A client made a special request of me for an episode about dealing with crises as a school leader. Now, I’m not an expert on managing a crisis occurring in your school, however, I do have plenty of tools and insights that make the emotions that arise after a crisis has occurred much easier to handle.

We do our best to make our school the safest environment possible for the kids, teachers, and parents, but sometimes things happen that are totally beyond our most chilling dreams. Not seeing a crisis coming and being powerless to do anything while it’s occurring brings up a lot of negative emotion. We can feel like we’ve failed our school. But there are things you can do to help as a principal.

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How much thought have you given to your legacy as a school leader? What do you really want people to remember you for? Do you want to be remembered as an inspiring leader who brings spirits up? Maybe you see yourself contributing something to your school, like raising money for a new playground.

Whatever your legacy looks like to you, the people around you are already making up their mind about how they will remember your work as their principal. The beauty is, we have the opportunity to choose our legacy with intention, through the actions we take every single day. Nobody is going to help you with this one – it’s all on you!

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Today, I’m diving into the tool that is at the very heart of all of my work as a coach. This tool is the most powerful device I know for bringing awareness to your thoughts and emotions and the effect they have on your life. Once you’ve experienced the magic of the STEAR Cycle, you will want to use it to solve problems in every area of your life.

The STEAR Cycle is something you may have heard me talk about before, but don’t tune out just because you think you’ve heard it all already. I’m going deeper than I ever have before with this method of awareness and what I’m sharing today will change how you approach your job forever.

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Especially when we’re starting out as a school leader or we have new members join our team, we want to present ourselves as the person with all the answers. It makes sense. When people come to us with a problem, we want to give clear direction, not have them leaving our conversation thinking “She just doesn’t understand.”

I call this leadership fraud. I have experienced it and I’m sure you have too. We get told that if in doubt, we have to fake it until we make it. However, that does not serve you and it certainly doesn’t help your teachers. Contrary to what we might think, we don’t actually need to have all the answers.

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We’re into July now, which means we’re switching up the theme for the podcast for the next few weeks. This month’s theme follows on from the last theme of influence and is vital in applying the work we have done over the last few podcasts.

We’re focusing on the aspects of school leadership that come up regularly, and in this episode, I have a Q&A that is geared towards all you brand new principals out there. Believe me, I understand, it’s one thing to get the job (and congratulations) but making a success of it is a whole different ballgame.

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