Teacher Leader Coach

In order to start making positive changes, we must tackle the two faulty assumptions that students will do the homework with fidelity, and then that students will be willing to ask questions in front of their peers to get help. While we can hope for the best, hope is not a plan. Planning for the worst means that we need to assume that students are not going to be doing their homework with fidelity, and that students will be unwilling to ask the questions they should be asking. This is true whether you are working with pre-adolescent middle school students, or a team of adult learners. Some may look at this as having a deficit mindset about students, but I liken it to defensive driving. We should still be encouraging students to practice, and celebrating student success. We also need to build into our assessment practices means of allowing students to see how their efforts at practice are positively impacting their ability to succeed. Changing our assumptions means the practice of plann...

The typical structure of classes internationally is for the teacher to provide new information to the students, allow the students some time to practice, assign work for the students to do outside of class, and then start the next day asking students if they had any questions from the day or night before. In theory, this all works great and the loop makes sense. Students have a chance to practice right after they have acquired new information, and then a few hours later try it again, then get reinforcement on that learning which follows mostly the findings from Ebbinaus's research . As is often the case, the theory and reality are often far apart. The two main assumptions that often fail to be true are that students will do the homework with fidelity, and then that students will be willing to ask questions in front of their peers to get help. It has already been established that 40 to 60% of students will not do their homework or will cheat on it , leaving reliance on the rest of ...

The habit that educators are hoping that students will establish is to meaningfully practice the learning that happened during class time to deepen the neural connections being created, identify gaps in understanding to seek clarification, and understand that repetition and effort are necessary for improvement. All of this is centered around the idea that the educator is the expert, the student is the novice, and the student should therefore trust that the teacher knows what is best for the student to be able to progress. That is true in a general sense, but in reality what each student needs is something different for them to be able to learn. This is not a "learning styles" idea, the concept of teaching a student to their preferred learning style has been thoroughly debunked by this point and needs to be put to rest. What we all need is opportunities for multiple attempts at learning through multiple different means. Audio, visual, and kinesthetic are all ways we learn, and...

As the leader of my division of math, science, and computer science teachers, one of my long term goals is to have all of my classrooms be "Thinking Classrooms." A lot of this comes from my observations of classes that are truly high functioning and enjoyable for the teacher and students, and the work that Peter Liljedahl and his team have put together in their book and work on Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics . That book translates very well into areas beyond mathematics, and ultimately I think can branch into areas of adult leadership and teams of employees as well. As I define a "Thinking Classroom," it is one where students are actively processing information with their classmates, taking on new information and making their own connections to attach known information to novel situations. Students are collaborating with each other, effectively correcting and encouraging each other, and the teacher is facilitating these conversations. There are low stak...

The concept of starting with your WHY  is one that has been promoted for a long time in multiple means. It is an underlying concept behind the Produktive System from the creators of The One Thing , and the foundation of Simon Sinek's work . A fundamental shift in this from David Mead of Propel, Inc is to frame your "Why" statement with two parts. These two parts are the contribution and the impact: My purpose is to <contribution or action> SO THAT <impact of action> Often times we consider one or the other of these two parts, but not the correlation between the two. "My purpose is to become a millionaire," is an action or contribution to your bank account, but with no impact statement for the reason you want to have one million dollars at your disposal. "My purpose is to end World hunger," is glorious, but is simply an impact without a contribution.  "My purpose is to become a millionaire SO THAT I will have the means to support NGO...

Calm confidence is something that all leaders need to show. They may not always feel that way on the inside, but what people need to see and believe is that the person is in charge is actually in charge. As in most decision making, the leader needs to be able to step back, look at the situation in a detached, unemotional, thinking manner and communicate with key holders of information and resources. This goes for a large and urgent emergency, or a staff meeting, or difficult individual conversations. The primary role in a tough situation is to be the one to de-escalate, provide the calm and reason, and focus on the facts and not the feelings. If the leader is ramping up peoples emotions, showing clear signs of distress or panic, making rash decisions, escalating verbal and non-verbal communications, their people will respond in kind. If the leader is taking a deep breath, speaking with a commanding and reassuring voice, redirecting people to the facts of what is happening, and communic...

