Ep #364: Silencing Overwhelm

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Silencing Overwhelm

Do you feel like you’re drowning in overwhelm as a school principal? Like there’s too much to do and not enough time, and you’re constantly putting out fires and trying to keep up with everyone’s demands and opinions? I’ve been there, my friend. 

I’m here this week to tell you that there is a way to silence the overwhelm – or at least turn down its volume. My guess is that you’re currently trying to outrun the overwhelm by working harder and faster, but the truth is it’s only leading to even more of it. The key is to stop, take a breath, and listen to what your emotions are trying to tell you, and I guide you through this process in this episode.

Join me in this episode as I share my insights on managing the emotional intensity and fatigue that can come with being a school leader. You’ll learn the value of stopping to listen to what your overwhelm has to offer you. Discover what happens when you slow down and get specific about what’s working and what needs adjustment. I also share my top tips for untangling overwhelm so you can return to doing what you love as a school leader.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why trying to outrun overwhelm by working harder and faster only leads to more overwhelm.
  • How to regulate your nervous system and calm down the anxiety, stress, and frustration that come with being a school leader.
  • The importance of taking a pause and listening to your emotions when you’re feeling overwhelmed.
  • How to identify the specific reasons behind your overwhelm and use that insight to make adjustments.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

 

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 364. 

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 principals. Welcome to December, the month of head colds. I have a little bit of congestion. So I apologize for the change in voice on this episode, but the show must go on. I’m feeling better than I sound. I’m feeling much better than I did a while back, but this podcast feels very important to share with you because I’m speaking to all of you who are feeling overwhelmed. I want to offer some thoughts, some insights into silencing that overwhelm or at least turning down its volume. 

So this year has been emotionally intense. It’s been emotionally intense for a lot of reasons and with that emotional tension and that emotional intensity can come fatigue and overwhelm. For many principals, people have been reaching out to me in droves asking for help, for guidance, for support. They are eager to jump in EPC because they are looking to feel grounded. They want to silence the overwhelm. 

I have been working in EPC to help school leaders regulate their nervous systems, calm down the anxiety and the stress and the worry and the overwhelm and the frustration and the fear of not being good enough, capable enough, competent enough, fast enough, smart enough, decisive enough, just overriding insufficiency.

I have a principal who’s not a brand new principal. She’s been in the position for a few years and she has some experience under her belt, but she’s feeling more overwhelmed than ever. When you’re feeling that intensity of overwhelm emotionally, when it feels like everything’s coming at you at once, you can’t seem to get control of your time or your schedule, or it feels too difficult to prioritize. 

On top of it, you have people’s judgments, criticisms, accusations, requests, demands, their unhappy responses, thinking you should be doing things differently than you should be. When you have tasks on top of people’s opinions, on top of emergencies, fires, interruptions, behaviors, it can feel like there’s no going back. There’s no way to reconcile this and to get back on track. Okay.

When you’re feeling this way, the first thing you need to do is stop. It’s very counterintuitive, but the goal is not to go faster or schedule more or work longer hours. The goal is to stop yourself for a minute and take stock. You’re not going to feel like doing this because it feels like you’re revving at the start line. Why can’t I go just do the things and get them done so I can feel better? 

But if you take a stop and you pause and you look at that approach, let’s just think this through. You’ve been working harder and harder. People are asking for more and more. The demands are increasing. The timelines are coming. Observations aren’t quite getting done. People are not, you know, maybe behaving in the way that you want them to. Teachers aren’t teaching in the way that you want them to. Students are not engaging the way you want them to, or you have parents or you have IEP meetings that are not getting scheduled in the right time. 

When all of these things are coming at you at rapid fire, your brain eventually is going to want to shut down. It’s the overwhelm cycle in motion. You’re going to try and keep up and eventually you’re going to run out of steam, and you’ll want to shut down. It’s almost like you, you just want to close everything off. You just want to jump in your car and drive away. Have you ever felt that way? I have sat in my car a couple of times pondering if I should come back or not. 

First of all, it’s normal. The overwhelm is normal because there is too much to do in the amount of time you’re provided. If you were to fulfill every request, every ask, every demand, attend every single meeting, connect with every single human, connect with every single student, every parent, be in tune with the district office. 

If you were to literally do all of it per everybody’s opinion, yeah, there would be too much to do and not enough time. So if that’s a given, trying to outrun the overwhelm is what’s creating more overwhelm. But you go past the point of overwhelm into either frustration, discouragement, or complete shutdown, complete apathy. 

When the overwhelm is so intense that you feel like running, that is the time when the most important meeting on your calendar is a meeting with yourself to sit down and take a breath, take a few of them, and to pause your body long enough to start to regulate your nervous system, your emotional intensity, all of that overwhelm, the panic, the fear, the overwhelm, the doubt, the frustration, that all combined into one big intense emotion. It needs you to pay attention. It’s there for a reason. It is inviting you into awareness and reflection. 

So when the emotions get big, when overwhelm gets to be so much that the only solution feels like quit, run away, you are definitely in fight or flight, my friend. Sit down, ground your feet, take a breath and notice that if you actually sit in your office with the door closed and you take a couple of deep breaths, you’re actually safe physically. You’re actually safe mentally. You’re actually safe emotionally. 

It might not feel safe, but you can regulate yourself just like we ask kids to do. We ask them to learn how to emotionally regulate themselves. This is what we’re doing when we are in extreme overwhelm. We’re taking the breath. We’re going to pause for a moment. That pause is the magic wand to turning down the volume of overwhelm. It’s like saying oh, okay, I need a minute. Let me breathe. Let me slow down my body, my heart rate, my blood pressure, my nervous system.

Let’s say okay, I’m feeling overwhelmed. My mind is racing. My heart is beating fast. There’s a lot of energy in my body. When I’m overwhelmed, I know that overwhelm is simply a message to get my attention, to get me to slow down and stop and regroup and recalibrate so I can reboot and get back to business doing what I was meant to do. 

When overwhelm is overwhelming you, the quickest solution is not to run away from it, not to do more, take more action. The fastest response to turn down the volume is to listen to it, to let it guide you, to let it inform you. There is a reason that you’re overwhelmed every single time.

You want to identify why you’re overwhelmed. That is how you can untangle being overwhelmed. One thing I’ve noticed a lot of times when my clients will slow themselves down after they’ve done all of the venting and sharing as to all the reasons why they’re overwhelmed and the reasons why they can’t get out of overwhelm. One thing they notice is that they have dropped the reins of time mastery, of planning mastery, of balance mastery. 

