Wanting to lead a big high school in an urban setting is no better than wanting to be the principal of a small country school with a small number of kids. There is no better. There is no right or wrong here. You just want what you want. Then tell yourself why you want it. Be honest. Even if you’re like, “Well, I want to be an AP in a small school that’s something I’m very familiar with. Maybe my own school or something within my district. Because I want to gradually step into the position.” That’s okay.

If you’re not a big risk taker and you’re not the kind of person who wants to jump off the cliff and go to something totally different, be honest. You are not going to land your first principal position trying to go for something that you think is cool or you think is better than what you actually really want. This first step, it sounds trivial. It sounds kind of fluffy. I promise you if you don’t do this, you might land a position, but it won’t be the one you love. If you want to love your first position, you have to get very clear about exactly the school you want and why you want it. I call this defining your ideal job.

Now, get that very clear in your head. Then I want you to look at it every single day. Get it into your body. When you read your ideal position that you’re going to land, you’re going to feel the vibration of having it in your body. Does that make sense? You’re reading it. You’re thinking about it. You’re imagining yourself at that school with those people and those children doing the things that you want to do. That is step one. Embrace and define what you want and why you want it.

Step two is about believing that that very position is available. You have to believe it’s possible to land your first position. Now, you don’t have control over who hires you or when they hire you or how they hire you, but you do have full control to believe that it’s possible and it’s available to you.

So it’s called the belief triad. You have to believe in yourself that you are capable of landing your first position or your ideal position. You have to believe that there are people out there who want to hire you. You have to believe that the position is available to you. That somewhere out in the universe, that position is waiting just for you. You were meant for it. It was meant for you. You are capable.

So the belief triad is believing in yourself, believing that people out there want to hire you and that you are the rock star candidate for them, and that believing that the position that you desire is available.

Step three. Determine who you have to be in order to land this job. Okay. This is fun to do, but it pushes your brain, and it feels hard. You can feel resistance to this. This is a game changer. So knowing what you want and why you want it, believing that it’s possible, and then you have to ask yourself the question, “Who do I have to become in order to land that job?” Because there’s a gap. There’s a gap from who you are right now and where you want to be. There’s where you’re at now and where you want to be. In order to land that first job, you have to be evolving into the person who lands the job.

So this will feel hard for you because you’ve never done it before. Your brains going to say, “I don’t know who I have to become because I’ve never been a principal before.” Of course you haven’t. You can’t know how to do it until you do it. So how do you answer this question?

This is how I answer the question for myself. I ask myself this. What does the person who has already landed that kind of job, who is that person? What does that person think about on a daily basis? How do they feel? What do they do? What are their actions? What do they do? What do they say? How do they show up energetically? What do they believe about themselves? What do they believe about their school? What do they talk about? What do they wear? What is their mission? What are their values? What is their vision? What are their goals?

You have to embody the person who already is in that. You can talk to your future self. I love doing this. Where I ask my version of myself like, “Hey, how do you do that?” Then my brain has amazing answers. I want you to ask yourself, “Who do I have to become in order to land this job? To land my first job. To land my ideal job.” Then think about when you’re in that job and you’re killing it and you’ve nailed it and you’re feeling confident, what are you thinking about? How are you showing up? What is your focus? What are your leadership values?

You get to play. This is like playing grownup house, right? It’s when you’re playing house and you’re trying on the new fancy dress and the new fancy shoes. You’re stepping your self-concept into that new position. Okay.

Step four. You have to sell yourself on you. This goes kind of back to believing that it’s available, possible, and that you’re the person for the job. That the job is out there, and the people want to hire you. You have to then really sell yourself on why you are ready. Why you are the perfect candidate for that position? What is it specifically about you that makes you irresistible? That makes you the rock star. That makes you stand out more than any other candidate.

You’ve got to understand how you are ready. How you are the right person. How you are capable even when you don’t yet know how to do the job. That’s the secret, right? You have to sell you on you. You have to tell yourself, “Here’s why I’m the boss. Here’s why I’m going to be a boss. Here’s how I’m going to handle it.” Sell yourself. Find all the reasons why you’re ready. Create evidence for your brain. Because your brain’s going to say doubt, fear, worry. I don’t know. Maybe that’s not it. That’s not what I want. That’s not the perfect position. You don’t know until you get in there and sell yourself, okay.

Once you’ve done that, then I want you—This is kind of a four B. There’s a step A and B to number four. It’s really about once your sold on yourself 100% and you’re all in and you’re fired up and ready to go, then you’ve got to sell your brain on selling them. Because interviewing is about selling. You are selling who you are and why you’re the best fit for that position.

It’s like when you go to buy a new car. You’re walking into the car dealership. You’ve decided, “I’m ready to buy. I deserve a new car. I’ve earned a new car. I have the money for a new car. This is the car I want. This is why I want it.” You believe in yourself that you’re ready to have that car. You believe the car is available to you. You believe that the people who are selling it want you to be the one who buys it. Same exact concept.

So you’re believing in yourself. You’re ready to go. You believe the position’s out there. You know what you want. Then the person who’s buying, right, you’ve got to sell them on why they are ready to buy you. To offer you the position. You want the offer. You’re selling them, and they’re kind of selling themselves to you. You’re shopping. They’re shopping. But you’re also both buying.

