Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 378.

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.

Well, good morning, my Empowered Principles! How are you feeling today? Here we are, end of March. You’ve made it through the longest month of the spring. So congratulations. I know that March can feel like a very long month. There’s a lot of days in March. There’s a lot of pressure in March.

There are a lot of decisions to be made in March, and you, my friend, are handling them. And I want to celebrate you. You only have two to three months to go, depending on what part of the country you live in, what your school district’s timelines are. But some of you are done at the end of May, and some of you are done at the end of June. So I am rooting for you.

So for those of you who have two to three months to go, make sure you’re planning out the last eight weeks of the school year. And be sure, please be sure to be planning out your Summer of Fun Challenge. And for those of you who are on Facebook and you like to have fun, if you are both of those things, come on in to the Empowered Principal Facebook group where we do our Summer of Fun Challenge. I do lots of fun prizes and encourage people to get out, have fun, and to be inspiring to other people. And really what we’re doing is we’re raising the bar to see how much fun we can have as school leaders during the summer and during the entire school year, I would venture to add.

So congratulations on making it through March Madness. I know that it can be a challenge. So as we close out March of 2025, I just want you to notice, we’ve already been through January, February, and March. We are a quarter of the way through the calendar year. And I say that to bring up awareness and to help you realign with who you are and who you want to be and how you want to feel and what you want to experience. It’s been a wild ride in 2025 and I want to create that awareness.

And every week you listen to this podcast, I want you to be thinking about, with intention, the experience you want to have in your school leadership experience, in your career, with your children, your relationships, your relationship with time, your relationship with your money, your relationship with everything around you. But ultimately, the life you want to live, the life you want to lead, the legacy you want to leave behind.

And I don’t mean being some famous person when I say legacy. I just mean your personal legacy, what you value, what you cherish, how you’re going to be remembered, creating those memories with your loved ones while you’re here on the planet, while they are here on the planet. We’re not ever guaranteed another day, another year. So why not make the best of this day and cherish this day and appreciate this day?

So as we’re wrapping up the first quarter of 2025, look back at the last 90 days. Look at your last plan. What did you celebrate? What did you learn? Where did you grow? What accomplishments did you create? What experiences did you have? Who did you connect with? Celebrate your life, acknowledge it and enjoy it.

Okay. Now this podcast is going to be pretty quick because what I want to do is show you how we can create problems for ourselves. So I was coaching one of my EPC clients. Once a month, you have access to a free 30 minute one-on-one session with me as a part of being in the Empowered Principal Collaborative. So you get the best of both worlds. You get weekly coaching, you get all the collaboration, you get the connection and insight from like-minded people.

But then you also, if you have something that’s churning at you or something that’s private or confidential, once a month, every EPC member has access to a 30-minute one-on-one private session with me as a part of the membership. Now, this client has been working with me for several years as a one-on-one client. And when I opened EPC, she did both for one year and now she’s an EPC exclusively. And she scheduled a one-on-one session with me and it caught my attention because this client is pretty savvy at coaching herself. And I know that when she does schedule a one-on-one session, there’s something going on for her.

So we connected. I asked her what was going on. What did she want to coach on? And she felt very distraught. The way that she introduced her problem was that she was going to have to have a hard conversation with a teacher who was very set in her ways and is a very good teacher. So the principal was feeling conflicted because she felt she had to have a difficult conversation, a very uncomfortable conversation with a teacher who she saw as being very set in her ways, but also being a brilliant teacher.

And I asked her, if this teacher is brilliant, what’s the hard conversation you’re having with her? And she said, it’s about collaboration. This teacher has extremely good interactions with children. She gets results. Her classroom’s on point, like teaching wise, we have no problem. But in the principal’s mind, the way that the teacher collaborated was a problem.

And so she felt like she had to address this problem. So stay with me here, because if you have a person like this on your campus and you’re like, they’re such good teachers, but dot dot dot, they’re not good at relationships with adults or they, whatever they do. If you’re in this boat, which trust me, I’m assuming, and I know it’s an assumption, but I’m presuming that there are many of you in this boat because you have people who are really good and this thing or really good, but this thing. Okay. Stick with me here.

