Ep #120: The 50:50 Balance of School Leadership

The 50:50 Balance of School Leadership

Welcome to the latest episode of this month’s series on empowered school leadership during a crisis. As a school leader, whether you’re brand new or a veteran, you’re likely experiencing a lot of uncertainty around your job. Whether it’s figuring out how to set up Zoom, getting meal services to kids, or how to set up homework and interacting with your staff and boss, everyone is having a different experience.

The truth is that we’ve all always had problems. You had issues in the past that felt like the biggest hurdles to move past, and this will be the case in the future too, once the pandemic is over. There is always a 50:50 balance that exists between the positive and the negative, and my goal is to help you see how embracing the 50% that might not be ideal right now can allow you to enjoy the 50% that is good.

 

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Ep #119: Your Role as a Leader During Crisis

Your Role as a Leader During Crisis

Our schools are going through a period of real chaos right now. Even though we’re in the midst of a crisis, kids still need to learn, your job goes on, and your staff and the parents of your students are still looking to you for direction. And all of this is going on in a very uncertain atmosphere.

As a leader, people are going to look to you for answers. And the truth is, this is the first time you’ve dealt with this too, so you’re not always going to be able to help ease their nerves in that moment. And the sooner you can be comfortable with that, the more you will be able to serve in the ways that you actually are capable of.

 

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Ep #118: Coaching Yourself Through Crisis

Coaching Yourself Through Crisis

We are certainly going through some testing times at the moment and the coronavirus has had a profound impact on our schools and all of our school leaders. So, I’m going to deviate from my original episode schedule to bring you some help with navigating this unchartered territory we find ourselves in.

I truly believe that the situation that we’re going through is the absolute best opportunity to put into practice and perfect the work of self-coaching. Managing our thoughts and emotions and coaching ourselves is the best strategy for any challenge you face as a principal, and dealing with the Coronavirus is no different. Our thoughts determine the actions and results we yield, and we can’t afford to get caught up in problematic thoughts right now.

 

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Ep #117: Leading Your School Through a Crisis with Gina Yonts

Leading Your School Through a Crisis with Gina YontsI have a guest this week who I just know all of you are going to love. I met Gina at a women educator’s leading and learning workshop, and we have become close professional and personal companions. There are a lot of changes happening in our school system right now, so Gina is here to share her advice for principals during these early stages of this crisis.

Gina Yonts is the associate director of the Association of Washington School Principals. Gina is an experienced teacher and principal, who now works in a principal support role, where she works with school leaders around mentoring and induction, helping principals grow amazing leaders for her local area. Gina has a real overview when it comes to how principals are leading their schools through this pandemic and some great advice on the virtues of remaining calm.

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Ep #116: Your Thoughts Vs. You

Your Thoughts Vs. You

Thoughts can be a pretty confusing concept when we aren’t equipped to understand them. We have so many thoughts in a day, and when our job relies on our ability to identify problems and think of solutions, misunderstandings about our thoughts can land us and our school in serious trouble.

Today, I’m diving into a thought work practice that will help you be more specific in determining how you approach situations at work. When you’re really stuck on something, with a decision spinning in your head over and over, this tool will have you feeling better and neutralize your thoughts when it feels like you’re in it too deep.

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Ep #115: Your First Year as a Principal with Jena Damiani

Your First Year as a Principal with Jena DamianiThe first year of being a school leader is undoubtedly a really tough time. You’ve gone from being a respected teacher with bags of experience, and overnight you’re a brand-new principal with a whole new set of expectations on your shoulders. It’s a real challenge and you can feel like nobody understands what you’re going through. Well, my guest this week knows exactly what you’re going through because she’s there as well.

This week on the podcast I have my first interview with one of my very own clients. Jena found me when she started her first year as a principal, and I’ve been with her every step of the way, helping her think through everything the job has thrown at her so she can be an effective leader for her staff and students.

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Ep #114: Why Education Is Ready for Life Coaching

Why Education Is Ready for Life Coaching

I attended the AASA Conference this past week and, even though I had a different episode planned for this week, I really wanted to share my thoughts with you all about coaching and mentorship for school leaders. As you know, this is a subject close to my heart and my experience at this conference was a real eye-opener.

As school leaders, you have an incredible amount of influence over not just your teachers, but the students as well. Even the best leaders have bad days, so I believe it’s about time that support was offered to all principals when it comes to how they’re managing their minds.

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Ep #113: Trauma-Informed Leadership

Trauma-informed leadership is something of a hot topic at the moment. And rightly so. Paying attention to the wellbeing of the children and staff in our schools is the single most empowering thing we can do for them. I’m actually incredibly happy that this conversation has started to appear in our industry.

When something big is happening in your life, you know how difficult it can be to focus on your work. Kids are going through exactly the same thing, and we can’t expect them to learn effectively while they’re going through these consuming distractions. This is a huge difference you can make as a school leader, and this starts with us acknowledging our own trauma.

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Ep #112: Thinking Vs. Doing

As school leaders, we are very effective when it comes to doing. We schedule ourselves to be busy and we’re go, go, go pretty much all day. And that makes sense. I loved the feeling of accomplishment I got from a productive day where I got plenty done. However, that kind of behavior isn’t sustainable long-term.

With our default being taking action as prolifically as possible, it really takes its toll when we get interrupted or things don’t go according to plan, and we feel we’ve had a bad day because we didn’t accomplish everything that we’d planned to. But that, my friends, is just a thought, and it isn’t serving us.

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Ep #111: The Illusion of Control

We are at the effect of so many illusions in our work as school leaders. Whether it’s time, money, perfectionism, we waste so much brainpower on these illusions. One thing I see most in my clients is that they want to have control over everything. However, the only thing we have control over is ourselves and full control simply isn’t an option.

Because we are in charge of a school, it’s understandable that we would think that this positional authority would lead to and require total control. We think of our boss as having control over us in our job, so why shouldn’t we have control over our teachers, parents, students? However, if you dig deeper, you’ll see that people cannot make you act against your will. And the same is true of the people you lead in your school.

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