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Are you feeling swamped by the demands of being a principal? From juggling emails, calls, and decisions to boosting test scores and wading through endless paperwork, the pressure is real.
But imagine a scenario where you no longer feel this overwhelming stress. Picture yourself as a more resilient leader, concentrating on enhancing your school rather than merely coping with the daily tasks that currently consume your time.
I‘m Barb Flowers. Drawing upon my eight-year experience as an elementary principal, with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and certification as a life coach, Along the way, I've mentored and coached school leaders, guiding them to change their mindset, set boundaries and focus on their own well-being while navigating their roles.
Each episode offers practical insights on time management, communication, overcoming overwhelm, boosting confidence, and fostering a positive mindset. We'll also discuss topics like working with stakeholders, implementing new initiatives, and managing discipline. Let's set boundaries, focus on well-being, and reignite your passion for being a principal. Welcome to "The Principal's Handbook."
I firmly believe that to be an impactful educator, you must first become a confident and well-rounded individual. Join us in this journey to empower and enhance your confidence as a school leader.
The Principal Reset Series: The High-Achieving Principal Reset
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Speaker: [00:00:00] in today's episode, we're talking about the high achieving principal as part of the Principal Reset Series. That's all coming up next on The Principal's Handbook.
Speaker 3: Welcome to The Principal's Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work-life balance, we'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your well-being is the top priority
Speaker: Welcome back to the podcast. Today, we are in episode two of the Principal Reset Series, and we're talking about the high achieving principal.
So the high [00:01:00] achieving principal, that sounds really great, right? To be a high achiever, I would, classify myself as a high achiever, and being a high achiever is not a bad thing. It's not the problem. The problem is when it becomes something that sabotages your success or your building success moving forward.
So that's what we're gonna be talking about today with the high achieving principal is when you take yourself as a driven, ambitious leader who really wants to make a difference, but it really, , can create some saboteurs in how you think and how you're leading your building. So that's what we're gonna be talking about.
When I say saboteur, that comes from positive intelligence, and you can go to, , positive intelligence. I'll link it in here. When I work with new one-on-one clients, I have them do a saboteur assessment, and high achiever is one of the saboteurs. So it's something that you learn as a coping skill, and, it can sabotage your success, which is why it's called a saboteur.
And so that's what we're talking about [00:02:00] today. So today, I'm gonna talk about a client, and this client that I'm talking about, , that I was working with, , she is so similar to myself. So all of these things I can relate to, but my client I'm gonna talk about today is Melissa. That's not her real name, but I'm sharing about Melissa.
She's a great instructional leader, like amazing with instructional leadership. She has a great pulse of what's happening in her building. She has worked over the last few years to build really good behavior systems to reduce behavior in the school so that it didn't feel like constant discipline.
She has seen discipline in her school improving, and now she's really focused on the academic piece. So she's working on having those scores start to increase because the discipline referrals are decreasing.
She's got re- good relationships with her teachers. She's very knowledgeable about instruction, but yet she doesn't see all the progress she's making, right? When one initiative's completed, she's looking to the next thing on what she's gotta be focused on. Where I feel like I did [00:03:00] a lot of this with being a high achiever was I was always looking for the next initiative.
I read a ton of leadership books, and you would think that that's a good thing, right? Reading a ton of leadership books, listening to a ton of podcasts. But the problem with that was I was always searching for the next strategy. I don't see that so much with my client, Melissa, but I do see that with a lot of high achievers, is you're constantly reading books, you're listening to podcasts, you're attending conferences, you're searching to be the best leader you can, the next strategy so that you can make your building the best.
But the problem is you aren't looking at what's already going well. You're constantly thinking, "We should be further along. , Other principals are doing more. I can't slow down. There's still so much to fix. What else should I be doing?" And the irony of this is that everyone around you can see success, but you, as leader, only see unfinished work.
One of the things I focused on a lot with Melissa, and we're gonna talk about what to do, is just [00:04:00] focus on what's going well, right? When we get like this, stop and focus on what's going well. Another thing I like to tell leaders a lot is that we have to be careful about what we're consuming, which is why I was so intentional with this podcast and trying to be very, , very practical with what I share.
Because what I found myself listening to a lot of principal podcasts, I learned so much, I got so much good information, but everything I learned, I'm like, "Ooh, I gotta implement that next," or, "Gotta, try this new thing." And I was constantly making people around me crazy because I just wasn't content where I was, and I wasn't confident.
Really, I think this comes with confidence, too, that what I was doing was a good thing, and it was leading our building to a path of success. I was thinking, "Oh, if I just do the next thing, it's gonna, , help student achievement," versus now I have more confidence in my leadership. I know what moves students forward.