They’ve just forgotten that they’re the ones in control of their time, of their planning to create balance, that they are the masters of their time balance and planning.

Now listening to this podcast right now, you’re like easier said than done. To that I say, of course, if it were easier done than said, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, and I probably wouldn’t be a coach. But the truth is that when we’re overwhelmed and overwhelmed doesn’t get acknowledged or validated or have a voice to share with you the insight and wisdom and wonderings that it has for you, and you rush away from it.

You’re like I’m overwhelmed. I’ve got to go do more. It’s a way of avoiding the emotion versus just sitting with it. Wow, I’m really overwhelmed right now. I’m spinning. I feel like I’m whack-a-moling. I feel like I don’t know what to do. I’m feeling incompetent. I don’t feel like I’m a good principal. See how your identity has shifted because of the overwhelm? How your actions are impacted because of the overwhelm. 

If you ask the overwhelm, what insight, what wisdom do you have for me? What knowledge do you have for me? It will tell you. It’s like, well, I’m overwhelmed because we didn’t plan for this, or there’s not a system for that. Or I didn’t schedule this or I’ve been overworking to the point of exhaustion. I can’t even think straight. Overwhelm will have some insight for you. 

That’s why it’s here. It’s knocking on your door to let you know it’s here. If you invite it in and listen, it immediately turns the volume down. Then when you take in that wisdom and you’re willing to use that wisdom and apply it to, Oh, I haven’t been planning very well. Why haven’t I been planning very well? Well, it’s because I’m whack-a-moling all day. I’m putting out fires, and I’m thinking the reasons, the excuses that my brain is offering is there’s no one else to do it. I help kids co-regulate faster and better. Teachers can’t do it. They’re overwhelmed. I feel bad for them. 

Your brain’s going to offer you all kinds of reasons that feel very valid. You have to look at them with a critical eye. Is it absolutely true there’s no one else, or do we just not plan for this or train for this? Then you’ll say well, there’s not time for that. You might feel like there’s not time to prepare somebody to delegate a task to, but what is it costing you in the end? Which is more time effective in the long run? Training somebody to support you or you doing it yourself for the rest of time. 

That goes from everything from newsletters, staff bulletins to cleaning the staff room. There’s so many things that we get our fingers in. Event planning is a big one, right? We think we need to be the person that plans all the events. We think we need to be the only person who can do the master schedule or facilitate every single meeting or write the bulletins or write the newsletter to the parents. There’s so many things that we actually think we need to do that we don’t and they feel very true.

So we increase our own overwhelm when we’re not willing to sit down and say how am I actually spending my time and what is the return on investment of that time? 

Back to the client I was working with. Her brain was being very mean to her saying she’s not doing anything right. She can’t keep up. Nobody’s happy. Nobody likes what I’m doing. Everybody has this opinion of me that I’m dropping the ball and I’m not doing this. I’m very scattered.

Why that felt so painful is a part of her brain that actually believed it. That she is dropping balls and she is scattered and she’s overworking at the cost of her friends and family and personal time, but not feeling like she’s creating the desired results she wants. Then you get into an argument with yourself. 

So now there’s a peanut gallery in your brain judging and criticizing every little thing you do, whether you do it right or whether you don’t. At the same time, the other half of your brain is defending yourself from the peanut gallery. So now you have an internal conversation going on that doesn’t serve you because half of you is being critical and the other half of you is on the defense and trying to justify your actions when the truth of it is we want to clear both of that. It’s not an all or none game. You’re not doing it all right or all wrong. It’s always the land of and. 

So being able to silence the overwhelm comes from you listening to the overwhelm. I’ll give you a little secret. This is true for every emotion. You feel slowing down, stopping, pausing, listening to it. What does it have to offer you? 

The same is true for people. When people are at you the most, when they’re coming at you sideways, the hardest listen to them, acknowledge them. Even if you don’t like what they’re saying, even if what they’re saying is not true, listen, because that person is creating overwhelm for you. The best way to turn down the overwhelm is to listen. 

Once you listen, the insights will come. I can show you how to do this. I know this is a practice nobody teaches you, which is what I teach in EPC. So I can teach you how to do this. But when you listen to your emotions, let them have a voice, validate them, acknowledge them and listen what they have to say. You will be surprised at how knowledgeable you are, how wise you are, how you actually know exactly what to do to turn down the overwhelm, to reduce the overwhelm, to silence it. 

You might not want to do those things and be in resistance to those things, but you know. So you know if you haven’t really been planning, but if you have been planning, then there’s something else. Maybe there’s a system that needs to be smoothed out. Solutions are in the specifics. 

Your brain wants to stay general and ambiguous, and overwhelm is very general and very ambiguous. It’s just everything’s wrong and it’s like Henny Penny and running around calling chaos. But the truth is that when you slow your brain down and you get very specific, what’s working, what’s a little crunchy, and what do I want to adjust so that I feel less overwhelmed? You’ll be shocked to know that you already know the answer, and you already have some solutions. You just might be in resistance to those solutions.

If you’re in resistance to the solutions, that’s where EPC steps in and helps you unblock and remove those resistant obstacles in your mind. Those thought obstacles, the reasons that you think you just can’t, we change that into, I can. We make it from hard to easier. We make it from complicated to simple. That’s the magic of EPC. 

So step one, you have the volume control for overwhelm, and you can turn it down as low as you’d like. It’s all up to you. EPC doors are opening in January. I would love to have you all join us. Join us now as an early bird, get on the wait list because we’re going to be doing the mid-year reboot. We’re going to reboot, recalibrate, get your momentum going for the second half of the school year. Have an amazing week. I’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader. 

 

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Ep #363: How The Principal Exchange is Empowering School Leaders with Andra Bostic and Sarah Murphy

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | How The Principal Exchange is Empowering School Leaders with Andra Bostic and Sarah Murphy

Have you ever felt isolated and unsupported as a school principal? Are you struggling to balance doing the internal work of building up your leadership skills and emotional capacity, alongside finding the resources and tools you need to effectively lead your school?

In this episode, I sit down with Andra Bostic and Sarah Murphy, the founders of The Principal Exchange, to discuss how their platform is revolutionizing the way principals access support and resources. Andra and Sarah bring a wealth of experience to the table, having worked as classroom teachers, reading specialists, instructional coaches, and administrators in public education. Through their work, they’ve traveled the country, building relationships with principals and gaining a deep understanding of the unique challenges they face.

