There’s a lot to pay attention to when it comes to school leadership. That’s the beauty and the beast of it. The beauty is that you are so needed for ideas, input, solving problems, topics of conversation, everything, etc. The beast? Well, the beast is that you are so needed for all of the above and so much more that it tends wears you down and can make you wonder why you choose this career path in the first place.
The good news?
Your still here. You want to figure this leadership thing out to make an impact.
You are reading this blog which means you do still want to be here and are looking for some clarity to help ease the overwhelm and endless lists. You are here because you are fighting to be in the leadership space and want to be here. It just might feel like there is a better way than doing it all, solving it all, and trying to control it all.
Before I stepped back and figured out the high yield strategy, I was an overworked, tired teacher and leader who tried to do it all and please everyone at home and at work.
People pleaser.
Foggy brain and exhausted from trying to do it all.
Never really present and desperate for approval.
Scared to death of screwing up and not doing things right. No matter what I did, I could not get off the hamster wheel. It just kept moving in circles. It felt like groundhog day every day and I never got anything done. The ‘to do’ list was endless!
Cue: Hard Times, Motivational Gurus, the Internet, and a Thousand Mistakes…
I did not have a smooth ride into leadership. While my success in the classroom should have transferred over to my leadership in administration, let’s just say it took me awhile…
The shift from teacher to leading a school was anything but smooth and inspirational. Finally when I decided to take the leap to figuring this leadership thing out, I was plagued with “squirrel” syndrome, chronic second guessing, creating fake stories in my head, and a gut aching feeling of not being good enough. This made everything seem not so doable and a million times harder.
And when I finally did wake up and start getting some traction, I realized I had it all wrong. I am not just a leader in a school, I am leading humans and inspiring difference makers. I needed connection, intention, and a plan.
The first few years were not so pretty.
I didn’t hit eject from my cushy office and land softly into a culture full of roses and rainbows.
Every small “win” was marred by an even bigger hit of self-doubt, sunken ego and a shooting pain inside my leadership gut that taunted me with a crippling sense of “not enoughness’ and ‘what if they don’t like me!’
Long hours spent in front of the teachers without the flow and clarity to justify it.
That’s when I finally stepped back and payed attention to where I was needed the most. I listened, I watched, and I learned. I looked at where I would get the most traction with leading an action-taking community and that was where I spent my time. Not everywhere, just a few places.
I call this the high-yield strategy. In other words, where would I get the most bang for my buck! The high-yield strategy is where you take a look at your community and see two to three niches or little corners that you could really make an impact. You focus on those 2-3 areas the most and let go a little of the others. I know! I said let go! But trust me if you do a few things really well, the other things start to rise along with it. As they say, “if you focus on everything, you focus on nothing.”
First place i looked was where I could build relationships with teachers without having to spend hours and hours observing them, solving problems for them, or preparing meetings for them. That was where I started to take my ipad with me wherever I went. I took picture of things I noticed around the school, videos of fantastic lessons, work samples from students, bulletin boards, impactful pd opportunities, transcripts of conversations that I had with teachers, etc.
I created a google classroom for teachers that they could use as a platform to learn from each other. This was where I posted all of my noticings. This was a high yield area because I could provide learning opportunities for colleagues to learn from other colleagues, motivate teachers through each other, build relationships by recognizing experts and perhaps nudge my leadership messaging of expectations through their work by highlighting things I wanted them to notice. All of this while walking the halls! High yield, a lot less time.
Next, I found meetings were becoming an endless drone of housekeeping. I wanted to build relationship with teachers by providing value to them through adult learning. I didn’t want to spend hours and hours trying to find what to do and what to teach them during meetings, so I developed a framework that I have used at every meeting for 5 years. The framework is a workshop framework where I do the modelling or teaching for 15 minutes, the teachers then engage in practice, research, collaboration, etc. in order to practice, discuss, and notice the learning process of how what admin modelled and how it could look in their classroom, and then we close with them coaching each other with how they took action in their own classrooms with the strategies they have been learning in their meetings.
Download an sample Guide to Workshopping Your Meetings here for more info on how to do this,
Yes, yes, aaaaaaaand yes! Now I was getting traction with less time and effort in my meetings too! I had a go-to framework that I used every time, teachers were doing more of the thinking and learning, and we stuck with one priority over time until we felt ready to move onto the next priority so teachers were clear on expectations and less overwhelmed. High yield – less stress and work. You see, how this strategy can really help you to finally get somewhere!
Now remember I said to choose only 2-3 high yield areas to really pour into. My third area of focus for high-yield strategies was how I gathered evidence from teachers while I observed them in their classrooms. Again, my ipad became my best friend. Notability was the app that I used. I created a file for each teacher and started to build teacher portfolios much like the student portfolios we expected our teachers to gather for their student’s learning.
Instead of typing endlessly at the back while watching a teacher. I got involved and didn’t stay as long in the classroom. First, I told my teachers at a previous meeting my intentions for being in their classrooms was to gather evidence of their work to extend their reach in order to coach other teachers through google classroom. I also told them it was part of the process that I expected them to do with their own kid, therefore I must place these same expectations on myself. I wanted to not just gather product but to also gather observations and conversations that occurred.
As I was in the classrooms, I took pictures of their bulletin boards, sticky notes or work that the kids were doing, pictures of the teacher interacting with the students or writing/learning alongside them, etc. I wrote anecdotal notes and quotes that students said about their learning, questions they asked or that I may have, snippets of conversations of powerful teaching points, and next steps that I may suggest for the teacher. At our post meeting, I showed the teacher the pictures and the notes and it brought their lesson to life for them. A teacher once said to me that looking at the residue of learning that admin noticed happening during the lesson was like a background tour of a concert where you get to see deeper into what is really going on. I like to say it is the underbelly of a mud puddle where you find the real work that is happening.
High yield – less work – more impact. Heck yes! Sign me up for that! I was still in classrooms but for less time and more impact. I was building relationships with the students and teachers by highlighting them as experts to their colleagues (motivation went up) and modelling how they could also do this in their classrooms with their own students.
Now I think you get the picture with how I found my high yield areas within my own community. It might look very different for you but find them and then pour into those areas. Let the other areas go a little. I know what you might be thinking. You might be thinking that you absolutely have to get those other things done. Yes, do them. But don’t pour into them as much as you pour into your high yield areas until they become the high yield areas. Remember if you focus on everything, you focus on nothing. Make sense? Good, now start making a list of 2-3 high yield areas and make a plan!
Once I started to focus on high yield areas, I got more traction, more engagement, and less work and time. I am no longer missing my girl’s hockey games and my community and I feel like I am more present because I have a plan and boundaries. So here is to high yield strategizing in leadership my friend!
For the guide to workshopping your meetings, click here!
Want more?
Check out my website for for how I find clarity in my leadership messaging.
And…..
My students and I have podcast! The students research it, write it, and publish it themselves. Our teachers and parents use it to listen to with their kids and then use it in their lessons for quick writes, problem solving, or conversations. They are 5-10 minutes long and super effective! It is a wellness podcast by kids for kids called Even If You Miss. Subscribe to us on Apple podcasts or Spotify!
Lastly,
We invite you to join our private facebook group called Principals and Leadership! If you haven’t joined yet, what are you waiting for!
Even If You Miss..... 