The people we lead need consistency in our message that stays on point with our well defined goals and priorities. When ideas seem to change at random, or there is "shiny new" syndrome to bring in some new resource, idea, process, or person without a strong purpose for why, it shuts down innovation and engagement, and builds frustration and stagnation. A good leader should also be constantly learning and seeking ways to improve their messaging and processes, so the key is seeking ways to hone the message without changing it. A previous leader of my organization was a voracious consumer of content, between conferences, books, articles, podcasts, and more. This is wonderful, and a wide knowledge base is critical for flexibility in problem solving. But this leader would change the direction of the organization based on every newly consumed idea. Confusion, whiplash, exhaustion, and mistrust ensued. The key, when we learn or see something new and exciting, is to step back and see...

One of the many skills of an adept leader is knowing how and when to change the role you are filling in any given moment. There is no one way to lead, and there is no one position to take. Jocko Willink and Leif Babin write about this extensively in The Dichotomy of Leadership  from there time leading battle platoons in Iraq to consulting with companies now. One quality of a leader is knowing when to lead, and when to follow. This may change based on the group you are in, or the event taking place. When in a meeting with higher ranking personnel, typically this is a time to be more of a follower. When you are the highest ranking member, then that is usually the time for you to take the reigns. But not always. In the first situation, when it is your time to report out do it with confidence, and show the others in the room that you are in fact in charge. When an idea is being discussed and you know you can contribute, do so in a strong but humble manner. Let the others in the room kn...

I was leading a professional development in one of my first years in a leadership role, and had a group of teachers with me of various abilities. We were discussing the concept of backwards design in education, which is starting with what you are going to assess students on, and working backwards to design lessons that ensure kids will be ready for the assessment. Some of the teachers were eagerly listening, and in fact one told me later that the hour or so we spent that morning revolutionized his pedagogy. During that meeting an insightful revelation came to me from a teacher that was very average as an instructor. This teacher was really struggling with the idea of not knowing what to write on the assessment before having taught the material. The answer is that you don't have to write the actual assessment, you determine they standards and levels of questions you plan to ask to make sure you cover these during the lessons leading up. Her struggles lead me to ask the question, ...

The most glorious time for me to get work done is when no one else is at work. I can put on some music, get my 3 screens and standing desk all ready to go, get my mindset right, and start being productive. And then a friend texts me, a new song I haven't heard starts playing that I want to check out, I need to get a drink of water, or ESPN wants me to know about the next great Fantasy Football move I should make. And each one of those knocks my attention off track, and probably seems more interesting than whatever task I'm trying to accomplish. And each one can take 20 or more minutes to recover from! One of the hardest things to do is turn everything off. What are we going to miss? What if a critical email comes in, or a phone call about something that happened to one of my kids, or I miss out on a great trade opportunity all for the sake of getting some work done? All that could happen, but how often do they really? If you put your phone in another room, close your email for ...

A quick Google search of how many decisions a teacher makes in a day will tell you 1500. Leaders of any group of people (businesses, schools, classrooms, or families) all need to make hundreds of decisions each day. While most of them ultimately can be meaningless, just the sheer amount of decisions can wear us down. That's one of the reasons to get the most important things you need to do first, so you have the energy and brainpower to complete them well when you can. The worst ways to make decisions are when your will power is low, you have no one to bounce ideas off of, or you are in a hurry. Emergency decisions usually lead to being taken advantage of, not considering unintended consequences, or a fix for now that leads to more work, time, energy, and money down the road. Decisions need to be principled, and centered around values and priorities. One of the primary skills of marketers and salespeople is to give the sense of scarcity to make you buy something you wouldn't, o...

Prior to moving into leadership, when I was the “boots on the ground,” it was hard for me to understand decisions that were being made by those above me. Sometimes with good reason as they were not good decisions, but more often it was because good leaders had a more full picture of the dots that need connecting. What the best leaders need to be able to do is have that longer range plan in mind of what needs to happen, and backwards trace the steps back to the beginning to set everything in motion. That may very well mean changing or stopping a program that has been in place for years, or even something that was just started but doesn’t fit that vision. What the people who are in the day to day job of carrying out the work see is a change to what they do. It can cause confusion, frustration, backlash, or disengagement. That is why the communication piece is so important. Being able to explain the purpose behind the idea, empathizing with how the change will impact people now, but to th...