Tune in this week to learn about The Principal Exchange platform and how it provides an online marketplace where principals can find and share resources, connect with colleagues, and access the support they need to thrive in their roles. Andra and Sarah also share their vision for the platform and discuss how it’s helping principals overcome isolation, burnout, and the daily struggles of school leadership.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • How The Principal Exchange provides a platform for principals to share resources and connect with colleagues across the country.
  • Why principals often feel isolated and unsupported in their roles, and how The Principal Exchange is working to change that.
  • The importance of collaboration and teamwork in education, and how The Principal Exchange is fostering a sense of community among principals.
  • How principals can use The Principal Exchange to find resources on topics like classroom management, data tracking, and school culture.
  • The benefits of being a vendor on The Principal Exchange.
  • How The Principal Exchange is helping to reduce principal burnout and turnover by providing much-needed support and resources.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

 

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 363. 

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. 

Angela: Well, hello, my empowered principals. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to the podcast this week. I have a very special treat for you. We have another interview. We’re just getting all the interviews on the podcast and I love it because as you guys know, I really vet people out. I don’t want this to be a big infomercial. I don’t want you to feel like you’re being solicited to when you listen to this. I want you to come to The Empowered Principal® Podcast and feel like you’re getting your values worth for your time. 

Today, I definitely have some wonderful ladies here who are going to share some amazing resources with you today, and I’m so excited to have them. I have Andra and Sarah, and they are the founders of the Principal Exchange and I believe also the Teacher Exchange, is that correct? 

Andra: So yes, it’s the Principal Exchange and then our other business is Tailored Education where we do have resources on there specifically for principals to use with teachers. 

Angela: Yes. Okay. So as you can see, I’m still learning about their services, but we had a little meet and greet last week a couple weeks ago and I just fell in love with these ladies. I love the concept. I love what they’re doing to support school leaders and to educators across the board, but their work’s really fun. I want you to learn about it, hear about it. 

So I’m going to turn it over to them and let them explain what the Principal Exchange is, how to access it, all the goodies that are inside, and we’re going to chat it up because I want you to hear the value that you can walk away with today as a result of the work that they’re doing. So welcome to the podcast, ladies. 

Andra: Thank you. 

Sarah: Hey, thanks for having us.

Angela: Yeah, so introduce yourselves and tell them a little bit about who you are, your background, and what inspired this idea, this concept of the Principal Exchange. 

Andra: Sure. So this is Andra from the Principal Exchange. To give you a little background about our educational experience, prior to Tailored Education or the Principal Exchange, we worked in public education as classroom teachers, moving to reading specialists, instructional coaches, ending on the admin team before we decided that we really could have a bigger impact outside of the schools reaching educators in general across the country.

So we started Tailored Education, and Tailored Education supports new teachers, principals. We sell like resources to schools. We do professional development. We wrote a book, Bashing Boredom, on student engagement because we felt like that was a big need. 

In doing that, we started seeing principals all over as we were visiting schools and building these relationships and seeing what really they struggled with and that they were kind of isolated, and that they didn’t have the supports that maybe teachers had through websites and resources and even just the colleagues in their building. That’s kind of what springboarded the thought of the Principal Exchange and getting this started.

Sarah: Yeah. As we traveled around, we went to all kinds of different places and found that especially in some of these places that were like more landlocked or small districts, it wasn’t uncommon for a district to just have like an elementary principal, a middle school principal, and then a high school principal. So there was no form of collaboration. They weren’t getting some kind of a curriculum to use. They were juggling all kinds of things, and they were there all hours of every day. 

I mean, really, it was just a struggle for them. We saw that. So we started to really think about okay, how can we help solve this problem too? Because like we value teachers so much, but we’ve got to have great school leaders too, and we need to fill their cups too. So that was really where we started. We kind of took that idea and ran with it, and it turned into the Principal Exchange. 

What that is, it’s like a platform. It’s a website, kind of an online marketplace, like a Teachers Pay Teachers or Etsy. It’s where a bunch of principals have came together and made their little like digital mini stores, you might could say, where they are uploading resources that are specifically designed for principals. These resources range from support with like classroom management, data trackers, climate and culture builders, really anything you could think of, you can find it there.

They’re putting all of that out there as a place for principals to come and find what they need so that they’re not having to create it from scratch. They’re getting new ideas and they can really save some time and feel like there’s some level of support for them too. 

Andra: We also found in doing this as we were talking with principals, a lot of principals end up having like a second job or feeling like they need something. We knew that was true maybe of teachers, but we didn’t realize how many principals felt that way. 

So to be a vendor on the page, it’s not a way to earn like a huge second income, but at least it’s another revenue stream for something that somebody is doing and already creating. They have these ideas that they can share with other people. So we wanted to support them in that way as well too. 

Angela: Yeah.

Angela: It feels like it’s like an Etsy or like kind of like an online farmer’s market. You can go to the little vendors and pick like oh, I need something on staff development or oh, I need something on like tracking systems. Or there’s different vendors. So the vendors are actual real principals and educators who have designed tools that work for them. If it works for you, you’re welcome to come and peruse and purchase if you want to. 

It’s such a cool way of just being able to share our experiences, our wisdoms, like our little area of expertise in the world of education and to allow people to benefit from that, you know, from the tool that we’ve created. So I think it’s brilliant. 

Andra: Well, thank you. We hope so. The vendors on there are awesome. They’ve really thought of like even categories that we hadn’t thought of to bring products in for. We also say like, if you don’t see what you need on there, let us know because there might be a vendor out there that’s willing to create it or has something that they didn’t think to put up on there. So it’s just an ever evolving platform. 

Angela: Yeah. It’s almost like you’re searching on Amazon, and you’re looking for whatever product it is that you need. It sounds like it’s in the categories and then they can look and see. People have different because it’s one approach might work for one person, another one doesn’t. But there might be multiple ways of doing it on the platform, depending on what it is and who’s sharing their information. 

So principals out there, if you’re listening to this, you can participate in one of two ways. You can be a vendor. You might have resources you want to share, and you can get a percentage of income on that. Or you might be a shopper, and you might be looking for some strategies. It sounds like mostly like tools, right? Like tangible things that you can. 

I think of Teachers Pay Teachers, right, where they go in and they can get actual downloadable materials for their classroom or for teaching and instruction and lesson planning or worksheets, that kind of a thing. So it sounds like it’s a similar concept. 

Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just like that. It’s very similar to that. What we did was we thought had that mindset going into it, but we really wanted to make it so that like it was just for principals. That if you typed in like climate and culture builders or a data tracker, you’re going to have a bunch of different options that come up that’s related to your position and that’s written by people who are in that position too. It was really important for us for people to really be able to understand what that feels like right now to be able to support in that area. 