It's consistency. It's good tier one instruction, right? It's not all these little things. I've [00:05:00] learned, a lot from being in different buildings. And as I'm about to take over a new building, right, like w- I put PLCs into place in my first building. Well, my second building wasn't ready for that
and the third building I'm going to, it's a time constraint. So you can't always think, "Oh, I read a good book about PLCs, now I have to implement that right away." It just depends on the building. It just depends what you have in place. So that's , the caution with just constantly reading and achieving the next thing for your building.
So some of the patterns that I see with high achievers, again, clients, but also myself, is achievement becomes your identity. It's very easy to tie your achievement to your identity. And I think as a principal, being a principal alone is an achievement, and that becomes our identity, being a principal.
And I really felt that when I took a year and stepped back from being a principal. It was a good opportunity for me to really think about who my identity is outside of just being a principal, so a lot of times as principals, you don't even know it, but your [00:06:00] identity is so attached to your accomplishments.
So you think, "I have to constantly be achieving more to be worth something." And that's really a dangerous cycle that you have to be aware of and notice when you're doing that. Because when achievement becomes your identity, then rest, pausing, just being content with, , being consistent and making little progress at a time, it starts to feel like you're a failure.
So you have to become aware of when you're in the pattern of achievement becoming your identity. So that's the first pattern. The second pattern I see, again, I see this with myself all the time that I have to be aware of, is moving the finish line. No achievement ever feels like enough. And I think about this with my education, right?
I got my bachelor's degree, then my master's degree, then my doctorate, and it was like, oh, not a big deal, but it is a big deal when you stop and reflect on it. But so often in education, we get a master's and we think everybody has a master's, it's not that big of a deal, instead of really thinking about, I've just completed six years of education or whatever.
So [00:07:00] making sure that we aren't moving the finish line all the time. And that could be on personal accomplishments, but that's also in your building, right? You start to see your test scores improve. It's not that you can't keep moving things forward, but stop and celebrate that. Really take time to make a big deal about that.
Teachers need you to just focus on the one finish line and where you are with that, versus constantly moving the finish line and nothing ever being enough. So it's really important as a leader that you're aware of when you're doing that in your personal life, but also when you're doing that in your building.
Because teachers need you to celebrate and be proud of where you are in that moment. Pattern three that I see with high achievers is constant comparison. And for me, this happened a lot when I would go to, like,, principal meetings. As a new principal, I would compare, you know, ooh, that, , principal is doing so much in their school, I'm not doing enough.
So I would compare schools. They have so many more resources. Or I would compare leadership styles, or, it's really big now for principals to [00:08:00] be posting about their school. We have to market our schools, basically. And so I see social media highlights of other schools, and I think we're not doing enough,
even if I saw social media highlights of my own school, I would compare it and think it's not enough. And so it's really important that you stop comparing yourself or comparing your school or comparing your teachers, and really just focus on comparing your school to your school. Where are you making progress?
Where are you seeing that growth? And pattern four that I see is really overloading the system. Again, being a high achiever, I was so bad about this in the beginning because I read so many books, and then I had these ideas, and so I'd have new behavior system ideas, instructional initiatives I was gonna do, family engagement things.
, And what I did was I really was burning myself out, and I was doing too much, and I wasn't doing things well. And then also my teachers, it's too much for them. We need to have just a couple initiatives that we're doing really well. So it's not that you have the problem of a lack of effort, it's really [00:09:00] just a lack of that focus and clarity of what you wanna be working on So those are four patterns I see a lot, , with high achievers.
So now what I wanna talk about and go to is the T cycle. So we talk about the T cycle, and we're talking about that a lot in this series, that your thoughts create your emotions, which create your actions. So what I wanna do is talk about what are the thoughts that are creating this hyper achievement.
So you wanna become aware, and I talked about this in the last episode. Be aware of the thoughts that are crossing your mind. , What are the thoughts that you're having? Maybe if you see, let's say that the district releases your state testing scores, so in Ohio, , that's compared a lot.
We'll get a spreadsheet of county scores, what your score is compared to other elementaries in the building, what your score is compared to other, , schools across the state, it's comparing, so it's easy to get in this mindset of you're not doing a good enough job. So it's easy to have thoughts of, "Well, we should have done better.
I always think we're not at the [00:10:00] eighty percent. , I should have worked harder. Did I lead the teachers well enough? This isn't enough. I'm falling behind these other schools." These are possible thoughts as this data comes out, and so when we have these thoughts, the emotions that follow can be disappointment.
It can be frustration. More than likely, it's probably pressure and not good pressure. So you're not looking at comparing your building to your building. You just start comparing yourself to other schools in the state, and so, again, it creates these negative thoughts, these negative emotions. And then your action step is typically, what we do in schools, is to start another initiative, put it on staff, push your staff harder, work longer hours.
, Ignore the progress that is happening , versus shifting your focus on the data to really look at what are the strengths happening, what wins happened here, and then identifying one next step. It's not that we're just focusing on the positive And I said this in the last episode, it's not about toxic [00:11:00] positivity where it's like everything we're doing is amazing.