So I listened to the story. I allowed my client to brain drain all of her story about what was going on and what was wrong and why it was a problem. And I can’t share the details, obviously, with you, but the gist of it was the colleague, this teacher, had been in a gen ed classroom and now she’s an intervention teacher and there was multiple intervention teachers, and the colleague of the teacher wanted to collaborate differently than she currently was with her colleague and she felt that she was being met with resistance.

So hear me out. The person that the principal had planned to have a difficult conversation with was a person who’s an excellent teacher, but whose identity, based on other people’s opinions, was a difficult person to get along with. Now, it could be true. I don’t know the person, which is great because I can stay super neutral.

So this person perhaps does not collaborate in the way that people would expect, or maybe she does engage with adults differently than children. We oftentimes do. So when we got down to the core of what was going on, I said, what’s the real problem here? Is the real problem that teacher needs to collaborate in the way that the colleague wants her to? Is that the problem? Is the problem that the colleague doesn’t feel connected or supported to her peer? Is that the problem? Is the problem that because somebody came and said something to you, now it’s a problem that you have to solve and you feel an obligation or a duty to solve it for them? What is the actual problem here?

And I want you to hear this out because there are so many things that come our way. And adults will come up to you and say things.

For example, I was coaching another person yesterday and she said, “Well, I had a teacher come and tell me that another teacher came in late.” And again, my question is, okay, the person came and told you something, which that’s fine. They have the right to tell you that. You can say thank you. But do you have a problem as the principal with the person who came in late? Maybe you do, and maybe you address that. But isn’t it interesting that somebody came to you and told you that because that person also has a problem.

And so when they come to you to tell you this person came in late, that person clearly has a problem with the person coming in late. It’s not just the person who came in late, it’s the person who tattled or told on the other person. So what I coached and mentored this newer principal on was, “Isn’t it interesting that this person would come and tell you that somebody’s coming in late.”

So my response to that person, if I were principal, I would say, thank you so much for sharing that. I really appreciate you being honest with me. And how does it make you feel that this person’s coming in late? Is this person’s tardiness impacting you directly in any way? And the reason I wanted to know that is because I want to ensure that if I address this, that I understand the impact of the other teacher’s tardiness.

Is there something about the tardiness that is directly impacting you? And that creates awareness for the teacher who’s coming to tell you, why did I come and say this? Was I coming to tell? Was I coming to get attention? Was I looking for connection with my principal? Was I just tattling? Was I concerned for the person, but I don’t have a relationship with them? And I’m wondering, maybe something happened? Are they okay? But I don’t feel comfortable going to them.

It creates awareness around the behavior of the person who’s telling. So there are times when people come to us and tell us, this is what’s going on. This is how I feel. I saw this, I overheard this. They’re sharing it with you. And you can be grateful that they’re sharing it with you. But it’s interesting to consider, is it really a problem? Is it this person’s problem? Like, where does the problem lie?

Oftentimes what happens without awareness is somebody comes and says, my colleague is not collaborating with me in the way that I want. She’s not sitting down with me during PLC time and she is not collaborating. And you need to know that. And then you’re like, okay, thanks for sharing with me. How are you feeling about it? Well I’m frustrated, I want to collaborate with her. I’m used to collaborating with the other team I used to be on collaborated and this team doesn’t.

Okay. That’s good to know, but notice how the person coming to you is the person you want to engage in conversation with. What exactly is the problem? Why does it bother you? How is it impacting you? What is it that you see? What do you think this obstacle is in the way of collaboration. What do you think the solution is?

The conversation isn’t, oh, thanks for letting me know and you go now and talk to the other person who has no idea what’s going on perhaps, or maybe they do. But do you see how there is an opportunity for conversation to get to understand the person who came to you about their thoughts and their feelings and what it is they’re looking for and their perception and what they think the problem is and what they think the obstacle is and what they think the solution will be that is an opportunity for connection and conversation with that person before you ever go off running to solve it.