So we really tried to create a space that was just a really big support system for our school leaders because that was really important to us. The more we talked to them and we developed these relationships, like we just wanted to do something that could help them along on this journey. 

We started a Facebook page, and we started looking at what different things that like they like. We found that there’s a huge little niche of people out there that follow us that love just humor, some kind of like lighthearted way to end their day. So we try to come up with stuff like that just to bring smiles and laughter to them to lighten up some of the hard things that principals struggle and go through because we know that’s real. Anything we can do to kind of pick them up, that’s where we’re at. 

Andra: Right. 

Sarah: Yeah. 

Andra: Yeah. We try on our page too to put things that like draw them to be able to share something funny that happened that day or maybe even a struggle too. Because like we said, teachers usually have those colleagues in their building on their team or in their grade level or in their department that they can go to. But sometimes an admin team is isolated, and you don’t have that. 

So we really hope that our social pages and things that may be like conferences that we’re hoping to do in the future will really build not just the resources for our principals, but also that community for them and that place of support and understanding of like-minded people that have the same struggles and can laugh at the same kind of things that maybe if not, you’re going to be crying about. 

Angela: Yes. I know your story, but I would love for you to share your story. Like, what is your relationship with school leadership? Because I’m sure the listeners, you’re saying they and them and they’re like wait a minute, what’s going on here? So like tell the story of your relationship as it relates to school leadership, the position of school leadership. 

Andra: Sure. So starting like prior to either of these, like I kind of gave a little glimpse into earlier, both of us have our admin degree, and we’ve had that experience like in a school itself before coming out for Tailored and the Principal Exchange. 

Even being instructional coaches. I think that’s when we first got a glimpse of where the lack of resources because a lot of the times what we were doing when we weren’t working with students and things was creating those resources for the principal in our building. As we became more of the admin team, like seeing that those resources were missing. So it kind of started there. 

Then our relationship with principals and school leaders has really expanded as we started with Tailored, as we’re going around to support new teachers and do professional development and go to conferences through the lens of Tailored Education. We’ve talked with so many principals and they’ve shared with us that they are lacking in these resources. Or if we share something oh, I never thought of that and things like that. 

Sarah: Yeah, we spend a lot of time in school buildings now as more on like the consultant side of things. So when we’re working with brand new teachers who come in without licenses and helping them get through the steps to get there. We are working closely with those principals to see like who needs what. Where are we? We try to be super aligned with coaching that we’re giving, making sure it’s aligned to school initiatives and stuff like that. 

So in building these relationships with people, really it’s easy when you’re in your own building to think like is it just here? Is it just this district? Like what happens if I go somewhere else? But we’ve now worked with many different even states. We’ve been to several different states and worked with principals in so many school districts and it’s everywhere. So when we really stepped out of that and saw like that, it’s everywhere. We were like okay we’ve got to help. We’ve got to help do something.

Angela: Yeah. The reason I ask that question, just to reiterate it, is that sometimes principals and district leaders, we can think that if a person hasn’t been in the position or hasn’t served on the position then they don’t really know the position, which there is definitely a layer of truth to that. 

Why I love what these ladies are doing is that they’re approaching supporting site and district leaders from the lens of instructional coaching, the lens of teaching, to be able to provide you as the leader with the tools that bridge between the leader and the teachers. To help you from that lens of instructional coaching or from the lens of a teacher to really help you be a better leader, to help you have the tools you need in hand that will relate and be relevant to instructional coaches or to the classroom.

So that it’s not just principals leading the way leading principals. It’s a teamwork approach where we’ve got the instructional coach lens. We have the teacher lens and the site administrator lens all coming together to share ideas, tools, strategies that will allow you to do your job to the best of your capacity because you’re looking through multiple lenses. It’s not just this one area of focus. 

Because I’m pretty particular. I understand that leaders are like well I don’t want people coaching me if they haven’t done the job. This isn’t coaching. This is a marketplace. This is a venue for you to be able to go shopping and make your own decisions about what resources you need and which ones fit best. It’s just the platform. 

They’re providing the opportunity for you to go shopping and to have access to these resources that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible. Like they would be just kept in the hearts and the minds of the individual who created them. You’re giving people a voice and a space and a platform to share that, which then inspires other people to be like what can I share? Now we’ve got a community of collaboration and connection and building up one another, focusing on strengths, focusing on what’s working. It all comes together through these multiple lenses. 

Sarah: That was a big thing. We moved from being classroom teachers into instructional coaches. Then we took on major school leadership roles when like COVID hit and people got spread out. You had to step into those shoes, processing referrals, running IEP meetings, balancing frustrated parents, answering the phone calls, and just being there to step in all the time. 

That lens thing that you were talking about is so important because it’s so easy for teachers to be like well, they don’t understand what I’m doing or they don’t care about how hard it is in my classroom. As a school leader and as an instructional coach, a lot of times we found like sometimes teachers can struggle to see the bigger picture, like more than just on their hallway.

We really tried to, in all of the roles that we’ve had, bridge those gaps. Relationships has been our number one thing from day one before we even started any of this and helping bridge those viewpoints and just let everyone see that we’re all on the same team. Sometimes it’s just little bits of information that get lost in the middle. 

Andra: Right. The team that we were on before we left the school there were people from different backgrounds and stuff. So it was kind of we brought all those pieces. But as we travel around, we see if you’re the only principal in a school and you only came from one pathway, maybe the Principal Exchange platform can help you have those other lenses or bring those strengths that maybe you don’t have yourself in. 

From people who are really good at making data spreadsheets. That’s not your strength, but you don’t have a big enough team to have somebody on that team that has that strength. So hopefully the platform itself can play off that as well and provide that for people who have a smaller team, or maybe they have the same strengths and they’re looking for resources and things from people that come from those different viewpoints or that different pathway. 

Angela: Yes. Another thing I love about this, like it takes teamwork to such a deeper level, that we are all on the same team as educators. That we’re all out there, regardless of what state we’re in, what city we serve, what community, what school. We’re all trying to do our best to serve kids in the best way possible. 

What this does is it brings a layer of teamwork and collaboration that otherwise, like the way that the system’s currently set up, it’s like who’s the top school, and what’s the top score, and principal of the year, teacher of the year. There’s all of these, I don’t know, accolades within the field. But what it does is it individualizes us and it separates us and it doesn’t build team. It builds like a competition almost. 

