I am always looking for ways to improve my leadership in my professional and personal life. I have to admit, I am a little obsessed with it actually…I love to research and read all types of books, listen to podcasts, and read articles and blogs that help to motivate me and renew me. So if you are feeling a little depleted and looking for your passion and purpose again, definitely try looking into some research and motivational reads and see if that helps you. As I come across some really great reads or findings, I love to unpack how this learning looks in my own life and leadership. I often look to gurus like Michael Hyatt, Amy Porterfield, Sandra Herbst, Ann Davies, and John Hattie. Every time I look to them I find golden nuggets of inspiration and clarity. Clarity is everything to me and I learned if I am not intentional about it, then everything gets muddled. This week’s clarity for me was reading the book Radical Candor and listening to Amy Porterfield’s podcast.
These past few weeks have been a little bit of a mind struggle for me. I was feeling like I was losing my grip on my clarity so I hunkered down and set time aside to really look at some areas of my leadership that I have really improved through implementing specific skills. I did this because I felt like I wasn’t a good leader. I needed to unpack the work that I had already done and was still doing and I needed to go back to those touch tree areas to recalibrate. Once I did, the clarity and the energy came back.
After I had unpacked my leadership strategy, I realized that these were 5 very important areas (or touchtrees that I like to call them) that I need to go back to when I feel like I am losing clarity. They always guide me back to my next step. These areas came from my research in the book Radical Candor and from Amy Porterfield (who I am always learning from) so once again, some of these are not my ideas but I want to share them with you because they improved all areas of my leadership. These are 5 areas that I believe you absolutely need to develop and strengthen as a leader and I am going to unpack them for you in this week’s blog post. These traits are something I have been sifting through for awhile now but every time I go back to them, I get stronger and more clear of my pathway.
The first trait, I learned from the book Radical Candor was effective and clear communication skills. I started my leadership trying to do it all, get it all in, and say it all. I learned very quickly how that just overwhelmed everyone. Keep it simple. Get in. Get out. Do this with every type of communication that you can. Keep it to the point for communication with your messaging to staff and parents, hard conversations, leading meetings, leading professional development, emails, etc. People want you to give it to them straight and so I have learned to do just that. It works so much better. Plus it takes less time! And if you have been following me for awhile, you know I am obsessed with productivity and efficiency hacks. I especially have to dig deep into this trait when I am having uncomfortable conversations. I used to avoid these conversations altogether, or try to muddle the conversation with a bunch of jargon and sandwich it with good things at the beginning and end. The problem was, I was trying to stuff so much of the other stuff in so I would not hurt their feelings that the message was completely lost in it all. Now I use the DESC method as a script for becoming more assertive:
- Describe the behavior or situation. Be objective and keep it to the facts.
- Express your feelings or observations about the behavior. Keep in mind that using “you” statements is judgmental and immediately puts the other person on the defensive. Try to use “I” statements to describe how you feel.
- Specify what the ideal outcome would be. What do you want or desire from this scenario or the other person? Remember to consider their thoughts and motives.
- Consequence or compromise. Explain what the consequences will be should the offending behavior persists. Positive or negative consequences may be appropriate. It may also be appropriate to suggest a compromise.
After digging deep into how I communicate, I became more assertive, more clear and the people who I was communicating with trusted me more. Did I mention that they became less frustrated and overwhelmed with me? This was because I didn’t waste their time anymore for the sake of holding a meeting or shove a whole bunch of educational jargon and strategies into a professional development day. However, the biggest thing I noticed about honing in on my communication skills and assertiveness was that they trusted me more. I found that especially in the hard conversations, they knew I was going to give it to them straight with support to improve rather than try to beat around the bush. I still don’t think they liked the hard conversations but at least they had clear feedback and expectations and so did I. Sidenote…I still hate having hard conversations but I am improving at them.
The second skill that has helped to improve my leadership is my ability to leverage and empower the teacher leaders in our school. Holy cow, do we ever have a lot of amazing minds and experts among us! Once I stopped complaining about how I felt like everyone was complaining and stopped to really look at who was in our community, I found a gold mine of leaders who really wanted to be there and do the work. I just needed to find the people who wanted to empower, inspire, and really put the work in and leverage their skills and expertise. There is a difference between leveraging and delegating. Delegating is handing off so you don’t have to do it and maybe never looking at that task again. Leveraging is where you still have a pulse on the project or task and you are choosing who you want to collaborate with on this project, giving them the responsibility—they can own it—but they’re still doing regular check-ins with you so you know the project is moving forward as planned. So for us, we used to have Ed Council meetings each month with our grade team leads. We filled it with housekeeping and sent them on their way. We used to just assign each grade with a leader and not really think about whether or not they actually wanted to be at the leadership table. Because some people don’t want that responsibility and that’s ok. Now we focus on who actually wants to be there and will implement what they have learned, who will use their expertise to empower and extend their reach, and who will really put the work in to build their team. We built a standard operating procedure to help the team leads lead meeting with productivity and efficiency which we called the Leadership Formula Template which has also helped them to lead with clarity and momentum. This was a great example of leveraging our leaders. You can download our template here!