Because here’s what’s happening. Somebody tells you something, you take it for truth, you take it at that face value, and then you go and you try to fix it. You try to change somebody else so that the person who came to you can feel better. Right? It’s the same thing. If a student were to come up to you and say, you know, Sally hurt my feelings. Okay. Tell me more. What did Sally do? What did Sally say? How did it impact you?

You would talk to the child who’s distressed about the circumstance that occurred before you would go and just say, okay, go get Sally and let’s have this conversation. Now, some people might do that, but I’m inviting you into the idea that there may not even be a problem.

So back to the story of my client, when we dug down and I asked her, okay, the teacher that you were considering this difficult conversation with, she gets great results, right? She kind of keeps to herself. So maybe she does find adult relationships a little more taxing for her, a little more challenging for her. That could be true. She said, yeah, I’ve had multiple experiences myself and I’ve heard other people say that she can be a challenge to work with.

I said, but she kind of sticks to herself. She gets her job done. She’s prepared, she’s planned. But ultimately, she has an excellent relationship with kids and she gets the job done. So where is the problem, the actual problem? And we spent about 30 minutes dialing down and it became apparent to the principal, oh, I actually don’t have a problem with her. She’s not, to my knowledge, not harming anybody. She’s not harming children. She’s not negatively impacting anybody. She’s just a teacher who tends to keep to herself. She tends to prep by herself.

And it’s the colleague who is feeling the dissonance, like the discord between the two of them. So let’s talk with that teacher because for her, that’s the problem. The teacher who’s out doing her thing and maybe isn’t collaborating in the way that it should look like we all have, you know, in PLCs, this is how it should look and this is how people should talk and this is how people should collaborate.

But if we are truly in the business of human development, in the business of people, and we’re expecting teachers to embrace, allow, and account for differences, diversity, equity, accommodations. Why would we not model that in our staff? Does every single student need to fit the square? Does everybody need to fit in the box? Or do we differentiate for students? For kids who really struggle with social-emotional skills or really struggle to connect and to relate in the exact way, they might not be able to think pair share or to partner up or to work in a group. Not everybody is designed exactly the same.

And so what we do is we understand children, we get to know them, we get to understand them, we get to understand their triggers, and then we create a space that allows them to still feel safe in their own skin, even if they have neurological differences, biological differences, physical differences, mental differences, emotional, social differences. We create a space that accommodates and allows for flexibility. Can we do this on our staff as well? Can we allow our staff members to be different?

Maybe third grade collaborates differently than fifth grade or first grade. But if it’s working for them, we’re good. Now in this case, you have somebody who’s completely happy doing minimal collaboration and somebody who has a desire for more. So for the person, if they’re not causing harm and they’re not doing anything wrong, you can discuss with them, like, how do they feel about collaboration and what’s working for them and what’s not. But also with the person who doesn’t feel like fulfilled or satisfied, is there another way that that fulfillment can be nourished?

And in this case, we’re talking about intervention. So intervention, it might not look the same as gen ed collaboration or PLC time, might look a little different. And if this person in the intervention position isn’t getting the full collaborative experience she wants with this one colleague, might she be able to fulfill that with someone else, with another colleague? Maybe she can push into grade levels. Maybe she can work with the special ed team. Maybe she can work with anybody on the campus. Collaboration doesn’t exactly have to look like one thing.

Now, I know some of you are going to say, well, she needs to be held to the same exact set of standards as everybody else. And that is an option. You can certainly say, this is the standard, this is the expectation, you must sit down and collaborate. But in the conversation I had with my client, what she discovered is that forcing PLC time, collaboration time to look exactly the same in every single grade level and every single department on her campus might actually be a hindrance to their success.

And so she wanted to take into account is forcing people to look just one way and do it just one way is making people sit down for a certain amount of time and talking in a certain way and taking notes in the exact way. Is that level of management, is that really creating the best results?

So this principal decided I’m going to let the results speak for themselves and I can work with this team to see if we can create more connection in a way that’s authentic for everybody involved, not forcing one person to do it the other person’s way, or one person to have to give up what they want, but living in the land of and helping them collaborate and noticing that one, is this actually a problem?