This platform, it’s a space where you can feel safe enough to come in and share openly and collaborate, but it’s collaborating across the board, across states, across private/public, across K-12. It really is like a hub, like the town square, right? 

A place where people can come and everyone’s welcome and everyone’s invited. It’s a place where you can actually support one another without feeling that there’s any judgment or criticism or feedback or score or grades that you’re trying to hide from or trying to better or one up or whatever, right? That competition piece gets dropped out in this space.

Andra: Right. It’s just what do you need, and we hope that’s there for you, whether it’s on the platform or this community we’re trying to build right now through social media that hopefully transfers to like a conference with the same mindset. Where we hope principals are going to want to come in and they’re going to be the ones presenting at this conference and sharing their ideas and what’s going well in their schools and things. 

That’s the future of where we hope this is leading to. Maybe someday like a podcast where principals can share their stories and things. All of that kind of community that we feel like exists in a very small place right now that we hope is a growing place for principals. 

Sarah: Yeah, that was the idea behind the name is the principal exchange. We want principals exchanging and sharing, collaborating and bringing their successes and their struggles all together, you know? 

Angela: Right, right. Yeah. I love seeing opportunities like this because when I was a principal, and that was only 10 years ago, it was completely isolated. There wasn’t anything. Nobody was focusing on the school leader. It was the teachers. Right? Everything was on instructional leadership, instructional coaching, support for new teachers. Like we had the New Teacher Center come in and provide like mentors for the first two years of teaching. But it was like, here are the keys. Good luck.

Andra: Right.

Angela: That was it. So I did that for seven years before I saw a need. My niche is definitely like I’m a life and leadership coach. I’m a certified coach. So I’ve been in the job. I can coach on it, but I also mentor. But I’m working on time mastery, balance mastery, planning mastery, like emotional regulation. So that is a coaching piece that the work is within. Right? 

Andra: Right. 

Angela: This is like you get to go out into the world and you get to have that external exchange of ideas and connection and energy. Right? You just, you feed off of other people’s energy and enthusiasm and excitement and ideas. That adds to the experience for students, staff, and the principal, which is it’s such a beautiful collaboration of the internal work that I do with school leaders and then the external like connection and collaboration that you guys are offering as a platform for them. 

It’s beautiful to see that there’s people out here like hey, paying attention to the school leader. Hey, there is a need that is significant here. No one person can. Again, this is teamwork. There’s no one person that can cover all aspects of this job or what it entails. I love that you’re coming in really from the lens of I see the school principal struggling. I want to help them. I’m the instructional coach. I want to. 

They’re telling me their version, their perspective. Now we can take our talent and perspective as an instructional coach and be like hey, this is what we’re good at. This is what we see that you might need that could really help you. Now we’ve got a true collaboration. Not like there’s collaborations, and I’ve witnessed this like you’re playing collaboration, right? 

Andra: Yes.

Angela: Right. 

Andra: Right. 

Angela: There’s what it looks like and then there’s what it is. 

Andra: Right. You can try it, but does it actually work in our both parts or all parts really involved? Sometimes that’s the challenge. 

Angela: Yes. Yeah. It’s like, is this a safe environment? Do I trust people? Can I be somewhat vulnerable? Can I be honest? Most times it’s no, we shut down. So we play collaboration. But this sounds like it’s an invitation for people. Like they’re putting their wares out for you. You know, so again, like a market. Take it or leave it. But it’s a matter of like people are putting themselves out there for the benefit of the greater good, which I think it’s an act in education that we need to tap back into.

Andra: Yes. I think also the vendors on our page are so awesome. We weren’t sure when this started, how many people would be interested in this, and who even had time to do this and things like that. But they’ve been so awesome. 

What I’ve also seen and what we’ve seen is as vendors put their resources out, and there’s great feedback on it and they have success with it, maybe that’s helping with some of that burnout and things because they’re thinking oh, well, somebody else has used this and actually found value in it, and it’s made their day a little bit easier. So we’ve seen that piece of it too. So that’s been really neat. 

Sarah: Yeah. When we came into this, we also we ran into the idea of like we also don’t want principals like having to fork out a lot of their own money for this.

So within the system, we’ve embedded places for like POs. There’s W-9 forms, things you can print off so that you can use like school cards and school funds to pay for this stuff because it’s going back to your school. It’s to help your school leadership in your building. We want this to not be like well can I or can’t I? 

But we’ve really tried to think through all of the things that might be a hurdle in a principal’s way. We’re always open for feedback. So if anybody has any new ideas or is like oh, this would also be awesome to see, it really is a space that we’re trying to create just to support the school principal. 

Angela: Yeah. So, so, so good. So if listeners are dying right now and they’re like, I need to know all the details, all the information, give it to them. They’re going to be flooding over there. So tell them all the things.

Andra: Sure. So the website’s just theprincipalexchange.com. When you go there, whether you’re looking to be a vendor or whether you just want to check out all the resources that are already on there, the website is the same for that. We’re on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and all of that’s just the Principal Exchange as well. So we hope that, and there’s so much value in there. Of course, we’re posting and putting things, but value from other people and the vendors and things too. So it really is just a community that hopefully they’ll follow and find beneficials. 

Angela: Yeah. We’ll put all of those links in the show notes so you guys can check them out. Do you have any last words of insight of information that you want to share with the listeners out there?

Sarah: We see you. Like we see you out there doing the best you can every day, and we just hope that we can do a little bit to support you in return. 

Andra: You’ve been doing great things because everybody talks about teacher burnout and teacher turnover, but we see the principal burnout and the principal turnover, and we want to help that. We want to make this a better place and provide that support. So.

Angela: Yeah. Yeah. So, listeners, I just want you to imagine having coaching and mentoring plus the Principal Exchange in your back pocket. You’re going to be a rock star. It really take your school to new levels because you’re going to be doing the work that I do, the work that they’re offering. You’re going to have the tools and the resources across the board. 

That is what helps reduce burnout. It’s what makes you feel more impactful, more influential, build up your legacy as a school leader because this job is hard, but it doesn’t have to feel hard. The way that it feels less hard is when you’re doing the internal work that you need to do, building up your leadership skills, building up your emotional capacity, your leadership capacity, and having the resources you need at your fingertips so you’re not reinventing the wheel all of the time. It’s what it feels like when you’re in the position.

So I feel like this combo is just like the triple crown of school leadership, development and empowerment and resources. You have them at your fingertips. The links are in the show notes. Ladies, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for the meet and greet. We had so much fun on that. I really do hope that this is the beginning of so much more availability in principal resources. 

