Just Put the Key in the Door

Colleagues,

E38 Just put the key in the door with Dr. Maddie Jurek
 
MVP: To overcome leadership fears, just take the first step into the space.

Dr. Jurek is an assistant middle school principal in South Carolina. We were talking about the challenges of observing teachers who have more experience or teach in a discipline that you don’t understand when Maddie said:

“The hardest part for me whenever I went in to observe those lessons, truly, was putting the key in the door and turning the knob to walk into the room. After I walked into the room I realized, I don’t have to focus on content here... I am here to focus on instruction, and there is a difference between instruction and content.” 

There are two great lessons here. The first step to leadership is often overcoming our own fears. We can spend too much time thinking about the negatives and how we aren’t qualified or don’t know enough, but shutting down that negative thinking begins with stepping into the situation.
 
It is highly likely that we will at times be leading people who know more than we do about many things. We don’t need to be experts in everything to help our people grow. When we focus on leveraging what we know (assets) not what we don’t know (deficits), then we can support people.

Cheers!

​Frederick