Over the course of this first semester, I have had the opportunity to consider – deeply – what I believe are the core qualities that make up a good leader, that inspire a leader who truly serves others. 

A colleague this week asked me if I could distill good leadership to one quality. He wanted to know what was the quality I believe is the most essential in an excellent educational leader.

I should,  perhaps, have taken more time to answer than I did but  one quality immediately came to my mind when I was asked the question and I was answering before I knew it.

Humility.

When I consider my personal journey and all the experiences – wonderful, terrible, and everywhere in between – that journey has afforded me and I reflect on the most salient takeaways I have gained, humility emerges at the top of the list of the most crucial qualities of a leader.

It would take far too much ink for me to enumerate the many lessons I had to work through which helped me learn that I want and need to keep humility at the center of my leadership. I could discuss the times I thought I knew better than the wisdom of the room, the times I got ahead of myself and ahead of process, the times I was embarrassed by my lack of knowledge and was afraid to admit that I was not the smartest person in a given conversation and that I did not have all the answers.

I have blogged about many of these experiences in the past. Each and all of them have taught me that the key component of my leadership and the quality I strive to keep foremost in my approach to it is humility.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom, said Gandhi. If that is true, and I believe that it is, it is wise, then, to embrace the wisdom of others and to do so in humble humility.

I want humility to be the heart of my servant leadership. I will work to make it so.

How did it get this late in the semester? I suspect teachers all over the Western world have similar reactions to the first week of December. Where did this semester go? How did I get so behind in my curricular plan? How can I finish everything I need to finish, grade everything I need to grade, get done all that I need to get done?

These questions are certainly timely. These questions are certainly real.

They are all likely to be resolved in the next few weeks. They have to be. Finals have to be written. Papers have to be graded. Work has to be done. Though it is difficult, sometimes, to look at the calendar and see how all the work will get done, it does get done. Educational professionals always find a way.

Dare I say these things – the finals and grades – are the easy things to address? They are easy because we know what they are, 

The truth is there are other things that need tending to as we approach the end of the semester – other things that, too, need to be done. Some of these are not obvious. They are not stacked on our desk or circled on our calendars or clogging our inboxes. They are of a different nature.

Consider this: are there students in our classrooms with whom we have been at odds? Are there students who have managed to rub us the wrong way, about whom we are justified (in our minds, at least) to feel great frustration toward?

Are there calls we ought to make; emails we ought to write? Are there parents we know are stewing that we are content to let simmer in their own juices? Are we willing to simply write these things off and hope that they go away?

Are there faculty members we have avoided, those with whom we have conflicts – large or small – with whom we would rather not speak? 

Much like we have “work” to do with grades and exams and closing out the minutiae of the semester, these things, too, are “work.” Why do we often resist the notion that this kind of work is as important as all the other kinds of work?

Hopefully you do not have many of these items in your life, professional or otherwise. Hopefully you tend to these issues as they come up and, because we work with people – with students, their parents and our colleagues – they will come up. Hopefully you do not leave these things undone.

As we look to the semester’s end, though, maybe we can set our sights on doing those things that are undone. Perhaps we can wrap up some loose ends that are not tangible. Maybe these final weeks we can allow ourselves a moment to reflect on what needs to be addressed and give us the space to actually address it.

Perhaps we can do the undone.

That would be a great gift to share with others and with ourselves.

As I write this, it is the week after the 60th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. With each anniversary of the event, more information comes to light or, perhaps more precisely, old information is recycled and repackaged and re-released. As a younger man, I dove into some of the information surrounding the circumstances of the president’s death, reading hundreds of pages on the subject. I became something of a minor expert on a few theories and I found myself in the camp that believes that there was some kind of conspiracy involved in the assassination. 

Most Americans believe there was a conspiracy behind the assassination, some 65% of Americans according to a 2023 Gallup poll. 

I am unsurprised by this fact not because of anything I personally believe about a 60 year old murder, but because, in my experience as a school leader, most of those I work with are ready to believe there are conspiracies all around them. Many look at discrete things their colleagues do, or at slights that have happened to them, or at directions their schools are headed with which they do not agree and link incident to incident to incident as though they are putting together an elaborate puzzle, the solution to which is a predetermined outcome: there is a conspiracy among us.

I believe we are too quick to ascribe intricate motives to what others do.