Because this is just getting started, right? This is just the beginning of this program for you guys in this platform. I can see it really turning in to a thriving city market, like a little town square market, right? So I invite people who are listening. If you’ve got ideas and strategies and you want to be able to share something, reach out to the Principal Exchange. I’m sure on your website there is a place where they can get more information about being a mentor. 

Andra: Correct.

Angela: Then if you just want to shop and window shop and take a look, you can do that too. So there’s no harm, there’s no foul. It’s just pure support, pure fun. I’m just thrilled to see these types of resources popping up for school leaders as they have been over the last decade for teachers. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for this service. It’s so desperately needed. I wish I’d had it 10 years ago, and I’ll do everything I can to promote it, to get it into the hands of the people who need it most. 

Andra: Well, thank you. We really enjoyed being on today.

Sarah: Thank you so much. 

Angela: It was my pleasure. All right, empowered principals, have an amazing week. Don’t forget, check out the Principal Exchange and we’ll talk to you guys next week. Take good care. Bye. 

Hey empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

Look, you don’t have to overwork and overexert to be a successful school leader. You’ll be mentored weekly and surrounded by supportive likeminded colleagues who truly understand what it means to be a school leader. So join us today and become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country. Just head on over to angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more and join. I’ll see you inside of the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader. 

 

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Ep #362: Stress Free Walkthroughs

The Empowered Principal® Podcast Angela Kelly | Stress Free Walkthroughs

Do walkthroughs stress you out as a principal? Do you see your teachers getting anxious and worried whenever district administrators come through your school? This is a common problem that can create a lot of unsettled energy on campus, and the truth is it’s your duty to confidently lead the way for your staff.

If you find yourself stressed out about walkthroughs, it’s an indication that you have some internal work to do as a principal around your thoughts about yourself and your work. The great news is that when you learn how to create psychological safety for yourself around the walkthrough process, you can do the same for your teachers. And in this episode, I show you how to banish walkthrough anxiety for good.

Tune in this week as I dive deep into the reasons why walkthroughs cause so much stress and anxiety for both principals and teachers. I explore the childhood roots of why feedback can feel so scary. I also share concrete strategies that will help you build your confidence as a principal and create a school culture where walkthroughs become a positive, stress-free experience for you and your teachers.

 

The Empowered Principal® Collaborative is my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to create exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. Join us today to become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country by clicking here.

 

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • Why walkthroughs trigger stress and anxiety for principals and teachers.
  • How childhood experiences with feedback shape our identities and fear of criticism.
  • Why all feedback is simply an opinion, not an absolute truth about you.
  • How to create psychological safety for teachers around the walkthrough process.
  • Strategies to build your confidence as a principal around walkthroughs.
  • The power of focusing on what’s going right versus what’s going wrong.

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

 

Featured on the Show:

Full Episode Transcript:

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 362. 

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 principals. Happy Tuesday and happy December. Look at us already in December. My goodness. Time is flying. We’re in the magic of December and all of its festivities and celebrations. It’s such a beautiful time of year. I hope you are enjoying yourself and really allowing yourself the pleasures of this month of December.

I want to talk with you about walkthroughs, teacher walkthroughs, classroom walkthroughs, district walkthroughs. Walkthroughs have been coming up this year. Teachers are highly stressed about walkthroughs. Principals highly stressed about walkthroughs. We’re going to talk about how to create a stress-free walkthrough environment at your school. So let’s talk about it. 

Most teachers get very nervous of walkthroughs. Administrators get anxious about walkthroughs. We get anxious about district administrators coming to our campus. Teachers get very anxious about district administrators walking through their campus. So there’s a lot of unsettledness that comes with walkthroughs. People are unhappy about them. They’re frustrated. They’re fearful. They’re worried. They’re stressing out. They’re freaking out. They’re unsettled. 

When your teachers don’t feel good, when they’re stressed out, you’re stressed out. You don’t want them to feel this way because you know the impact it has on them, the impact it has on the classroom. So you’re frustrated that they’re frustrated, right? You’re feeling uncertain. They’re feeling uncertain. It creates an energy on campus of a lot of stress, a lot of pressure. People aren’t happy about it. They might feel a little disgruntled about the whole thing. 

We’re going to break this down a little bit. So if you think about walkthroughs, let’s talk about why they’re stressful for you. Let’s talk about why they’re stressful for teachers. Then let’s talk about how to create a more stress-free environment and help your teachers feel more confident regarding walkthroughs. 

So we’re going to break down the worry here. When you think about walkthroughs, what exactly are you worried about? Now, everybody’s going to have a different response to that. Are you worried what they’ll see, what they’ll think, what they’ll do, what they’ll say, what they’re going to tell you to fix, who they’re going to tell you to fire? That’s usually what happens for us.

We freak out because we’re like oh my gosh, we’re being vulnerable. We’re being exposed. What are they going to see? What are they going to say? What are they going to do? What are they going to tell us that we have to do or tell teachers they have to do? So we anticipate a negative feedback experience. 

We never really stop to think about oh, they’re going to come in and they’re going to be so enamored and so excited, and they’re going to be so mind blown at how great teachers are. We’re always like what isn’t going to work? What’s going to go wrong? What are they going to see? Just notice that.

The brain defaults to this. It’s normal. Notice it in yourself. What are you thinking is going to happen? What are you anticipating is going to happen because of this walkthrough? How are you feeling about it? Are you worried you’re going to get fired? Are you worried you’re going to get demoted? What is it that you think is going to happen? 

Oftentimes, if you sit yourself down and you ask the question what am I freaking out about here? Or what am I worried about? If you’re honest with yourself, you’re like I don’t feel like I’m going to get fired. I don’t really feel like they’re going to demote me. 

It’s more the fear of feedback. The feedback of something we did or said or decided, something we didn’t do or didn’t say or haven’t decided, something wasn’t right, something wasn’t good enough, something needs to be changed. That’s typically where we fall in the land of I’m worried, I’m stressed, I don’t like this feeling. 

What I find so interesting about feedback, and it’s something I’m exploring at a deeper level because we are in the business of giving one another feedback. We’re giving students feedback. We’re giving and receiving feedback as a principal. We’re giving and receiving feedback to our teachers. There’s such a visceral reaction to feedback.

I think about this, where does this fear of feedback come from? We brace for feedback and we anticipate and expect the worst kind of feedback. Where is this coming from? I can see it. It comes from our childhood, from our parents, from other adults in our lives, mentors, it could be grandparents, aunties, uncles. It could be coaches we’ve had, but it also happens with our teachers.