No, it's celebrating the wins, celebrating that with staff, and then looking at, okay, so what's one area we can do moving forward? Or maybe it's that you're already on the right path and you know the actions that you're taking just need time. And that's what I see so often, , is that change in student achievement, it takes consistent effort over time, and we see scores or we see something happen, and we want that change right now, and so we get frustrated.
But it could be that the action step is , just to continue your current system and stay very consistent, so just remember that school improvement is not built through constant acceleration. It's not built through constant initiatives. It's built through consistent tier one execution,
so really be thinking about that. So that's one thing I want you to think about. What are your thoughts? What are the emotions? What are the actions coming from this high achiever mindset? Some reflection questions I want you to think about are what evidence of progress are you [00:12:00] overlooking?
So is there progress that your building's making that you're overlooking? Maybe it's even subgroup progress. Maybe you have to dig into the data a little bit deeper. Where have you moved the finish line? So where are you moving the finish line to give yourself another standard versus just stopping and celebrating?
What are you chasing right now? , So what are you trying to chase? If you accomplish your current goal, would you actually let yourself enjoy it and celebrate it with staff? Then I want you to really reflect on what would change if your worth wasn't tied to your results. Okay, so really think about those reflection questions.
If you're in your car, pause, think about them, or take some time to journal on them. , But I want you to think about those reflection questions, and now I'm just gonna give you some ways that you can reset. So this is part of the principle's reset. So some ways to reset are to, one, create a done list. So again, I did this with a client who's Melissa, my [00:13:00] hyper achiever, who is an amazing leader.
I just said, "What is going well?" So every day, in my... I have the eight to four principal planner that you can get at principalfreebies.com. You could stop and think about, I have it where each day you reflect about, , what are three wins that you have? But maybe you just do that on Fridays. What are three wins?
What's improved? What worked? What progress happened this week? And it can be simple things. Maybe you built a relationship with a difficult teacher. Maybe you saw growth with some of your students who are on IEPs. , What are those small improvements that you're seeing? So create a done list and look at, um,, the wins that you've had and what are the things that you've completed that are really good instead of thinking about all the things you have to do.
You wanna train your brain to see the positive, to see the celebrations, not just weaknesses and gaps that you need to fill. All right. The second thing I want you to do is just choose one main improvement goal. So if you're only improving one [00:14:00] thing this year, what would matter most? And for some principals, it needs to be that tier one system for behavior so teachers can teach.
For other principals, it might be to be a better instructional leader, , and get into classrooms more and be visible and have coaching conversations. So just choose one main improvement goal. It doesn't need to be all of these different things. Doesn't need to be having PLCs in place and having the perfect interventions
you start with one thing And then the third thing is scheduling reflection before planning. So before you start a new initiative, stop and take time to really review data, celebrate wins, and identify lessons that you need to move forward. Talk through it with a team. Like I said, one of the worst things I used to do was read books, listen to podcasts, and then the next day I'd have ideas to implement, and I felt like I was spinning my wheels all the time and just overwhelming [00:15:00] people, and I didn't have a clear, consistent plan of how I wanted to move the building forward.
And it's because really I didn't know as much of what I was doing or how I was gonna make that progress. And so I, I was questioning myself a lot. So if this author said it was good, I'm like, "Yep, that's good." But you have to remember that there's so many different things you could do, but you have to do what's right for your group of teachers, the building, the students
, everybody's building looks a little bit different. The fourth one is redefining success. So what does success look like for you? So really think about that identity piece. , Your old identity is, "I'm only successful when I achieve." The new identity, "I'm successful when I consistently lead the work that matters most," or, "I'm successful when I consistently lead tier one instructional practices."
So what is it that you need to really reflect on? So that reset, you're gonna first create a done list and a wins list. Second, choose one main improvement goal. Third, schedule [00:16:00] reflection before planning something new, and fourth, redefining what success looks like. So those are my reset tips for you.
I hope you take some time to go through those, to try the T cycle , with this, and think about what thoughts are really messing you up with being a hyper achiever, because you have to remember that the greatest leaders aren't always the ones doing the most. They're the ones who are committed, who are consistent to the right work long enough to see results.
You don't need another initiative. You don't need another leadership book. You just need to acknowledge that you're on the right track of where you are or find what that looks like for your building and stay consistent with that. So next week we're talking about the reactive principle in the Principles Reset series.
So it's the leader whose day is controlled by interruptions, emergencies, everyone else's priorities. So I hope you join us for that. If you love the show, if you're listening on Apple, please scroll down on your app and leave a review. That helps other people find the podcast. [00:17:00] But keep in mind, you have the power to shape your life according to the mindset you choose.
I hope you have a great week, and I'll see you back here next time.