And two, if somebody’s feeling there’s a problem, who are we actually addressing, being mindful of that, and working with that person to come up with multiple solutions. Because when somebody’s in discord, disharmony, they feel that there’s a problem and they come to you, what’s happening is they don’t feel the way they want to feel about something, whether it’s collaboration or a colleague or whatever. The goal for you as they come to you is, how do they want to feel? And then what multiple options might create and generate that feeling?

So in this case, if that person feels disconnected from her colleagues, might she be able to connect with other colleagues to get the sense of fulfillment and collaboration that she craves? How can she fulfill that need for herself and not need this one person to fulfill that need for her? Especially if the other person isn’t intending to cause harm or discord, they’re just uncomfortable or they maybe have, you know, some neurological or some biological, who knows? There are reasons that people avoid different kinds of collaboration, different kinds of contact.

We want to be respectful and mindful of that. So it could be an opportunity to collaborate with this team and also empower your teachers to find other ways to fulfill their needs so that it’s a win-win. We don’t need to force somebody, particularly an adult who may be a little more adverse to adult connection or a ton of adult stimuli, this communication and connection. If that is overwhelming to some of your adult staff members, let’s be open to allowing for flexibility, diversity, allowance, embracing acceptance, embracing flexibility in how we approach teaching, learning, planning, collaboration, conversation. Something to think about.

Have a beautiful week. Happy March. I hope you enjoyed it. We’re bringing up April. Come on in to EPC. If you are a brand new leader, oh my goodness, get in EPC right now so we can get you started. We can get you planning. We can get you transitioning. EPC is the bomb you guys. I could not love it more. The only thing that would make me happier is all of you coming to join us. It is so, so fun and so worth it. I love you guys. Have an amazing week. Talk to you soon. 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.

Hello empowered principals. Welcome to episode 376. 

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. 

Well, hello, my empowered principles. Happy Tuesday and welcome to the podcast. It’s such an honor to be here with you today. I have another excerpt to share with you from Relationship Mastery. I mean, I really love this Relationship Mastery program. I created it a couple of years ago, but this year I completely rewrote it, the entire thing. I added some of the concepts that I had prior, but I really have gone through my own journey with relationships, professionally and personally. And I’ve gained so much more knowledge and wisdom and understanding. And I’ve done a deep dive in reflecting on how I want to approach relationships and who I want to be in them and how I want to speak and how I want to treat people and how I want to feel about relationships and be in relationships and connection and how I want to feel about myself moving forward.

So this portion of the module is so good because at some point you will most likely run into this scenario as a school leader. I can promise. And it can be tricky because when you’re in it, it’s very hard to see it. You might not be able to catch it when you’re in it. So I hope that this excerpt creates some awareness so that when you’re conversing with somebody and you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, this episode will pop into your head and you’re like, wait, I wonder if this is what’s happening.

So there are people who are going to get upset, right? People who will disagree with you, people who have misunderstandings or people who will be downright mad and they’ll want to discuss their concerns with you. They will come to you and they’re going to express themselves and express some emotion, but at the end of the day, they are people who want to resolve the issue. They want to feel good. They want this resolved. They’re looking for a solution. And they’re coming to you to work in collaboration even though they’re expressing emotions, negative energy. Okay?

Then there are folks who thrive off of conflict. They kind of seem to be energized by it. They get a lot of traction with it. They enjoy making your life a little miserable. And I want you to take note of this type of behavior. It may be coming from someone who has no intention of resolving the conflict.

And this clip will talk about how to look out for people who want to engage in conflict for their own personal benefit, for their own gains, and ways that you can identify this and then approach them in a way that can maybe shut this down for you. They can stay mad for as long as they want. We can’t control that, but I want you to have some tools to be able to identify and then approach people that might be interested in conflict for the sake of conflict. So enjoy this show and again if you’re interested in purchasing relationship mastering the link will be in the show notes. Have a great week everybody. I’ll talk to you next week. Take good care. Bye.