It stems from our childhood when adults were constantly giving us feedback about what we did right, what we did wrong, what we should be doing, what we shouldn’t be doing. We started interpreting that feedback and creating an identity around it. 

We didn’t discern for ourselves if the feedback was accurate or true for us or aligned. We were just kids. We were just taking it for face value, believing it and creating an identity around who we were as a student, as an athlete, as a musician, as a test taker, as a child of a parent, as a sibling, as a cousin. Like all of these people giving us feedback in our life, we’re bringing it in and it’s molding and it’s evolving our identity because we’re taking it on at face value. 

So we would interpret that feedback and decide what we made it mean about us, about our character, about our intentions, our integrity, whether we are a good kid, a bad kid, whether we are a good student, a bad student, whether we were a good athlete, a not so good athlete, all of that. We make these decisions based on this feedback, okay? 

That happens in childhood because we don’t have the awareness or the tools or the discernment to say hmm, I’m wondering if this feedback is accurate or what else this feedback might mean because when we’re kids, we’re very worried about the consequences of this feedback. That we’re going to be in trouble. There’s going to be a physical consequence. There’s going to be a grounding and something’s going to be taken away from us. We’re going to be deprived of our friends or our phone or TV or our favorite things, maybe a mental consequence, how we think and perceive ourselves. 

We anticipate some kind of consequence from parents, from teachers, from adults that have authority over us in our childhood, and feedback can become very scary. So for the adults who experienced as children feedbacks and consequences that were painful or scary, feedback as an adult can be absolutely terrifying.

Because we’re an adult and we have a little more authority over our lives and a little more agency over there, we’re just going to do anything we can to try and avoid it. As an adult, you get to decide what the feedback means. You get to discern for yourself if the feedback lands for you, if it’s accurate, if it feels true, if it feels aligned for you. 

Feedback at its simplest form is simply an opinion. So your boss gives you feedback, that’s their opinion. When your spouse or partner gives you feedback, opinion. Kids give you feedback, your teachers, your boss, anybody. When anybody gives you feedback, it is their opinion of the situation, their opinion of how something was handled, their opinion of how you handled it or your actions, your words, your decisions, that kind of a thing. 

But it’s really an opinion. It doesn’t make it the law. It doesn’t make it a rule. It doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean it’s true about you. It doesn’t mean anything outside of you other than what you make it mean. I will say this. It’s much easier said than done to separate that out. Because we’re wired for connection and for inclusion. We want to be liked. We want to be a part of the community. We want to feel that people respect us, admire us, and value our contributions. 

But if we do acknowledge that any kind of feedback we receive is an opinion, we can separate it a little bit from ourselves. We don’t have to take it as absolute truth. We can take a moment for ourselves to discern the feedback we’re receiving. 

So I’ve talked about receiving and giving feedback on a different podcast episode. I believe the episode is 255. So listen to that one, and you can dive in on how to give and receive feedback. I think the title of that one is called Coachability, but it’s really on receiving feedback, giving feedback, and how to interpret that feedback and discern for yourself what lands for you, what feels true for you, and other types of feedback that doesn’t. 

So allowing your opinion of the feedback to be taken into consideration as much as you consider their opinion, that’s what I talk about on episode 255. So check that out for more feedback discernment. But what I want to contemplate today is why you don’t like the walkthroughs and how to make them more stress-free for you and then why teachers might not like them. 

So you are going to have thoughts and opinions about the walkthroughs. The district announces, we’re going to do walkthroughs this year, and we’re going to come through and spend five minutes per classroom, and then we’re going to take notes, and then we’re going to debrief with you and debrief with the leadership team, and then you’re going to have to take it back. They’re going to tell you what their process is for the walkthrough. 

You’re going to be like oh, this doesn’t sound fun at all. This makes me nervous. I’m worried what they’ll see, what they’re going to say. They’re going to tell me I’m going to have more work on my plate. They’re going to tell me I have to go fix my people. My people are good. What are my teachers going to think? How are they going to feel? This is going to just cause disruption in the classroom. What a big mess, right? You’re going to have a reaction. 

I want you to notice why. Think about this deeply. When you’re nervous about district administrators coming to your campus, there’s a vulnerability there. There are insecurities that you have as a school leader. Thoughts about you, thoughts about your identity as a leader, thoughts about your school, your thoughts about what’s working, what’s not, and what you make that mean about you as a leader. Your identity is feeling challenged. It’s being questioned. 

Because think about principals who are like, bring it on. I love walkthroughs. This is great. I want the feedback. I’m looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to show off my school. I’m confident. I feel good about this. There are people that have stress-free walkthroughs all the time. 

If you’re stressed out about walkthroughs, it’s an indication that you have some internal work to do, some identity work to do as a principal around your thoughts about yourself, your thoughts about your work. You’re probably really hyper-focused on what isn’t working versus what is, and you’re probably leaning towards the wanting to be perfect, wanting everything to look smooth and perfect and problem-free in your classrooms, problem-free on your campus, right? So, notice this. 

Then I want you to shift gears and look at your teachers. When you see teachers freaking out, it’s the same thing. You’re upset because they’re upset. You want to protect them. You don’t want them to feel bad. Number one, you can’t control their emotions. 

But two, if you think about why teachers would be freaking out about walkthroughs, yes, it might be new to them, and new is hard and different. It feels uncomfortable. That’s one part of it. But if it’s a standard practice and people just don’t like it, the reason they don’t like it is because they’re afraid to be vulnerable. They’re afraid their insecurities will come to the surface or something will go wrong. It’s their identity, their self-efficacy that they’re grappling with. Because there are confident teachers. Anybody can come into the room and they don’t mind at all.

So, we want to identify what’s the difference between principals and teachers who are confident with walkthroughs, who have no stress about them, and teachers and principals who are stressed out about walkthroughs. So, you might not like it for different reasons than your teacher or similar reasons, but typically it comes down to feeling insecure, being afraid, anticipating a negative outcome. 

So, lots of times when we go through the walkthrough experience, we try to dog and pony show, right? We say we don’t want to do that with our teachers and we create safe spaces for them to be authentic, but then district comes in and now that’s not authentic. Okay, what’s going on? 

It’s the same process. Am I going to be judged? Will it be a safe experience? Will I be emotionally safe? Will I be professionally safe? Will I be publicly safe? Am I going to be publicly embarrassed? Are they going to talk about me at the district level, or are they going to move me? Are they going to come in and sick the coach on me and make the coach now work with me for some incompetency that I have? There’s a lot of stress that can be involved there.