In Michael Gerber's E-Myth Revisited , the author discusses the myth of Entrepreneurship, and why many who venture into opening their own business are not Entrepreneurs, but people who were really good at a task, thought they could do it better than the person they were working for, and so started their own business doing that task. A plumber becoming a contractor, a chef becoming a restaurateur, a CPA opening their own accounting firm. These people are still the tacticians, but not business people, and most of their businesses end up failing. An entrepreneur is a business person, and focuses on improving the business, not fixing the toilet.  I see this in leadership positions as well, people who were really good at their craft get promoted in hopes of helping others who are really good at their craft. But being good at something, and leading others towards that thing, are very different skills. Look at professional sport coaches who were players of that sport themselves. Many play...

In the post on " Coaching Up First " I discussed looking for signs that a person you are leading is starting to hit a downturn in their productivity. This downturn is natural in any relationship or endeavor, and social scientists have a term for it, which is the Sigmoid Curve. This image from a research article does a great job of visualizing this curve: Source:  https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1123357.pdf A new romantic relationship usually skyrockets with infatuation before hitting a peak, and doesn't have the implementation dip. Most new situations do start off with an initial adjustment period. A new habit or a new work initiative is hard because you have to unlearn old ways. After sticking with it, you start to get the hockey stick result , and the growth phase kicks in. At some point we stall out. We get comfortable in what we are doing, life throws a curve ball at us that knocks us off course, or we lose sight of the "why" we are doing what we have c...

The number one person that is most important for the success of people that are counting on you is you. At all times, keep that in mind to make sure you are running at optimal potential. You need to also make sure you are checking in with your key drivers, the ones you know are making a positive difference, encouraging them to keep going because they are your 20% that are doing 80% of the work. But who then do you need to focus on after these people? Who are the ones that should have your next highest investment in them? In any community, you will have 85% of people that do the right thing the vast majority of the time. You will have 5% that just can't quite seem to get much right. That next 10% though is really what will make or break your organization. If you can get that 10% coached up, and 95% of people are doing the right thing most of the time, your organization will be cruising. You will still need to invest more time in that 10% than others, but the more you can communicate...

In the post on Leadership for Growth , I discussed the concept of “servant leadership.” This phrase is often used by people to describe themselves as being available to support their people at all times. A “door is always open”type approach. I certainly feel that anytime help is needed, a leader needs to dig in and support. Sometimes that is takingcharge, and other times that is helping to do the heavy lifting. But when the leader always takes charge and handles all issues, they end up turning those they are leading into servants. They end up depending on you, which disempowers them. On a podcast I listened to, that I searched for but couldn’t find again, the speaker made a statement that resonated with me. It described how I envision leadership in a better way than I could describe it. I believe it was Gary Keeler with Jay Papasan on an episode of their  Think Like a CEO podcast . What the speaker said was,  “Leadership is teaching people how to think so they can do what the...

Focus on who you are over what you do. Often if you ask an educator what they do, they will say, “I teach English,” ask a doctor and they will say, “I’m a pediatrician,” or someone in business will say, "I'm in sales." Those are true answers and they paint a fairly specific picture, but they also are being used to define that person, and can keep them from growing. I used to say “I’m a physics teacher,” but then I started teaching different classes and still say that. I realized I was not discussing other courses with the same level of appreciation, but saying all the courses I taught were cumbersome in a conversation. I was also boxing myself into just being a science teacher of those courses. When I became a department chair, I also would say that and explain all the areas I oversaw. But I was so much more than just that. And I realized at some point, that what I was in reality was a leader. I led students, teachers, counselors and administrators. Finally seeing myself ...

When someone in a position of authority introduces themselves and says to "trust them," how can the people they are leading just do that? And frankly, when a person is talking to me and says, "To be honest with you...," it makes me wonder if everything else they said was dishonest. I've heard it said that things like trust or a person's reputation are like a bridge, they can take years to build but seconds to collapse. We all want people to trust us, but we have to build that first. Trust is built by repeatedly showing yourself to be of sound character and being competent. Sometimes our initial impressions of both are high, but then over time one or both collapse. And sometimes the opposite is true. Often my first interpretation of an introvert is that they are rude or standoffish. But once I get to know them, I realize how wrong I was and how high their character is. Sometimes a person's resume can make you believe they are competent, but over time in t...

At the conclusion of my Building a Team  post, I wrote that when team builders are, "c oming from a place of asset based beliefs, and recognizing that diversifying your team, just like an investment portfolio, is the best way to maximize growth and minimize risk." For too long in this world we have minimized what people can bring to the table for any number of small minded reasons. The way a person looks, talks, dresses, where they come from, who their parents were, or which schools they attended are all used as indicators as whether a person might succeed with us or not. And we are quick to turn away from those that might not fit our ideal. As a public educator, we don't have a choice of who is in our classes. Parents are not choosing to only send us their best or worst child, they are sending us who they have and depending on us to make an impact. Even then in schools there are conversations about "good kids" and "bad kids," students who are "ad...

