Life In The Fast Lane

I am flattered to have been tagged by Rick Schrieber for a Leadership Meme – “What are seven qualities we don’t know about you that help you be a leader?“

I do not know about this. There are clearly days when I do not think that I lead much, or lead well, but here goes:

1. The Ability to Think Ahead: It is important to me to understand what might be coming around the next corner, get there first, try to understand it and help people get there.

2. The Ability to Plan Well: Change comes. Trying to make change happen in meaningful supported chunks requires a plan that is visible, logical, and sustatined. Small chunks over time are better than big splashes.

3. I Try Not to Chase: I have been in teaching for 26 years. It is sometimes hard to cut through the clutter and the pendulum swings in our field. And some of it comes around and around in different clothes. I go back to the point where Seymour Paperet said that Logo would change the world and we had little kids crawling around the classroom floor with green tablecloths on their back pretending to be Turtles.  And, it was interesting to see Negroponte couch his One Laptop Per Child rationale in Paperet’s thinking. It is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Sometimes a leader’s job is to find the really important nuggets, and know when they have, but it is hard.

4.  I Try To Be Supportive of People Where They Are: Not everyone you lead will be a high flyer. Not everyone you lead will be the best in the brightest. Sometimes you need to figure out where they are, and what for them is the next step.  Make that next step easy, but help them take it.

5. Kids First, Always(1): When faced with conflicting decisions and options you will never go wrong if the analysis is what’s best for the kids, or in the worst cases what has the least impact on kids.

6. Kids First Always (2): Never forget your smile and good morning may be the beginning of only part of that child’s day that is predictable, safe, and supportive.

7. Understand and Know Your Community: You are a part of the fabric that binds and sustains your community. Know your kids, know their families. A principal I admire makes it a point to know every child, and every parent by their first name. He can engage every single one of his parents with something he knows about their life their family. He creates community by understanding community.  Also, what goes in the community I work in, won’t work in the town I live in or vice versa.