One of the questions I always like to ask is, is there anything else you’d like to share? Is there anything else coming up for you? Let them get it all out. Because a lot of times they’ll be like, oh yeah and then this other thing. Okay. Let it all out. Let them share. And then when they’re done sharing, is anything else coming up for you? Like, okay, they kind of express themselves.

I take say to them, I want to be in partnership with you. I’m very direct about my intention. I want to be in partnership with you. I want to focus on how you’re feeling and how you want to feel. How do you want to feel about this right now? What’s missing? What’s the resolution you’re seeking? What do you think it is that you need? Because I want to understand where you’re coming from.

Now, let me address very quickly, because I know we’re almost at time here. Some people want conflict. Have you noticed? There are people out on the internet, out on the streets, out in the cars, in public. There are people in our schools who actually seek out conflict. They like it. They like the feeling that comes with conflict. They like the adrenaline rush. They like the cortisol. They like the dopamine hits. They crave it. It’s almost like an addiction.

And I’ve thought about why would people want conflict? They’d love to engage in conflict. Well, one, it feels very powerful when you’re coming in all hot and bothered and stomping around and screaming. And it feels like you have power. Actually, you’re completely out of control.

But for the person doing it, it feels like a sense of control. I’m going to be the boss around here and I’m going to stomp around, probably because that’s how they grew up. They probably had parents who stomped around and screamed and yelled, and that was their positional power. They had authority as parents, and that is how they exhibited their power and their authority.

So people grow up and like, well, it’s my turn. Now I get to be like this. It’s a sense of power and control for them. It might also be a need for attention. You can see that on the internet. You can see it in public, like people just creating a scene, undo attention seeking, and they’re trying to get whatever kind of attention they can.

You probably even have kids like this who are like, they like to get in fights because it makes them look cool, makes them look really tough and strong, and people don’t mess with me. It’s an identity. It’s a need for attention. It’s a sense of power and control when they lack it in other ways.

So oftentimes, it’s coming from past experiences. It’s their zone of comfort. It actually feels better to be in conflict because if there’s no conflict, no drama happening, how boring is life, right? It’s the only approach they’ve probably witnessed. But ultimately, it comes back to people who want to have conflict. It’s about how it feels for them. Powerful, empowered, righteous, justified, important, significant, all of those things.

So how do you approach people who want conflict? I’ve had this, I’ve had parents, I’ve had teachers who have actively engaged in conflict because they liked it, because they felt a sense of power, they felt a sense of power over me. And with those people, after going through all of the stuff I’ve just shared with you and trying to come to a resolution and then I’m realizing, wait a minute, this person doesn’t want a resolution. This person wants conflict.

So I will say to them, what’s the solution you’re seeking? And do you actually want that solution? What’s the solution you’re seeking? How do you wanna feel about this? What do you think would make this feel better and why? I make them say to me, what would resolve this for you? You seem very upset.

We’ve talked about this multiple times. You continue to drag it on. You know, this is continuing for you. I can see this continuation of stress and frustration and unhappiness. And I’m really curious, what do you think would make you feel better? And is this resolution that you think that you need? Is this what you’re actually seeking? Do you want a resolution right now? Because sometimes we don’t want it. We don’t want to make it better. That’s okay.

You don’t need for this to feel better right now. You might not actually be ready to solve this problem. If that’s the case, if you need to feel the feelings and process it, I’m here for you. You can feel however you want for as long as you want. What I want to do is the leader as the school, the principal, or your boss, you know, what I want as your leader is for you to feel good. But I also understand on a hold space for your feelings. So what does that look like?

Now, people who want conflict, who love it, who engage in it intentionally, they are fueled by reaction. When you react when you meet them where they’re at energetically, they love that. It’s like putting gasoline on a fire. But if you respond versus reacting, it doesn’t feel as fulfilling for them. Okay? So notice if people are not wanting to give it up, they might be doing that because the conflict is what makes them feel good. You’re not feeling good, but they’re feeling good.

So you can ask them directly and you can say to them, it’s fine for us not to solve this. And then we’re going to set some expectations. And sometimes they don’t even realize they’re doing it. There’s some people who are like, No, you’re actually right. I kind of want to just be mad about this right now. Okay, fair enough. I’ll give you some time. As long as the way you feel is not impacting your students, your colleagues, then you set some parameters around their emotional response. Okay?

