Overwhelm and problems can take down the best of us… if we let it. As leaders, we are often found being the ‘go to’ for all types of things. The ‘go to’ for help or support. The ‘go to’ for questions. The ‘go to’ to receive confirmation or accolades. The ‘go to’ as the source of adding one more thing to our already full plates. I could go on and on with the many hats that you wear as a leader and the many hats that teachers wear as well. Therefore the reasons you are the ‘go to’ person for the good, the bad, and the ugly are endless. I get it. I have learned this is all part of leadership. Sometimes it is the best part of being a leader and other times, it is the hardest part.
All along, you’re cheering your community on. You see how hard they are working, and you want them to find the life and passion for their work they are in search of. You know that you are cheering them on but they may not know this at times. You want them to know that you notice their hustle and determination to survive and never stopping until they reach their goals, however, it may feel that every time you try to teach them something or give them something for support, it backfires into overwhelm and frustration. This conversation is a common thread among leaders and teachers, which is why it has lit a fire in me. Why? Because teachers and leaders can save the world through the kids that they lead, therefore, decline into frustration and overwhelm….and staying there, doing nothing about it….is not an option.
I am a firm believer in prioritizing problems, tackling them one by one, not all at once, and going straight to the problem to fix it. The problem is teachers are feeling overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that leaders are expecting from them. Leaders have expectations placed on them as well and have to get things to the teachers and also want to provide value to their community in the time that they have. Leaders also want to give the community time to work on their own. You see the conundrum that we often find ourselves in?
You are a leader because you are problem solver and problem solvers are essential to our society. Some ways that you contribute to your community is you provide growth to your members, you provide support by helping to solve problems, and you work to make your community’s lives better through the services that your expertise offers. Since, we are problem solvers, we need to find a solution to this problem of teachers feeling we pile on more and more stuff every time we meet.
Think of yourself as a master troubleshooter! Think about what am I uniquely qualified to solve? Pay attention to your motivation and continue to try to sustain that motivation. This overwhelm and piling on that teachers feel from their leaders has been a lifelong problem. Pay attention to this and shift your mindset into seeing this problem as an opportunity to develop sustainment of motivation for you. Sustainment means it is manageable and long lasting. In order to have that we have to do a little at a time, focus on one thing at a time, and practice it through commitment and consistency. My solution is to start to drip your leadership.
Leadership Dripping is where you begin to drip small drops of your messaging every time you meet rather than dumping it all in one meeting and then changing up the messaging and dumping it all in at the next meeting. Dripping takes some streamlining though. First of all, you need to prioritize your messaging and stick with one idea and drip it over a period of time. Once you feel that your community is committing to it than you can go onto the next drip of messaging. Dripping your messaging is like a leaky water faucet. It consistently drips a little bit at a time until eventually it compounds into a sink full of water. That little drip can make that big of an impact!
Now as we go through this process, we are not just solving the problem, you are essentially creating a prototype for your teachers to use as well. Be sure that you are listening to the problems that they actually have and not the ones they don’t. Ask yourself, where am I experiencing friction? How am I solving that? Am I keeping it simple? Am I eliminating complexity so it is easy for my community to implement? Everything you do in this process of leadership dripping is to think of it as a product that you are prototyping ultimately for your community who will benefit from it. This kind of approach gives it the imperative to not just solve it, but to breathe significance into it. The focus is not just to solve the problem but to put more meaning behind everything that you are doing.
Now that you have got your problem and the messaging to help to solve the problem and put meaning behind the process, the second step is to get them to test it. Keep in mind, something that might click with you easily may not click with others. I was the queen of thinking everyone knew what I was saying! Which is why dripping leadership helps to give them small bits at a time, some time to practice, expectations to commit to it in their own way, and then sustain commitment. When you have dripped the small bits of your messaging and are now expecting them to test it out in their own classroom, be sure that your messaging and expectations that you dripped to your community was short, to the point, and easy for them to manufacture for themselves or in the classroom. Now pay attention to what your community has a drive to solve. This is so important! They need to want to solve the problem and so do you as their leader. If this is a problem that they have no drive to solve, move onto a problem that they have drive and a passion to actually solve. You are not called to solve every problem they have, this is not an achievable expectation so give yourself some grace and focus on what you can help to drive solutions.
The third step to dripping your leadership is to pay attention to visualize a benefit for you and your community if they start committing to your messaging and working towards a solution. What will they and you feel when you accomplish this solution? It is important to ensure that is in your dripping of your messaging as well.
The leadership dripping formula is:
- To observe the problem and that it is actually the problem. Determine hope and a strategy to help solve the problem.
- Does your community have the drive to solve the problem and then give time to test and practice your messaging.
- Visualize and verbalize the benefit that they will feel to solving that problem.
Drip this messaging every time you meet. Keep it short and simple and then give them time to practice and commit. Spend about 15 minutes at each meeting focusing on your messaging of this problem, showing them one way that might help to solve it in order to give them the drive to solve the problem, and then tell them how they feel if they give it time (they need to know this will take time) and commitment. Do this same messaging and same tackling of problems again and again at each meeting until they start to see results. It is then that you can use this same formula to drip at the next meeting with a new problem. Give them the rest of the meeting to either work to put your messaging into practice (15-20 minutes) and the last bit of the meeting to work on what they feel they need to do while all in the same room. They may want to transition to their own rooms to work but simply explain that the purpose of staying in the same room is so they have access to each other and you for support. It is also important to state that transitioning takes up so much time so you are being mindful of the time that they are asking for to get what they need done.
This leadership dripping allows you to be very clear and assertive with your messaging because you are only focusing on one thing. It is less overwhelming to the community because they are hearing one message in a short period of time but lasts for multiple meetings. There is also an expectation and commitment to giving them time to test out your messaging for their own benefit, not yours. They know the benefit because you have visualized what is in it for them. They know that it will take time, there will be some things to figure out along the way, it will take practice, and if they do this they will feel (insert the results here). Keep in mind leadership dripping is short mini lessons of your messaging using the formula over multiple times you meet. It is not changing your messaging and initiatives every time you meet. Dripping your leadership messaging will take practice, time, and commitment. But it will help to address the problem of teachers feeling overwhelmed by all of the stuff they feel you are throwing at them that they may not be hearing anyway.
What about all of the other stuff that you have to get done? That can happen in many different ways. Send an email or build time into that meeting for them to read that email (5 min max) if you are concerned with them not reading it. However, this time that you are giving them to read the housekeeping items are not up for discussion at this time, you are simply respecting their personal time and are giving them professional time to read the email. Next, your messaging might state that you will be available to discuss any of these items that they just read at the next zoom office hours that you may set up the following day or a date in the near future that works. By setting up a common zoom office hours time, it saves time because they can just log in and ask rather than running down to the office. You can also get stuff done while you wait. This takes the housekeeping right out of the meeting and allows time to focus on your messaging that you are going to drip (15 minutes), time to practice and discuss the messaging, and time for them to continue the work on your messaging or get something that they feel they need done in the same room.
No matter what, this is hard work and takes time and commitment. But that doesn’t scare you. That is why you chose to be a leader. Keep your messaging short, to the point, and let them know what is in it for them. Keep in mind the benefits to you too. Dripping your messaging allows the overwhelm to decrease and it is easier for you too because it provides clarity and streamlining. Stay strong and believe in your ability to lead through this all. Remember, I am always rooting for you!
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