TASA/TASB Conference Summary

Another great Fall conference. As usual, the LYS booth was a hub of activity, with old friends and colleagues stopping by to catch up with and/or check up on other members of the LYS Nation. Some notable visitors included Dr. Richard Griffin, Coach Tim Edwards, Dr. Jerry Roy, Dr. Mike Laird, and Dr. Rod Paige.

We also distributed another 1000 world famous Lead Your School koozies, again running out before the conference ended. And as you can see from the picture, there was an extended meeting with roots of the three major branches of the LYS Family Tree – Brezina, Brown and Berry.

If we missed seeing you, we’ll rectify that at the TASA Mid-Winter Conference, the TASB Winter Conference, the AASA National Conference or the NASSP National Conference.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

A Reader Writes... (Advice for the First Year Principal - Part 7)

In response to the post, “Advice for the First Year Principal – Part 3,” a reader writes:

“OK writer, you are off to a good start, but here is where you need to polish up. True: you are not in a popularity contest. However, there is a popularity contest going on, even if you choose not to participate. You need to understand (Sean does) that being a principal is about 30% mechanics (LYS stuff) and 70% personality. Even from the business world, Steven Covey reminds us that we can demand expectations, but people only give their best voluntarily.

My first principalship I spent my time learning the mechanics; I mastered that quickly. My second principalship was a situation of task overload. The school was in desperate shape, enter the need for the knowledge of mechanics (which I had not mastered, but knew adequately). However, the community was a hornet's nest, enter the need for personality. Harry Miller and Roger Hailey attempted to give me a crash course in personality, but the school was the perfect storm. The school was too broke, I was too inexperienced, and the community was too entrenched in mediocrity. I simply was unable to learn fast enough to overcome the storm.

Fast forward to my fourth leadership position. I assure you I have mastered the mechanics and have learned the lessons from Miller and Hailey. Maybe not to perfection yet, but certainly to adequacy. You must not only manage the easy stuff (the mechanics), but you must master the dynamics of leading people.

Just saying, you may want to rethink the popularity issue."

SC Response
Early in my first principalship, one of my mentors (Dr. Richard Griffin), pulled my aside and said, “Son, being a good principal is 70% personality, 30% technical. You have the ratios reversed.”

It’s an important lesson, yet one that is rarely taught directly and explicitly because personality is so personal. It’s easier to hear (and say), “you’re wrong,” than “you’re a pompous, arrogant jerk.”

I glad you mentioned Harry Miller. Sometimes the coach you need isn’t the coach you want. As you mentioned, your "go to" skill set is centered on the rapid turn around. This unique skill and experience set is why you are always in demand. But as you pointed out, District 2 had the need, but not the desire. Enter Coach Miller. I remember you telling me, “Harry is different than my other LYS coach. He wants me to go slower”

To which I replied, “Harry wants you to go fast, just is a different way.”

All this to say, as you well know, the purpose of leadership is to move the organization from where it is, to where it is should be, to where it could be, in an effective, efficient and expedited manner. To do this requires a package of skills, executed with purpose and reflection. Popularity for popularity’s sake is an exercise in vanity. Popularity as a leadership skill is a legitimate and effective tool.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

A Reader Writes... (Advice for the First Year Principal - Part 4)

In response to the post, “Advice for the First Year Principal,” a reader writes:

“SC, if it wasn’t for you I would not have made it though my first year. I don’t say that lightly, there were other first year principals in my district that didn’t make it. Why doesn’t our district hire you to coach all of our first year principals? Don’t they care?

To all the new principals out there, get LYS to your campus, even if you have to pay for it out of your own budget like I did. The stakes are too high to just guess all the time.”

SC Response
Thanks, for the high praise. It’s not the districts don’t care. I’ve yet to come across a district that wants principals to fail. Principals are like fighter pilots, very expensive and hard to replace assets. But I do recognize that many districts do a poor job of new employee induction in general and new principal induction in particular. It has been my observation that there are three common reasons why this happens.

1. Money and time. It takes both to organize and operate a meaningful induction program. Unfortunately, I haven’t found many school districts that are flush with cash and have nothing to do during the day.