This is not to say that there are, in fact, hidden agendas and plans within schools. There sometimes are. This is not to say that there are not bad actors in our profession. They exist. This is not to say that there are not ugly situations that play out among us. These happen all too frequently.

However, to always default to conspiracy is dangerous. 

Most often, in my experience, those who have done us wrong or have done things with which we disagree or have led the school down a path which is inexplicable to us do not have a master plan which they are executing. They are too busy, too overwhelmed, or too tired to engage in such machinations. They are simply doing – perhaps well, perhaps poorly – but without a mosaic of strategic moves and countermoves.

Are there some conspiracies among us? I will grant there might be some.

Is every puzzle we put together about others’ motivations correctly assembled? I suggest that, more often than not, these puzzles are of our own creation.

REPOSTING THIS OFFERING IS AN ANNUAL, THANKSGIVING TRADITION. I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.

I am often amazed at the amount of effort it takes to keep a school up-and-running. When I consider it, I am in awe of the people power necessary to get the lights on, keep them on, unlock the doors, fire up the technology, learn the students’ names, observe the faculty, teach the classes, coach the kids and on and on and on.

It is a wonder it happens as consistently and as well as it does.

It might be worth our time, as educational leaders, to remember that and to set aside part of our calendar in our week to do something very, very important.

Share thanks, liberally.

Likely, we could schedule a full day a week for this activity and it would not be enough time.

Think about it. Think about all the people who make the work of your school possible.

Then thank some of them. It would be ideal to thank all of them, to be sure, but start small. Select some around you who deserve thanks. Single them out for your praise in a meeting. Send them an email. Write them a note. Give them a token.

Thank them.

The reality is none of us can run our schools alone. It takes more than a village. It takes a community.

I trust that you have been thanked, at one time or another, out of the blue, when you least expected it. I trust it made you feel good to receive that gratitude.

Share the love.

Imagine the feeling a custodian or a volunteer parent or a brand-new teacher or a long-term substitute might get from reading a card from you. You can change someone’s outlook with that kind of gratitude. You can surely change someone’s day.

Thanking those around us should be a far higher priority than most of us make it. Let us change that.

As we gather next week for Thanksgiving in the United States, our thoughts, hopefully, turn to those things for which we are grateful: family, friends, good health, good jobs… It is my sincere wish that you have many, many things in your life for which you are thankful and that they come to mind readily and easily.

Today, I would like to challenge us to be thankful for some other things, things that do not readily come to mind, things that we might, more likely, rather disdain than praise.

I would like to challenge us to be thankful for:

…the difficult parent conversation because many of these conversations lead us to reassessing how we do our work. In my experience, not all but most of these conversations happen because the parents love their kids and want to support them. Even the most difficult talks can (and often do) teach us something. Think back. Have you changed your approach, your policies, your demeanor because of a conversation like this? Give thanks.

…the challenging student because I would rather have a student challenge me than simply sit there. I would rather have a student fired up about something than a room full of disaffected ones. I would rather have a student make me consider how I deal with challenging students in the first place. We work with kids, they are going to challenge us. More often than not, their challenges can be channeled (if we are skilled) into positive results. Give thanks.

…the unreasonable colleague because most of the people with whom I work only seem unreasonable until I understand from where they are coming. When I work with a colleague whose opinions are outside my own, I have an opportunity to learn something about that colleague and, perhaps, something about myself. If I simply avoid people because I find them “unreasonable” I wonder how many people I will end up having to avoid… Give thanks.

…the inconvenient and inappropriate question because sometimes the out-of-left-field, how-could-you-possibly-have-asked-that-question is exactly the question that needs to be asked. As teachers and leaders, we are sometimes so goal oriented, we forget to slow down and ask outside-the-box questions. We avoid delaying to ask big questions. Someone should ask those and we should give space for them to be asked. Give thanks.

…the times when time runs out because, as leaders, we often impose deadlines. When the deadlines imposed upon us run out and we are late, we sometimes think those deadlines we missed were unreasonable. How about the deadlines we, ourselves, impose? How reasonable are they? Give thanks.

…the dismissal because every dismissal, of a student, staff member or teacher, grants us the opportunity to ask: “did I do everything I could to keep this person around? Did the school do all it could?” Those are terrific questions to ask. Give thanks.

…the late-night cry because getting emotional about our work, getting upset, breaking down, reminds us that we care. Give thanks.

Give thanks for the work. Give thanks for the kids. Give thanks for your colleagues. Give thanks for the challenges.

Give thanks.