I’ve not written for a long while. In keeping to the title of my blog, Vulnerable Leadership, truth is I have been a little lost and disillusioned in my school transformation journey. The non-negotiables I firmly held to regarding school transformation have been challenged in the past 4 months causing me to pause, reflect, and grow.

When a new leader inherits a campus, they also inherit the campus staff. This may be true for new managers and supervisors in private sectors as well. Success in these private sector organizations is often measured by profit, meeting timelines, and or customer happiness. For a new campus principal, measuring the success of an educator is not quite as a cut and dry.

If our actions do not inspire people to make positive changes, then we are not leaders. In my opinion , leadership is reserved for those who value inspiration as it relates to organizational improvement. In my blogging hiatus from Harvey, I have been reminded of the importance of the concept of leading through inspiration. We have heard leadership is not a position or title but rather a service to those in our care. Can you imagine what we would be capable of accomplishing if we truly lived out this belief? Can you imagine the possibilities if we truly owned the success of others in our care like our own?

In light of Hurricane Harvey and its devastating effects on our community, my heart tells me to back up with some thoughts on leadership presence which, to me, is vitally different from visibility. Early in my administrative career I heard a phrase that I wholeheartedly agree with, “You can’t lead from your office.”

In my last post, I shared that as we began defining learning and our purpose as educators a common theme emerged- fear of losing control, fear of chaos, and fear of non-compliance.

I am often asked how do you go about this enormous task of transforming a school into a community which prioritizes its sole purpose to support student learning. I will start by sharing that it is always a journey. It must always remain a journey because students change, communities change, and research shows us higher yield instructional practices.

As mentioned in my first post, transformation of any kind starts with what is going on in the heads of the people belonging to the organization – their beliefs. This is because to shift beliefs in the minds of our educators in schools, we must first ignite and inspire their hearts. In my experience, our belief systems drive our daily actions, interactions, and our words.

Let’s continue our beliefs conversation… what do we believe is the definition of learning. After a very clear understanding has been established that people are our most valued resources over programs comes the importance of defining what we do in school. As elementary as this sounds, this is one of those crucial conversations that if left out will result in people moving in different directions and meaningless initiatives that lead to purposeless change or even worse yet complacency.