2. A faulty memory. Part of the human condition is that we minimize or forget hardship and remember the good times and experiences. If this wasn’t the case, we could never get past tragedy. But a by-product of this is by the time you are in a position to support a first year principal, you have forgotten the toll it actually took on you. The highs you remember (of which there are a lot) the lows you forget (which at the time felt devastating). When you don’t remember things being that tough, in a world of limited resources, induction programs go from being an “A” priority to a “B” priority.

3. An outdated experience base. Many of us in mentoring and development roles today, earned our experience during times of less rigorous accountability. We forget that during our first year the stakes were lower. We actually had the luxury of time (relatively speaking) to learn our craft. Therefore, what I might view as a luxury, based on my experience base, is now a necessity.

If your district has an induction program, embrace it. If it doesn’t, find somebody you can trust and talk to them a lot. Just the process of stating a problem out loud often makes it less ambiguous and easier to solve. During my first year as a principal I was very fortunate I had the advice and council of an internal coach (Dr. Richard Griffin) and external coach (Wayne Schaper) and a coach that I hired from my own budget (Harlan Yetter). Would I have survived without them? Probably. Would my career trajectory been as steep? Absolutely not. My coaches made me and my school successful. Since then, I have been conscious of the need to pay that forward. It is unfortunate that many in our field view the need for coaching as a sign of weakness (ironic, since we are supposed to be focused on continuous learning and improvement). Because the more potential you have, the more valuable timely coaching becomes.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

A Reader Writes... (Teacher Stress - Part 15)

In response to the post, “Teacher Stress – Part 9,” the writer writes:

“So the campus administrators will know, "Central Office" was my focus. I do agree that everyone has their own perception. This is not about principals. It's about Central Office not being in touch with realistic goals and respecting the teaching profession. How can we all get on the same boat?”

SC Response
It seems as if you are concerned with the disconnect between Central Office and campuses. This is a near universal phenomenon. There are some answers to this, but they are so radical that only a few leaders have attempted it. Strangely, I have worked for, or with, three pioneers in this area, Robert Brezina, Richard Griffin and Shirley Neeley.

To get the LYS Nation up to speed, I will quickly summarize the work of Dr. Bob Thompson, out of Lamar University. Dr. Thompson correctly points out that the disconnect between Central Office and the campus is systemic and is entirely the fault (responsibility) of the Superintendent. What happens is that there are two centers of gravity in a district, Superintendent and Principal. The closer you are to one of those centers, the more you are influenced by that particular center. Unfortunately, when you get to Central Office you realize that your long term success is based on keeping the Superintendent happy, so the needs of campuses (Principals) quickly take second tier status.

So how do you fix this? The Superintendent has to turn the world upside down. That means that the system has to be purposefully manipulated to make the Principal at least as important as the Superintendent. Here are three ways to do this:

1. The Thompson Method (used by Neeley). In the traditional district, the Superintendent evaluates the Central Office staff. Keep the Superintendent happy and you keep your job. Make the Principals unhappy and nobody cares. Using Thompson’s method, the Superintendent and the Principals evaluate Central Office staff. 40% of the evaluation is based on the Superintendent’s input, 60% from the Principals. Make the Principals unhappy and the Superintendent can’t save you. The center of gravity (balance of power) is shifted and the needs of the campus take precedent.

2. The Griffin Method. The high school principals and the assistant superintendents are equals and are on the same salary scale. This keeps leadership capacity at the campus level and ensures that Central Office can not arbitrarily tell a principal “No.” The center of gravity is shifted (balance of power) and the needs of the campus are better addressed.

3. The Brezina Method. Make the unit of measurement in the salary system based on the value of the principal (example: The Director of Technology = 0.8 Principal). Then, base the evaluation of Central Office staff on the results of the lowest performing campus. The center of gravity is shifted (balance of power) and the needs of the campus are better addressed.

Without Superintendent mandate, the disconnect is never really addressed. What is funny (funny sad, not funny Ha Ha) is that when the Superintendent who corrects the disconnect leaves, you can get whiplash from how fast the system snaps back to the old way of doing things. The needs of Ego will trump the needs of students darn near every time.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...