 There is nothing more important than having the right team for leveraging success. Even the greatest "individual" accomplishments were never done in isolation. A team should be a collection of people working together from a common purpose towards a common goal. That sounds like it should not be that hard, considering most teams are put together with people that have chosen to be at that place and do that activity. But, humans are human! Ego, pride, biases, past experiences, hidden agendas, and all kinds of other issues get in the way of teams being successful. The first administrative team I was on had 5 people on it. Three of us were all in on the mission, ready to tackle issues and have difficult conversations to make change. One was close to retirement, so really was just coasting out the last couple of years and not willing to do much of anything. And one publicly to the team was on board, but privately to key people we were trying to lead would undermine us at every tur...

In an earlier post  about giving credit to others, I discussed that one of the traits of great leaders is they have great people working with them. Sometimes we inherit people on our team when we take over, but other times we get the exciting, life changing opportunity to hire. The process can be cumbersome, time consuming, and laborious, but nothing can sustain and build momentum like hiring the right person. And nothing can become more costly to your time, resources, and energy than hiring the wrong person. Hiring the right person must come back to your core values , and finding someone who fits within them. You want someone who will embody your purpose, but hopefully also bring some fresh perspectives and ideas to the team. And that team has to understand that they are there to support the new hire, but also learn from their new ideas and see what they can incorporate in to enhance their current performance. In my leadership role, my primary hires are teachers. I'm hiring s...

In my post on Modes of Communication , there was one type of communication I didn't mention. That was not communicating. I think in almost every disagreement I have had with colleagues, people I oversee, members of my family, or people higher than me in my organizations the fundamental issue is that communication was mishandled or didn't happen. Even if the information being delivered was something that people would not want to hear, not delivering that information has greater ramifications than delivering it. There are a lot of reasons to not have those conversations. We might legitimately not have the time in the moment to be able to have the conversation fully enough to give it justice, so we need to hold off. The person we need to have the conversation with may not be in the right frame of mind to be able to hear the message being delivered (more on that later). We might be scared, nervous, afraid, anxious, or any other "flight mode" word about the reaction we wil...

In addition to knowing your people,   leaders of others need to know how and when to communicate. Something‘a can be an email, some have to be face to face. For a while in my leadership, I would email just about everything. It was convenient for me, I could do it on my time, I didn’t get “stuck” in a conversation, and I could just move on to the next task. I came to realize I was missing out on so much around me. Being intentional of meeting with people face to face brings so much more to the organization, but be mindful of others time. I like to ask people when it would be convenient to have a conversation, but also put them at ease while asking. “I would like to talk with you for a few minutes about … When would be most convenient for you?” I do this with teachers I oversee and kids I teach. When in a position of authority, when a message is sent to someone telling them you need to talk, it immediately puts them on edge. Giving them an a purpose, and making it when they can ...

Leadership and management are different, but both must happen for an individual to be a good leader. Leadership is the vision setting, the decision making, the allocation and mobilization of resources (human and material). The management side of leadership is working with people to maximize each one's potential.  As a young educator just starting out, I was in a leadership position as a coach of one of our baseball teams. I had played high school football and baseball, and working with the boys on the baseball team was easy as I had experience being coached in that sport. I tried to do a lot of the things that I liked about my coaches, and not do a lot of the things I didn't like. We had success as a team, and I was fulfilled by the work I was doing with these young men. In the fall of the next school year, I was asked to coach girls tennis. Different sport, but coaching is coaching I thought. I talked to my girls, got them going, and then coached them with the same demeanor I ...

The last line of my post on Recognizing the Progress (Part 2) was, "When it (the plan) does (work), praise your people as they did the work to get to this point." As a leader, you can certainly keep your own scorecard of successes, but the credit for that success needs to be given to those you lead. No matter how good your plan was and how clearly you communicated, without the team you lead doing the work the success would not be possible. There are two actions leaders take that can demoralize a team more than others. One is to have a team put in hours of work and labor, only to completely discount or disregard that work. The other is to take claim of the success for the team. A leader, no matter what their title, isn't leading if people are not following. And taking the credit for the work of the team is a sign of a weak leader, and one who is working for their own narcissistic needs instead of the good of the organization. Those looking to simply climb the ladder by ta...