But what’s really happening at the end of the day for these teachers, it’s not about the walkthrough. As funny as that sounds, it feels like it’s the walkthrough, but it’s their thoughts about the walkthrough. They’re trying to catch me doing something wrong. I don’t feel safe. I don’t feel like they have value to offer.

What’s in it for me? Why are we doing this? I don’t understand the purpose. I don’t see the value. What’s in it for us? What’s in it for kids? What’s in it for teachers? Are they just walking around trying to be seen? Is it a political move, right? There are so many thoughts that teachers have. Are they picking on me? Are they trying to come after me? There’s a lot of scarcity and fear.

So what can you do to calm and bring down the stress level? Teachers are worried about themselves at the end of the day. They’re not good enough. They’re not doing enough. They’re not doing it right. They could get it wrong. District leaders are going to come in and tell me I’m not doing it the way they want me to. I don’t know what they want from me. I don’t trust them. All of those thoughts.

They’re making it mean their opinion defines me as a teacher. They define my career. Their opinion is going to determine my experience. These people have power and control over me. They have power and control over my career. 

Do you see where there is no authority, no agency? They feel completely disempowered because they believe that that opinion matters more. That they have control over their career. They have control over the experience. Their opinion determines how I feel and think about myself as a teacher. They’re trying to catch me do something wrong.

What you can do as a principal is to address this, what the walkthroughs mean for the teacher. When somebody walks through your classroom, it doesn’t mean anything about you. If they’re looking for perfection, that’s not the school. You can create safety with your teachers to say look, we don’t have to be nervous about this. Here’s all the things going right. Here’s how you’re amazing. Tap into your confidence. 

Be you. Let them see the reality of the job. If they see it, they see it. Do the best job you can be the best version of you. But worrying is going to make you more nervous, which is going to make you question and doubt yourself, which is going to come across in your teaching when they’re in the room. 

This is a five minute walkthrough. Be yourself those five minutes. Be the confident, brilliant, expert teacher that you are. New teachers listen up. They know you’re brand new. You don’t need to fake it. Be energetic, be happy, be enthusiastic. They’re just looking for will over skill. You can create a mindset with your teachers that takes down the stress that makes it less stressful for the walkthroughs. 

You can take your teachers through this. Imagine what it’s like for a teacher who has no fear of anybody coming into their classroom. They’re confident in who they are and what they’re doing. Even though they have bad days, even though they’ve got a kid who’s going off the rails, they’re confident in themselves. They trust themselves, even on bad days. 

At the end of the day, when you’re doing your best and you’re feeling confident about who you are as a teacher, no one’s firing you. No one’s moving you. They’re coming in to see, and they’re getting a snapshot. 

You can create less stress in the walkthroughs by number one, bringing down your stress level by building your confidence, tapping into your empowerment, and then reassuring your teachers. They’re okay. They’re safe. Be themselves. It’s okay to have people walk through. It isn’t a problem. 

Ask the teachers. If it weren’t a big deal for walkthroughs, then what would you be thinking about yourself? How would you feel? What would you be doing? You’d still be doing your thing. You’d be doing your thing whether people are in there or not. Just do your thing. 

Now, if what you’re doing in your classroom makes you nervous because you don’t feel like you’re honestly living up to your highest standard, it’s an invitation to live to your highest standard. But most teachers aren’t doing that. Most teachers are trying their hardest, and they’re worried it’s not going to be good enough. They’re worried that people are looking for perfection. 

Let’s be honest, there are districts who walk through and they do look for gotchas, and they want to talk behind your back and complain about everything that’s not working. That’s on them. You focus on what is at your sight. Here’s what’s working. Here’s why we’re great. Set the stage. If the district people want to look for the gotchas, they can look for the gotchas. It doesn’t have to mean that it’s true about you. 

They want to nitpick at something? Okay. Let them. Let them be wrong. Let them have their little moment in the sun, and you carry on. If you know you’re doing a good job, it doesn’t matter. If your teachers know they’re doing a good job, the walkthroughs don’t matter. If someone gives you feedback, discern for yourself. Does this land for me?

A lot of times when you get feedback and it kind of hurts, there’s some truth in it. It’s like yeah, I really didn’t plan that lesson very well. I was on my B game today or I haven’t really been differentiating like I know I can, or I know that’s possible, or I haven’t been tapping into my coach. There are some truths that come out in feedback and they’re painful, but we have the opportunity to build up our identity as a teacher and as a school leader.

We can take that feedback and say like, you know what? I want to feel better about this. This doesn’t feel good and I want to make it feel better. So I’m going to lean into this. I’m going to learn how to do this. That’s all it is. If something doesn’t feel good, what would make it feel better? Lean into that. Like we talked about on the episode about pleasure being irresponsible. Lean into the feel-good goal. Let it feel good.

So what do teachers want to feel when administrators walk through? They want to feel confident. They want to feel assured. They want to feel trusting. They want to feel safe. They want to feel aligned. You can help them with that. So what thoughts would your teachers be thinking about themselves, about their teaching capacity, and about feedback?

What would they be thinking if they weren’t afraid of walkthroughs? What would they be thinking about themselves, about the district leadership, about the experience of walkthroughs in general, about the outcomes, about the feedback? What would they be thinking about it? Walk them through the process from being afraid, feeling insecure, into feeling secure. Give them the support they need. Tell them to create safety for them, but walk them through the process of what it would look like to be afraid of the walkthroughs versus confident, or at least certain.

Try that. Let us know how it goes. Would love to see you in EPC. Doors are going to be opening in 2025. Happy December. Enjoy this month, and I will talk with you all next week. Take good care. Bye.

Hey empowered principal. If you enjoyed the content in this podcast, I invite you to join the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. It’s my latest offer for aspiring and current school leaders who want to experience exceptional impact and enjoy the school leadership experience. 

Look, you don’t have to overwork and overexert to be a successful school leader. You’ll be mentored weekly and surrounded by supportive likeminded colleagues who truly understand what it means to be a school leader. So join us today and become a member of the only certified life and leadership coaching program for school leaders in the country. Just head on over to angelakellycoaching.com/work-with-me to learn more and join. I’ll see you inside of the Empowered Principal® Collaborative. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Empowered Principal® Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, please visit angelakellycoaching.com where you can sign up for weekly updates and learn more about the tools that will help you become an emotionally fit school leader.

 

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