… genuine leaders recognize that they cannot have all the answers, nor should they try to.
Leaders often assume responsibility not only for the success of their leadership initiatives but also for the emotional well-being of those they lead. While this sense of responsibility is not inherently wrong, it is what leaders do with these impulses that truly defines their leadership.
Leaders sometimes labor under the illusion that they must possess every answer, manipulate every lever, and shoulder the burden on their own. Leadership can indeed be isolating, but leaders who distance themselves from those they lead, whether administrators or classroom teachers, can quickly find themselves trapped in an echo chamber that constantly reinforces the idea that their voice is the most important.
When a leader believes that they alone hold all the answers, they are already on the path to diminishing their effectiveness. Highly effective leaders who fall into this trap see their effectiveness wane rapidly. Unfortunately, it is all too easy for leaders to gravitate towards this approach, as it is a simpler and more personally gratifying course.
You’re the leader; you have all the answers, and it feels like you’re the protagonist in a story with a heroic soundtrack.
Cue the string section now.
However, here’s the truth: genuine leaders recognize that they cannot have all the answers, nor should they try to. They accept the presence of gaps and relish the fact that it is through collaboration with colleagues, students, and families that challenges are met, obstacles overcome, and gaps bridged. Authentic leaders proactively seek out these gaps and empower those around them to contribute their insights. And when necessary, they are willing to roll up their sleeves and contribute alongside their team.
Weak leaders react differently. They dread a situation where they do not have all the answers or where gaps are evident. When these gaps are brought to their attention, they rush to fill them with whatever resources they have at hand. This compulsion to fill gaps arises from their fear that having gaps implies they are not performing their job adequately and that unhappiness or uncertainty is brewing among those they lead.
Strong leaders, in contrast, embrace the reality that they cannot possess all the answers. They foster an environment that acknowledges gaps as a normal and natural part of the landscape. They view these gaps as opportunities rather than deficiencies.
Strong leaders actively seek chances to pose questions that bring people together. Weak leaders rush to answer questions before they are even asked.
The many pressures on educators and educational leaders are significant. The nature of our work carries with it expectations for results and those results are reviewed, tested, critiqued, and analyzed. There is pressure from supervisors and students and parents. There is pressure to be right, all the time. There is pressure to get things done.
There is pressure to be agile, to be quick, to be fast.
In order for educational leaders to do their best work, they should resist most pressures.
This last one, the pressure to be fast, should be ignored altogether.
Educators can and should slow down.
When sharing advice with newer administrators and teachers, I have repeatedly offered a variation of this advice: “There is rarely a car on fire in the parking lot. When there is, you have to move fast. But, unless there is – unless someone’s health or safety is at stake – slow down.”
There is a reason – and it is a bad one – that the old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is shared with such regularity: that reason is because the adage is true.
A few years ago, I was speaking with a colleague and had one of those moments, a before and after moment. He asked a question that has resonated with me, one I have not been able to shake. “Why is it,” he said “that negative opinions can seem to be the more informed opinions?” Time and again in the subsequent years, I have found this question to be relevant and revealing.
The act of leading invites reaction. When reflective leaders make decisions, they consider the reactions of those being lead – both the positive and the negative reactions. Part of leadership is to put the positive in perspective while confronting the negative and sorting through it for truth. What can define a leader is her reaction to reaction. Upon which kind of reaction does a leader spend the most time? Upon which should a leader spend the most time?
There is a reason – and it is a bad one – that the old adage “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” is shared with such regularity: that reason is because the adage is true. Those who complain often and loudly get audience, get recognition, get traction. Those who make negative arguments find themselves in administrators’ offices, whether to have their behavior rewarded or rebuffed. Those who complain and posit that they know better – that they know best – are frequently viewed as change makers. Those who express the negative are too readily regarded among the intelligentsia of faculties and staffs.
Negative opinions are not the most informed, but they often seem that way.
Why is that? Whose responsibility is that?
I believe the responsibility, while it is shared, falls far more on the leader than the complainer. How the leader addresses and repairs the squeaky wheel is critical. And how the leader proceeds in the face of negativity and complaints says far more about the leader than those being lead.
If the leader gives equal weight to each complaint with limited ability to discern what is actually central and informed and what is not, weak leadership is at play. If the leader gives too little weight to each negative opinion or cannot distinguish what should be handled and what should be turfed, that, too, is a significant problem.
But the leaders who feel that every negative opinion must be addressed, countered, taken on and confronted because there is a sneaking suspicion that the rationale behind complaints is somehow better reasoned and, therefore, has more validity that other thoughts are just wrong minded. Their reactions are over reactions.
It can feel as though negativity is sharper, smarter, better developed than positivity, but that simply is not the case. How a leader deals with the predilection personally and in others to jump to this conclusion can make or break the leader in critical moments and at critical times because complaints can indicate coming crises. The leaders’ response to them can promote crises.
Watch leaders you admire handle negativity. Watch leaders around you address complaint. They will be confronted by both. Their reactions tell a story.
In terms of the professional world, no occupation re-writes its jargon with such wild abandon as education. I do not mean adds to its jargon, by-the-way. I mean changes it, reformulates it, restructures it.
Though I do not know how one accurately quantifies such things, I am fairly certain I am on the top of anyone’s scale of measurement of a person’s fanaticism for Star Trek.
