Building Your Leadership Groove in K12 Education

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There’s a wonderful scene from the 1982 film, “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” An older Captain, James T. Kirk (now Admiral), quickly averts a crisis. He knows what he must do to save the crew of the Starship Enterprise from impending disaster. Staring over the navigational console, Kirk realizes he cannot see the buttons and switches. He discreetly turns away and puts on a pair of bifocals, and hurriedly completes the life-saving task to save the crew and ship. This is a great lesson in K12 leadership. 

Many leaders have had to endure quick pivots, such as Kirk, since the onset of COVID-19. These leadership pivots resonated, especially in the schools where distance learning intensified change. Words like “asynchronous,” “hybrid learning,” and “contact tracing” became necessary words to add to the leadership lexicon. School leaders were tested in unprecedented ways daily. The impact has taken a toll on school leaders’ efficacy and job happiness.

As I reflect on those days during COVID when I led as an elementary school principal. I hear myself vocalizing an oft-repeated phrase, “they didn’t teach me this in Principal School.” It was a time when school leaders shifted their leadership calculus into uncharted territory. This shift also required leaders to invite the additional weight on shoulders that was already overburdened. 

During a recent conversation with a school leader colleague, we shared how our old and true moves of navigating leadership in the schoolhouse are now dated. We commiserated our professional woes on how once shiny and innovative leadership approaches were not resonating like they used to. 

Shifting the Paradigm of Leadership

For school and district leaders, the global pandemic has forced a shift in the leadership paradigm. In the aftermath of the global pandemic, where we are just now beginning to see and experience the light at the end of the tunnel, school leaders are dealing with new phenomena that are testing leadership yet again. Now, school leaders are determining approaches to the realities of quiet quitting, growing teacher vacancies, and a mental health crisis impacting both children and teachers. 

The typical salves that school leaders could previously rely upon are losing their potency due to persistent uptick in daily crises. Not every leader has the time to participate in Twitter Chats or attend professional development conferences. The ever-changing landscape of education pushes the collective nervous systems of principals and assistant principals. Balancing the demands of the leadership gig with home life balance is essential. It is also vital for school leaders to adapt to new levels of changes coming at a fast yet nuanced pace in the world of education precedence. 

Finding the Core of Your Leadership

Those in the roles of principal, assistant principal, superintendent, and so on are called to get back in touch with their leadership core. It does take more than merely examining the internal landscape of one’s “Why” as a leader. We cannot TED Talk our way out of the malaise that we as leaders face. It is important to take active steps to retrace the roots of our core as a leader and build our leadership groove into an active flow of impact. 

The leadership groove is the needed momentum to reignite a leader’s core. As a Jazz Combo shifts keys and time signatures within a free-form musical exploration, school leaders must shift the beat of their core as a leader to get back into their groove. Leaders must find their creativity and purpose again to serve the school communities at the next level. 

There are four ways for school leaders to tap into their leadership groove

1. Agility: embracing the next in a state of constant changes
2. Empathy: fostering a consciousness of others to provide emotional and psychological safety
3. Strengths-Based Awareness: tapping into the gifts and strengths of others to empower the people you serve to become leaders. 
4. Engaging Possibilities: finding opportunities in what seems impossible

The Unique Challenge of K-12 Education

Leadership in K-12 Education is a challenging mantle for many to uphold. As our space is flooded with paradigm shifts, new initiatives, and unprecedented approaches. It is natural for school leaders to be at a crossroads. Sometimes that crossroads may challenge a leader. It could also lead towards a path where individual school leaders may face an impostor syndrome crisis. Doubts in one’s leadership core can test one’s nervous system. Leaders are human and vulnerable. Rediscovering the why of one’s leadership core is more arduous in the current educational landscape. 

Connecting these beats accelerates one’s leadership groove in this new landscape of educational leadership. This multi-part series will explore the tenets of achieving the leadership groove. Profiling current practicing school and district leaders will serve as examples for school leaders to build their own leadership groove. We will 

Developing a leadership groove is designed to inspire all school leaders to align with their respective why’s to empower their school communities. I look forward to joining your journey as we find our leadership groove together.