Here is what imposter syndrome in the principalship actually sounds like: not ‘I do not belong here’ — but rather ‘everyone is about to find out that I do not know what I am doing.’ It is the specific, low-grade dread of the qualified, experienced person who has stepped into a role where the competence…
There is a version of the school principal’s day that is almost entirely reactive. The calendar fills from the outside — meetings requested by others, crises that arrive without notice, staff who need five minutes that become twenty. By 10am the day you planned has been replaced by the day that happened to you. By…
There is a very specific kind of difficulty that comes with leading the people you used to teach beside — and it is different from every other leadership challenge you will face in the first year. It is personal in a way that most leadership problems are not. Because the person across from you is…
Someone asked you recently how you are doing. Maybe it was a colleague. Maybe it was your supervisor at a check-in that felt more like a status meeting than a genuine question. Maybe it was your partner at the dinner table. And you said some version of: fine. Busy. Hanging in there. This post is…
I am going to tell you something that most educators in my position do not say publicly, because saying it requires the kind of honesty that professional culture does not reward. There were teachers who left buildings I led because of how I led. Not all of them. Not even most of them. But some….
Most first-year principal advice focuses on what to do. This post is about what not to do — specifically the mistakes that are so common they have become structural features of the first-year experience, and that almost no one names directly until after they have already cost someone something significant. These are not small tactical…
There is a term in psychology — secondary traumatic stress — that describes what happens to people who are regularly exposed to the trauma of others. Social workers have it. First responders have it. Therapists have it. The research on these populations is substantial: repeated exposure to others’ trauma, without adequate support and processing, produces…
Most principals say they want teachers to feel valued. Far fewer have asked themselves honestly: what does my staff actually experience in their interactions with me? Not what I intend them to experience. Not what I believe I am communicating. What they actually receive. There is a significant gap in most schools between the principal…
The textbook version of emotionally intelligent leadership in a crisis goes like this. Stay calm. Acknowledge the emotions in the room. Validate the people who are upset. Communicate clearly. Make decisions that consider impact. Follow up. The textbook version is fine. It is also written by people who have never had to do it on…
You know this person. They have an answer for everything. A reason for every missed deadline. A context for every performance concern. A circumstance that explains away every expectation that was not met. And here is the complicated part: sometimes the reasons are real. Life happens. Teaching is hard. Classrooms are complex. Not every missed…