Our admin team also does intentional check ins with each team 3 times a year to work on a top priority and to leverage their work and provide clarity. Another way that I have learned to leverage the community I lead, is through developing standard operating procedures and templates for any problem or question that comes up so that it can easily be done by someone who is new coming in. It saves a ton of time and really provides a step by step template to get the task, strategy, or skill implemented. By creating templates, it allows others to step in and it empowers them because they are figuring it out without having you leading every step of the way. You need to know your vision as a leader, where you are going, and how you are going to get there and leveraging through empowering your leaders in your community extends your reach and really infuses more of a growth minded culture.
The third trait is listening.. and also admitting that you aren’t sure… or that maybe you were wrong. I know. This one sucks. But it is such a huge strength if you can admit when you are wrong. I was the worst at being hard on myself when I didn’t know the answer. I also found myself blaming others when things didn’t go right. Amy Porterfield hit me with this one right in the gut when she challenged leaders to ask themselves this question, “Do you find yourself talking about what other people are doing wrong or how things are not working on your team because of other people versus looking in the mirror? If you are the leader, then you’ve got to look in the mirror, my friend, because at the end of the day, you are responsible.” (Porterfield, 2022). Ouch…this one hurt. But it hurt because it was true for me. I did complain a lot and I did blame others. I also overcompensated and blamed myself and took it all on instead of having those hard conversations. Porterfield states, that you also want to be very aware that if something continues not to work in your business, look inward and say, “How could I change my communication style? How could I be maybe more clear? How could I change the strategy so that this could work for us versus thinking that it’s everybody else’s fault?” (Porterfield, 2022) Once I took on more responsibility and I modelled it and made it visible that I was taking on the responsibility, they have more respect for you because you are showing that vulnerability that you don’t have all the answers and that you may have been wrong but you are still working to figure it out. It also sets the bar for them too. I am not saying that it is all on you and that it is nobody else’s responsibility but when it is all said and done, you are the captain of the ship. When you change the narrative to we instead of you, it really does go a long way. They see that you are placing the same expectations on yourself as you are them. It helps to build that respect. It is a win win! But it is still really, really hard to do.
The fourth skill is probably one that doesn’t surprise you, but it is a game changer. It is being a pro-active planner. I know, not rocket science, but I really did fly by the seat of my pants when I started. Each day really did fill itself and so I just ran around trying to put out the fires and get through the day. It exhausted me and I had no idea what even happened that day. I pulled up my big girl planning pants and got to work, because this running around business with no direction, was definitely not working. When I say pro-active planning, I don’t mean just mapping out your week or year. I mean, think strategically. It is about looking ahead and tapping into strategies that will get you to where you want to go. A proactive planner takes planning ahead for the next six months or year. You are planning out your meetings, your professional development, your leadership team work, covid protocols in case of emergencies, back up plans, how you’re going to tackle a top priority, when you are going to make this happen. You do this for months in advance and set up a one or a three year plan. Be a visionary with clear steps and strategies rather than just plunking it into the calendar. Once you have that vision, share it with your leadership teacher teams and include them (which also helps you to leverage).
Amy Porterfield gave me some good ideas on what this might look like. This is where you’re looking at how could we scale the results we are looking for? Where are we weak right now that over the next few years we work towards strengthening these things? By planning far ahead you can dream bigger, prepare more, and it gives you more time so you are not scrambling. I always set quarterly goals, yearly goals, and then I set up the big rocks that I need to reach with deadlines.
The fifth trait is to be firm on your decisions and trust the fallout. Leadership comes with making some quick and tough decisions. I was the worst at this and I still have a lot of work to do in this area. I always (and still do) second guess every decision I make. I also always used to find myself asking someone else for their opinions or if I made the right decision rather than trusting my gut. The truth is, you’re a leader and you have got this. The other hard truth is that you will screw up and make the wrong decision a lot. That is just how it all works. So trust your gut, have confidence in the decision that you make and trust the fallout or the residue of events that may come after you made that decision. Being indecisive doesn’t serve you at all, so weigh out the options, compare and contrast, and make the dang decision. You will always learn from making decisions (even if they are the wrong ones) and you can always shift gears and reevaluate the decision you previously made if it didn’t work out. Making wrong decisions are not the end of the world but being unclear, flippy floppy, and indecisive don’t bode well in leadership and it creates confusion and frustration for all parties. So make the decision, trust your gut and you will usually end up making the right decision and save yourself a lot of stress and time. If you didn’t make the right decision, head back to the touch tree of the third trait, admitting you were wrong and be transparent about how you will move forward.
So there you have it! The five skills that have improved the way I lead. I go back to these things every day and especially when I am frustrated or feeling like I am losing passion and purpose. The clarity that I get from being intentional about these five skills have guided me through my hardest days. Like I said at the beginning of this blog post, this week was really tough and so I went back to my five touchtrees and unpacked them. It helped rejuvenate me and give me my next steps. I hope they do for you too!
If you would like an example of a template we use for a standard operating procedure to leverage our leaders, check out the Leadership Formula Template or the Guide to Workshopping Your Meetings.
If you haven’t joined our private facebook group, get in there! It is all about leadership in career and lifestyle.
Porterfield, Amy, producer. “4 Unsexy Skills .” Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast, 2022.
Scott, K. (2019). Radical candor How to get what you want by saying what you mean. Pan Books.
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