In Recognize the Progress (Part 1) I stated, “As a leader, it is important to let people know specifically that you have seen their growth, or to remind them that growth has been made when they are becoming frustrated.” I focused in Part 1  on telling people you have seen their growth. In this post I will focus on the second part.  Early on in my posts I discussed that organizations are often times very quick to move from one program to another, bring in a new shiny object without really recognizing what the current resource was providing them. There are times when a new resource is clearly a better option and the pivot should be made, but success is sequential. Growth takes time, and often mentioned in growth is the hockey stick model. The image below is from a Forbes article based off the work of  Bobby Martin, author of  The Hockey Stick Principles: The Four Key Stages to Entrepreneurial Success . This model was also famously used as part of the strong arguments ...

In my last post on gratitude , I had a small line where I stated the need for showing “true and genuine gratitude for a job well done and progress being made.” That progress is what motivates us, and if we are not seeing the progress, we are likely to quit or pivot to early.  There is value in self-accountability, if we don’t own or own goals, no one else can make us reach them. That is the purpose of the 4-1-1 instrument I have shared before, adapted from The One Thing and Produktive . And we need to be comfortable with the fact that often times the progress we make is slower than we would like, or not getting the immediate results we want, but that progress is progress and we are therefore farther along today than we were yesterday.  As a leader, it is important to let people know specifically that you have seen their growth, or to remind them that growth has been made when they are becoming frustrated. There is little more disheartening than when a breakthrough at any leve...

Today being the 4th of July, it is a day for Americans to show our gratitude for what we have. This country is far from perfect, and is still pursuing liberty and happiness for all people. But it is a land of opportunity, resource, and abundance. We truly are blessed with so much, and hopefully we keep moving towards true equality. Showing gratitude towards colleagues and those you serve is also an incredible way to build community. True gratitude cannot consist of false platitudes, or general statements of appreciation to everyone, but true and genuine gratitude for a job well done and progress being made. I had a leader in my building that did not invest the time to get to know the staff beyond the administration. The staff knew this, and felt disconnected from him. What they wanted was to be noticed for their daily efforts, and to be known for who they were as people. This leader instead would do periodic big events for the staff that would take a lot of time and effort on his part,...

Multiple times I have witnessed new leaders make unconventional or unexpected decisions as one of their first moves. It seems as though they need to try and prove how smart, independent, creative, or strong they are with that early choice. And more often than not it backfires. Occam’s razor dates back to the early 1300’s , and states, “  plurality should not be posited without necessity.” This is generally restated as the simpler solution is the right solution. All decisions should be thoroughly thought through, with solicitation of multiple perspectives, some devils advocate, and consideration of unintended consequences. But in the end, the simplest solution is most often the right one. A friend of mine recently had this happen. Her leader left for a different position, so they had to hire a replacement. Many options were available, but the previous second in command was highly respected, and upheld the goals and properties of their organization. In the end, the simple solution wa...

One of the first and hardest lessons for me to learn as a leader was patience. And it’s still a hard lesson for me 16 years into being a formal leader. When I see something to improve, usually through both qualitative and quantitative analysis, I want to fix it. And if it’s just a logistics issue, that’s usually not a problem. But when it’s a people issue, that takes time.  My first year in administration, I was analyzing courses students were placed in. There was a new course that the teachers had spent well over a year creating to be a slower paced Algebra 1 course for students who came in under a certain math threshold. It wasn’t designed to be different in its approach, just half as fast. As I looked at the incoming students, we had a full section of kids placed in the class, but only 4 didn’t exceed the threshold the teachers had created. It made no sense to me to run the class, but rather we should place kids where they belonged. I was excited to not have to run a remedial cl...

In order to empathize, one must truly understand what another is going through. If you have not suffered the same loss, fought through the same struggles, failed at the same struggle, or succeeded at the same achievement, you cannot really empathize with the person you are interacting with. And even if you have, we are quick to forget the details and minutiae of what went into that situation. Teachers are quick to forget what it is like to be a student sitting through 7 hours of classes. School administrators forget what it was like to have 30 kids staring back at you for 45 minutes 5 times per day, and the ability to only go to the bathroom between passing periods. Superintendents forget what being a building principal was like, and often do to principals the same things they complained about only a year or two before. This happens in any industry, as we are quick to think of only our goals and lose the ability to understand how our demands are impacting those who are responsible for ...