In this specific instance, I want you to see how you are selling yourself to that district as to why, “I am the right one. This is me. You have to have me. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.” Not from a place of arrogance, but from a place of pure confidence in abilities, your willingness to learn and fail, your honesty about who you are and what you believe in and where you’re at. Your willingness to be rejected if they say no thank you or they do not offer you a position.

Vulnerability, authenticity, openness, honesty, willingness, all of it. I call it the HOW method. Honesty, openness, willing. Build up your self-concept that you are ready, and they want you and this is the position.

Once you land it because you will. Let me tell you. You might land your first one. You might literally go into one interview and land it. That would be amazing. If you do that with this method, you must, must email me angelakellycoaching@gmail.com. You must let me know or find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and tell me. If you land your first position, I’m going to celebrate the heck out of you. Tell me if this works for you. If you have to go through many interviews, that’s okay.

If you go through lots of interviews, here’s what I want you to do. I’m adding ad lib here. If you don’t get positions and you start to feel doubt, after every interview that you do not get here’s what I want you to do. What worked? What do you think went well with the interview? What did you learn in the interview about yourself and about interviewing and about other people? What are you going to do differently in the next interview? That’s it.

Don’t beat yourself up. Don’t cry. I mean you can cry if you want, but you don’t want to sink into a space of, “I’m not good enough. I’m not ready. People don’t like me.” You’re self-doubting. Then you stop. Because what will happen is you stop being the person who’s ready for the perfect position, and you won’t land one. Then you’ll be in the river of misery feeling sorry for yourself that you didn’t land a job. It will be another year of not being in the job you want to be in. Then you’re going to be mad at yourself.

So for every interview you fail, number one, it was a blessing in disguise. It wasn’t the right job for you. Number two, I want you to look at what went well, what did you learn, and what are you going to do differently in the next interview.

Okay. Finally, once you land the position whether it’s ideal or a little bit less than ideal, but you took it. When you land that position, then you have to show up. You have to be the best version of yourself. You have to be the person that you sold them on. You can’t bait and switch them. You have to overdeliver on your promise. So don’t get lost in confusion and overwhelmed and get sucked into the overwhelmed cycle and the exhaustion cycle. But you will. I’ll help you because you’re going to hire me as your coach and I’m going to help you through this. Come on guys. Let’s go.

When you get that job, you’ve got to stay in the energy of overdelivering and being that best version of yourself. You’ve got to step into that self-concept that, “I’m capable. I’m willing. I’m doing this. I’m open to failing. I’m open to being wrong. I’m open to trying again. And I’m not going to make it mean something horrible about myself.”

So, my master coach teaches me a concept about overdelivering. That is this. Whatever somebody pays you, you provide double the value. So if you land the position where let’s say they offer you $80,000 for a starting salary as a school principal. Which sounds like a lot to some people and not a lot to other people. Doesn’t matter. I just pulled it out of the air. If you land a job making 80K, I want you giving at least 100K in value to the district.

That doesn’t mean overworking and people pleasing. It means solving problems quickly and easily and efficiently. It means taking excellent care of yourself so that you can be the best version of yourself while you’re at work. It means learning how to create work-life balance from the get-go. It means spinning out in doubt less and less amount of the time and more time spent in possibility and solutions.

If you are going to land a job as a principal and you make 80K, your goal, show them that you are worth 160K. We want to create value and contribution and education. We want to raise the value of what we earn as school principals, what educators earn. Part of that process is overdelivering. We want to overdeliver. I’ll talk much more about this in future podcasts, but right now here are the five steps one last time.

Number one, define what you want exactly precisely. The more specific, the better. Then list why you want that particular job. Why is it you want that specific job? Number two, you have to believe in yourself that you are ready. You have to believe that others want you, and you have to believe that the position is out there. That it is possible to land that job. Belief triad.

Number three, you have to determine who you have to become in order to land that job. Who do you have to be to be the person who gets hired for the perfect position? What do they do? What do they think? Who are you going to be? Number four, sell yourself hard on you so that you can then sell yourself hard on to others why you are the perfect match. Number five, when you land the job, your first step is to let me know. Reach out to me, social media.

Then five, overdeliver. Give it to them. Give them what you sold them. My husband just went out and bought a new BMW. The experience was amazing. They overdelivered. I kid you not. It was an amazing experience. I feel like whatever he paid for that car, he got double the value. He’s thrilled. I’m thrilled. He’s so excited. It’s an electric car or hybrid or whatever it is. We’re just thrilled with it. Couldn’t be happier. I want your employee who hired you to feel as happy as we feel about our new car, okay.

So if you want more information on how to land your first position or land an ideal position, join my Facebook group. We are going to be talking more about that in the group. It’s free. You just join Facebook. You get in the group, the Empowered Principal group. We are going to be talking about this. I’m going to be doing little clips, little posts to give you tips and strategies. You can ask me questions in the group. Okay. Get out there. Land that job. Have an amazing week. I will talk to you guys next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

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If you want to create the best connections, impact, and legacy for yourself and your school, the Empowered Principal program was designed for you. Join me at angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more. I’d love to support you in becoming an empowered school leader.

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