Years ago, I was blessed to be in a position to hold seminars with groups of educators designed to discuss and build leadership skills both informally and formally, internally – for the individual and externally for the school. As we discussed leadership skills and qualities, we would talk about new tools being put in our toolboxes as leaders. This year in Teach & Serve, I have decided to talk about many of those tools.
SELF DEPRECATION
Serious stuff happens in the life of an academic leader. Very serious stuff happens.
I will not go into a litany of the items that cross the desk of an administrator or a department chair but they are varied and vast. Many of them are quite consequential.
Mistakes happen in the life of an academic leader. Very serious mistakes happen.
I will not go into a litany of mistakes I have made in my time as an administrator but my mistakes have been varied and vast. Many of them are quite consequential.
If leaders respond to everything from a place of ego and from a place of defensiveness, they will not last long in the role.
The tool of self deprecation has been one of my most important ones in my years in formal school leadership.
I do not do everything correctly. Nor do the people around me. Things will happen. I will cause them. Some will be bad. As a leader, I need to let people know in my example – and it ought to be an authentic example – that I can be self deprecating, that I do not take myself too seriously.
This is good for the school. This is good for the leader’s soul.