Burning questions

I don't know about you all, but leadership in my short experience so far is a lot of fumbling through and figuring things out as I go.  Not all the time (thanks, grad school!) but a lot of the time.  So I have some burning questions to run by you that I'm wondering if anyone has found some solutions/strategies for yet.  Buckle up, they're biggies--

1.  How much communication is enough (transparent, honest, open) without being too much (burdensome, overwhelming, scary)?  Are there things better left to leaders to know without broadcasting, or is constant info-flow the best strategy?


2.  How do you balance vulnerability (being a real person, relating, sharing) with confidence as a leader?  Are they exclusive, or is there a way to balance both?  Do those you lead prefer you to be vulnerable and real or confident and stoic?


3.  How do leaders cope with giving so much more than receiving, and with the lack of appreciation or recognition for their work?  (They say it's lonely at the top... I think a big part of that is not having anyone above you to recognize your achievements or celebrate your successes.)


4.  To what extent is employee morale the responsibility of the leader?  How do you build others up in those times that you're feeling worn down yourself?


5.  How do you help fellow leaders grow professionally (as in, the others on your leadership team) when you're still learning and figuring it out yourself?

Thanks, everyone!  I look forward to gaining some insight from fellow leaders!

Igniting my Fire.

As I reflect over the course of this year in the Leadership Program and all the meaningful relationships and joyful experiences I have had, I wanted my last post to be about the reality many of us maybe facing-- Being Tired.

and I am not speaking in the sense of physically tired (although this maybe applicable, especially during the week), but the type of tired one gets when balancing graduate school, careers, job opportunities, job displacements and/or personal matters.

If anything, this post is more about encouragement.  As we wind down the semester, I am in need of encouragement.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel, however, the tunnel is so far away, yet so close.

Does anyone have any great resources, motivational speakers to listen to or short-texts I can read to revamp my spirit and energy level as we finish this prepare for graduation, prepare for the Georgia Milestones and continuously set and meet high expectations for students even when others lose their momentum also?

I listen to "Every Child needs a Champion" maybe once or twice a week, however, I fall back into the mindset that this isn't applicable in my capacity.  This then forces me to reflect on my experiences  working with children, working with adults and growing leaders.

I am on a quest to ignite my fire as I complete this school year.   Do you have any flames I can continuously burn?

Identifying Conflict

At the end of yet another interesting week at my school, I stumbled across Elena Aguilar’s blog focused on the necessity of addressing healthy and unhealthy conflict in a school leadership team. Blatant conflict doesn’t really occur at my school, especially on the leadership team; however, covert conflict runs rampant. If an individual doesn’t like an answer he or she gets to a question or request then, oftentimes, that individual will seek out someone who will provide an answer or response that the individual wants. This occurs regardless of the respondent’s ‘rank’ or area of responsibility. I was on the receiving end of such an occurrence this week; a department chair asked a question about AP exam logistics and when my answer did not fit within her parameters, she went to two other people until she got the answer she was looking for and I was directed to do what she wanted, essentially.

This wasn’t the first time this has happened to me, and it definitely wasn’t the first time that I’ve witnessed something like it occur. Sadly, these types of actions seem to be a large part of the school’s culture, and they are only serving to perpetuate the toxic nature of our culture. The first time I was involved in this sort of conflict, I was informed by one of my leaders that “well, that’s just how _____ is.” This sort of dismissive reaction has left me with the following questions (both of which are mostly rhetorical in nature):

• Who’s really in charge here - the teachers, the students, the parents, or the school administrators?
• How do we make decisions as to our courses of action - do we do everything we do in order to raise student achievement?

I’m not saying that adults in the building should be literally or figuratively duking it out; however, when we don’t acknowledge and address issues they can become a cancer within the building. In my school, since our students perform well on their own, we, again, have this idea that perception is reality & that everything is going well. Aguilar, in her post, emphasizes the need for a leader to identify and address conflicts. I especially like her suggestion that a leader define what healthy conflict looks like:

• We wrestle with ideas.
• We ask questions to probe for deeper understanding.
• We change our minds.
• We demonstrate curiosity.
• We hold student needs at the center of our work.

When conflicts aren’t addressed, it perpetuates the status quo, and, especially in education, the status quo is something we should seek to avoid.