So one more time. For team, tune in. E is express emotional energy. A, align your goals with agreements. And then M, meet them in the middle. Because the goal is harmony. The truth is you actually are on the same team. You’re on team human experience. We both want to feel good.

We all want what’s best for the students. We want to be in harmony. People want to feel good. Even people who love conflict. They actually want you to be in harmony in conflict with them. They want you to engage in battle, but that’s a form of harmony for them. And you can decide, I’m not going to engage in that. That’s just not my standard. But when you’re ready, I will engage in harmony because harmony doesn’t mean perfectly aligned, perfect agreement. It means you have different perspectives, but they can blend together kind of in a way that works.

There is a difference and I’ve said it, but I want to be explicit about it. There is a difference between reacting and responding. Reacting is when we act on our initial emotional experience of an exchange with someone. So it’s when somebody sends you an email and you email them right back, or someone yells at you and you raise your voice, or a teacher talks behind your back and you call them out for it in anger. Or a parent complains about you and you defend yourself, right? The reacting, like a responding to the gut reaction, that is a reaction.

Empowered principals, our goal is to respond. We want to pause long enough to shift from our amygdala into our prefrontal cortex. We need a couple seconds to do that. Responding is basically just pausing, pushing pause when you feel a reaction coming. When you’re feeling the reaction coming, you push pause, which is, this is what push pause looks like. Pause yourself. Do not fire off a text. Do not fire off an email. Do not march down to that person’s room. Do not get in the car and go over there. Do not pick up the phone. Pause. Breathe. A-A-B-C-D. Take it back down a notch.

Creating a response comes from the A-A-B-C-D method. It’s how you create awareness, centeredness with intention. How do I want to respond? And you craft a response that’s based on centeredness and then directing your thoughts back to the outcome you desire. Because the goal is to feel good. It has to be an alignment. Whenever you’re in conflict, if you react, we’re going to raise the energy and raise the conflict, we’re going to fuel it. Nobody feels good.

Even the person who loves the conflict, they’re like, whoa, that felt good in a little bit. But also like, now I’ve got to keep this up. It’s a facade that they’re playing because that’s all they know. That’s how they know. They only know how to react. But deep down, people want to feel aligned. They want to feel calm. They want to feel at peace. They want to feel happy. They want to feel good for us as leaders, for them as staff and students, and for the greater good of our communities.

The goal is to feel good. Imagine a school where people felt good, felt good about themselves. They weren’t trying to keep up a facade. They weren’t pretending to be somebody. They were just feeling good about who they were. They felt good about the school they sent their kids to. They feel good about their teachers. Teachers feel good about themselves as teachers. Students feel good about themselves as students. They feel good about their friendships. They feel like they understand how to navigate them. Imagine a school like that. For us, for them, for the greater good.

Relationship mastery. It involves awareness. It involves alignment. It involves momentum. And it involves knowing how to overcome obstacles. You start with awareness, what you’re thinking about. What am I thinking? What’s going on for me in this relationship? Am I creating this conflict? I feel unaligned, I feel misaligned. What’s happening for me? I start with awareness. What do I value? What are my priorities? What is the desired outcome I want? That’s step one.

And then alignment is knowing those desires and those goals, getting clear about what you’re, you know, looking for in this connection, this relationship, how do you want it to feel for you? How do you want it to feel for them? Creating a win-win environment, creating a win-win connection, looking for a meet in the middle, understanding the goal, how it’s a win for them and for you, aligning your actions and communications with that desired outcome.

When you are able to do that, you gain momentum in building relationships, maintaining them, cultivating them. Relationships are alive. It requires you to nurture them with time and attention, to be engaging with them, checking in with people, genuinely caring, listening, being in how energy, honesty, openness, willingness.

And of course, you’re going to have to learn how to overcome obstacles. That’s what we talked about today. All relationships have speed bumps. They have detours, they have speed bumps, they have road delays, it’s just like a road trip, right? We have to navigate that.

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.