A few months ago I had a conversation with another leader who had heard some of my frustration about how the grade was going. This grade is unique. The new building has opened with over 450 students from kindergarten through eighth grade, consolidating three different elementary schools and mid-term campuses from various New York areas. Leadership always has its challenges, but opening a new facility brings you a unique set of twists and turns.
During this conversation I shared how I was frustrated by the staff culture and morale. Amidst the integration and changing the structure of the school, we have experienced leaving multiple staff members. We often discuss the negative impact of high teacher turnover on students, but when people leave the school community, everyone feels that. Staff are expected to close the gap, and leaders need to come up with a contingency plan to ensure students are still under instruction. I felt helpless – there were so many factors outside of my control that the teacher decided to leave. In response, she said something so simple that at the moment it deeply changed my mind: their morale was your morale.
At first, I thought, clearly. But when she looked into how I felt and what underlie my own feelings about work, I didn’t feel why I was feeling. So we sat together and wrote down everything that I felt was ready to point things in a different direction in my school on the whiteboard. Some of the curriculum materials we purchased were not yet available. The school-wide system, including arrivals and firing, had to be adjusted now after a few weeks in the new building. We were enrolled with almost 100 students. Some of the issues were technical issues we were already working on to solve, while others were less obvious.
Once I felt that I had finally written it all down, she asked me what the biggest thing that influenced my own feelings about my work. I scanned the list and eventually landed on something that would form a lump in my throat. I knew I was feeling the worst, but I didn’t want to admit it. When my morale was hit for sales, I found it difficult to do anything about staff morale. I didn’t want to look weak and emotional. But I also knew that sitting in my feelings of defeat, rather than reaching the root of my challenge was counterproductive.
I grew up in a failed public school district. There was a teacher in the distance that seemed unprepared. There were also teachers who built relationships with us as students, embracing us with high expectations and building the joy of learning. know How devastating is a mediocre teacher? The future of a child and how powerful a talented teacher is. There is a proverb that I believe in when it comes to employment. There’s nothing like a unicorn. The person you hire will not be the perfect person or silver bullet due to tough circumstances. It’s unfair to expect that. But when I hire someone, that’s because I believe there are people who will contribute to our community and our children. I don’t believe in hiring someone in the classroom for a warm body.
A situation beyond my control
As a leader, it’s easy to distance yourself from a team resignation. I’ve seen countless memes and pure LinkedIn posts that move forward the story of people not leaving the organization. They stopped being leaders. With the teachers left, it felt like they were failing with students and staff as leaders. I felt defensive about it. When people started leaving, it felt like I wasn’t doing a good job – or maybe I wasn’t working hard enough.
The unfortunate truth is that in addition to the unique challenges my school faced, we too Lack of teachers The whole education department. It’s hard to find a good person. Sometimes people just don’t follow the school’s vision. Sometimes people have living conditions that lead them in different directions in their careers. These are things we say to you when we deal with resignations and they are true, but they don’t erase the stabs of the strict teacher transition. Days and weeks after our conversation, I continued the rumours about why these resignations had a huge impact on me.
As principals, what it may look like at times to those we lead, but there are many things that we don’t have in our immediate control. So why am I so hurtful and irritated when dealing with high sales? Because despite the many things I can’t control, I still have a responsibility. I feel a responsibility to put the right person in front of my child every day.
Fails forward
The truth is, I don’t have all the answers and I’m not the only principal or leader with the challenges of maintaining staff. Some business leaders are tracking The so-called “major resignation” Even before the pandemic, it dates back to almost a decade. This essay is not about whether I agree with that principle or why people resign. No, this is how difficult it is to deal with the shame of experiencing a resignation, and how I am learning to deal with moments of leadership failure.
My colleagues were supportive and understood. As school leaders, we experience this. She pushed me so that I wasn’t too hard on myself. I have learned from this experience that balance is important. It’s okay to admit that your team’s transition is unfortunate. The reason why failure is so difficult for me to accept in this job is because of how important and personal it is. Without acknowledging the moments I have not reached my expectations, I deny the opportunity to grow and get better. My job as a school leader is to create conditions that my students and teachers achieve every day, doing their best to navigate my out-of-control situations. To do this, I cannot stick to embarrassment or failure for too long, as it deflects me from my larger vision. I have to focus on what is in my trajectory of control and align with my purpose as a leader. It is about working to build a great school for students.