I am more than a fan. Trivia and facts about Star Trek – the shows, the movies, the books, the podcasts – are deeply rooted in my mind. One wonders what thoughts I could think if my brain were not populated with episode titles and quotes and guest stars and alternate reality theories about the crew of the Enterprise and their comrades. I love the show in all of its incarnations (the Original Series and Deep Space Nine being tied in my mind as the best televised versions with Strange New Worlds coming on strong) but I came into adulthood watching Star Trek: The Next Generation. It is not overstatement to say I never missed an episode.
My wife and I have recently engaged (pun intended) in a rewatch of the seven seasons of TNG.
When you watch something as many times as I have watched that show, you begin to notice certain cracks in the veneer. Great episodes of the show are great. Good ones are good and bad ones tend to suffer from the same problems which repeated themselves over the course of the show’s entire run. I will not enumerate them all here (that is a subject for a different column in my blogosphere) but I will note that I was thinking of one repeated flaw just this week when my wife – a terrific and talented high school teacher who has been wowing her students for over 20 years – and I were talking about professional development opportunities.
Star Trek: The Next Generation, when it got in trouble would often get in trouble because of what the cast came to call “techno-babble” or, more to the point, “Trekno-babble.” Techno-babble referred to high science and speculative concepts and long lines of dialogue about technology which, while it typically had some basis in fact, sounded simply fantastical. As the show progressed, techno-babble became as central to episodes as plots and characters. For the actors, it was hard to say. Techno-babble often seemed to illustrate a lack of creativity. If the TNG characters could just “techno-babble” their way out of a problem in a fashion that audiences could not quite follow, where was the dramatic tension?
See? I know way too much about Star Trek.
But back to my wife. “All professions have their jargon” she said. She really said this. She is smart and throws out words like “jargon” all the time. “All professions have their jargon but can you think of any profession that changes theirs as much as teaching does? Every time you turn around, it’s some new edu-babble.”
“Edu-babble.” I love it. That word should trend.
I have a degree in secondary education. I have served my vocation of high school education for over 30 years and taught hundreds of classes and thousands of students. I attended all manner and variety of professional development opportunities – some great, some not, most somewhere in between. I have directed all manner of professional development opportunities for others – some great, some not, most somewhere in between. I have read hundreds of thousands of words on the subject of teaching, given talks and lectures and written articles about it, thought about it with passion. And, of education and the jargon we teachers and administrators use within it, I can safely say this: my wife is right.
In terms of the professional world, no occupation re-writes its jargon with such wild abandon as education. I do not mean adds to its jargon, by-the-way. I mean changes it, reformulates it, restructures it.
I do not mean to knock the shared language of education. I do mean to simply point out that our profession changes its language far too readily. Education inspires great thinkers to think great thoughts. Education knows it should change and adapt. Education understands that it has to be studied, evaluated, written about. Thing is, it seems that every few years, the newest innovation in education (and YAY! for innovating! Keep the innovations coming, big thinkers!) is all too often accompanied by words and language that must be decoded and unpacked (cumbersome, friends, cumbersome). If one is not willing to adopt the new language – and now! – one may feel on the outside looking in. When one experiences enough of these cycles, and is told often enough that they are saying it wrong, one stops engaging.
Why do we put the jargon in the way? Why is the edu-babble so important? It is not that there are not excellent new ways of proceeding in education – great practices supported by new research that should be shared and tried and refined – there are wonderful new things to do as educators. It is just that our profession all too often gets tied up in the words, in the edu-babble.
When the edu-babble does not make sense, teachers – short on time, long on work – resent the effort it takes to parse it out. When edu-babble begins to creep into their performance reports and teacher evaluation tools, those very reports and tools can be weakened.
It is not about the words, friends, it is about the concepts the words represent. It is about the ways to help educate kids better. When we get hung up on the language, on getting the words just right, we surely lose the forest for the trees.
I do not want to have to know a secret code to be considered a competent educator.
A viral trend among educators this year is to post two photos, one indicating how a teacher felt on September 1st and one showing the wear 30 days on. My own attempt accompanies this post.
Seeing so many of these “then and now” shots, I have been struck by two questions: is this virtual timelapse representative of truth and, if so, why are our lives as educators wearing us down in this fashion?
I conclude the first assertion – that there is a significant difference in a teacher between September 1st and October 1st – is absolutely true. Is it true without exception? No. But it is true in most cases. There is a difference. For educators, September 1st and October 1st are not created equally.
This brings us to the second interrogative: why?
In my experience, most teachers are idealists. The summer off (which is now far closer to two months than to the proverbial three) allows for teachers to recharge, re-energize, and re-commit. Most return to school with plans and procedures, dreams and goals that are lofty and inspiring. Those teachers who are new to the profession bring with them a similar vibrancy and the wonderful perspective that all things are new. During the summer, educators have slept more, have had free time, and have had a much needed break. They return to school with an energy they likely have not felt since the last bell on the last day of classes the prior year. Students, too, it must be noted, are often at their best in the first weeks of the year. They are, though they may not admit it, excited. They are learning new things and new people. They inspire their teachers.
There is a ton of energy at the start of any year…
… 30 days later, things are different. Educators themselves are different. 30 days make a difference.
And that is okay. It is, as they say, all good.
I do not mean to characterize the wonderful work of education as life sucking drudgery. I do not mean to suggest that this work is not wonderful. And I note that the September/October memes are posted in good fun.
But there truly is a difference between September 1st and October 1st. It is okay to recognize that. It is okay to note that what we do can be draining. What we do can knock us down every once in a while. What we do feels different 30 days in.
The reality is that educators persevere. They are here for those first 30 days and the next 30 and the next. It is what they do.
