Colleagues,
MVP: If you aren’t coaching, what will last when you are gone? I want to begin by thanking Mara for stepping in last week. I did not ask her to and I did not expect her to. She just did it. How cool is that? I’m assuming that you, dear colleague, are also someone who willingly steps into the gap. That’s what leaders do, especially servant leaders. But how did you get there? How did you become the person who steps up when others step back? Seriously, think about how you developed the confidence and desire to step up? Likely it is a combination of things:
Mara didn’t step into the gap “just because.” She was born with some gifts, she worked hard, and she capitalized on her opportunities. She has also been the beneficiary of intentional nurturing, mentoring, and coaching. Today’s intention: This week is focused on coaching, so pause and reflect:
Frederick
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Colleagues,
MVP: Grow your people and your results will improve. “Whatever and wherever you lead, there is a universal truth: improving the performance of the people you serve will improve your organization’s ability to fulfill its purpose.” The above is a quote from my book, which should be releasing 9 days (!!!) from today. People in leadership roles are uniquely positioned to be able to support and grow their people. And if leaders aren’t helping people grow, who is? Want better results? Manage your priorities, not your time. And prioritize growing your people. Today’s intention: Think about the people you serve and how they grew this week. What opportunities did they have? What could you do next week to increase their opportunities to grow? Cheers! Frederick Colleagues,
MVP: Be careful making up explanations, they probably aren’t accurate. At a training last week, I shared photos of cover drafts for my upcoming book, A School Leader’s Guide to Reclaiming Purpose. This morning I received an email from a colleague, who was part of that training, apologizing for “unsolicited” feedback she had offered about the cover. She said she regretted her comment and it was obvious she had spent time worrying about it. I don’t remember her making a comment. What happened?
These bullets may or may not apply to my colleague (you know who you are and I know that you are AWESOME), but they certainly apply to me. Time and time again I make up stuff to explain things for which I lack information. Time and time again, my negative story is completely false. Today’s intention: Listen to yourself. Attend to the stories you make up. Remind yourself that you lack information, and that your conclusions may be erroneous. Cheers! Frederick Colleagues,
MVP: Leadership takes different forms and we grow when we can appreciate them. Whenever I do a leadership styles workshop, I begin with an activity to help people understand there is no single best style and that all styles have value. It is a forced choice activity where people choose between:
Each step of the way, I ask people to share why they chose the way they did, with the purpose of highlighting that each choice has different strengths. In a training I did last week, most people chose a hammer, which is typical. Why a hammer?
When I asked someone on the nails side to explain why they chose nails they said this: “It is the nails that hold everything together.” The people who had chosen hammers all paused and became very thoughtful. It can be difficult to appreciate the power of leaders who are not like you, but learning to see their strength is invaluable. Today’s intention: Think about the people around you who lead in different ways, and pause to appreciate the different forms leadership takes. Cheers! Frederick Colleagues, MVP: People in the same organization may be experiencing very different levels of stress. We are in an age when our systems are consistently under stress. Last week I was working with an organization being pressured on all fronts – over regulated, under resourced, with increasing needs for its services but diminishing support from the state. During the training I wanted people to have their stress and emotions validated in a way that provided them deeper understanding as to why they felt as they did. There is no easy fix for their situation, but the more we can understand a thing, the better equipped we are to deal with it. So, we looked at the six dimensions of organizations and how misalignment between people, purpose, structures, and resources created stress. We also discussed how to quantify that stress based on the degree of turbulence (see image). I go into this more deeply in today’s episode of The Assistant Principal Podcast, but here is the takeaway I want to share with you…
Within the same organization, different people are experiencing different levels of turbulence. Please do not assume that everyone feels the same stress you do. Watch, listen, and then respond appropriately. Note that people experiencing extreme turbulence have very little capacity to engage in change initiatives. Today’s intention: Consider printing and posting the image of turbulence and using it to reflect on where people in your organization might be. Consider sharing it to develop some common language. Cheers! Frederick |
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