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Since safer at home started it has been an adjustment. I am grateful for the extra family time that it has created as life has slowed down. We have enjoyed more dinners together and our 21-month old son loves safer at home because it means that mom and dad are home together with him more than ever. My wife is always pushing me to be a better version of myself than I was the day before and that includes exercise. She has successfully lobbied for me to join her and our son on almost daily walks. I begrudgingly go on the family walk and I have never admitted to her how much I enjoy the family time as we appreciate nature and time together. Our walks started in March and the weather in Wisconsin can be brisk. Good days for a walk to my wife was basically any time it was not raining or snowi...

I am sorry for my actions, I let my emotions get the best of me. Have you ever had to say this to anyone? Emotions can run high and emotions can drive you to do things that you normally do not do. In the current climate too, many people are reacting to situations based on pure emotion and not always allowing information to come to light or clarity to be provided to a situation. I have often debated with myself if emotions are a weakness. Nobody has ever had to apologize for their actions because the remained too calm, cool and collected in a situation. This is something that can be easy in principle but harder to implement in practice. This inner battle on whether emotion is a weakness weighs heavily on me as a person. I am a passionate person and I am driven by emotion. I have also had...

“Be quick, but don’t hurry”-John Wooden This quote from Wooden gets used quite often, and it has driven me to reflect on what this means to leadership. As I am transitioning into my principal position there are so many things that I want to do, and that need to happen to improve the experience for our students. I have been reflecting and prioritizing and looking at what things will translate into high leverage strategies that will improve student outcomes. As I have met the staff there is excitement and an eagerness to improve. How do I lead them quickly but at the same time providing due diligence to the process of growth? How do I be quick without hurrying? The first piece was to gather some data on what the priorities were of the staff and what was the student data telling me? I c...

Earlier this week I underwent a cornea transplant surgery. Since 2005 I have had issues with my left eye and over time the situation deteriorated. I was deemed legally blind in my left eye in 2010. I had significant issues on and off with my left eye that required regular monitoring by my eye doctor. My cornea was a steeper cone than a typical cornea and this caused thinning which led to scar tissue, which led to me not being able to see. I have always made due with one eye but now my life was different. One of my favorite memories as a child was being able to play catch with my dad. Now that I have a 21-month-old son I want to be able to play catch with him. Being blind in one eye causes great difficulty with depth perception and a simple activity like playing catch becomes much more diff...

“Many people are convinced leadership is about authority. True leadership is more about influence. While people don't want to be micromanaged, they do want to be led. An effective leader understands this and directs his/her people with intention, purpose and skill.” Derek Avera-Focus 3 Leadership Group I was browsing Linkedin and I saw this quote from Derek Avera from Focus 3 Leadership Group. I connected with Derek during this pandemic to talk leadership and hear his insight on what it means to lead. This quote resonated with me because it is so simple, yet so powerful. This quote sums up the difference between positional power and personal power. Authority is simply relying on your title and hoping that drives outcomes. Personal power is built on relationships and inspiration tha...

In my younger days I spent some time racing on a sail boat on Lake Michigan. I was very inexperienced as a sailor, but I enjoyed my time learning to sail competitively. While sailing there were times were the weather was not ideal, and this led to some uneasy times and heightened anxiety. You never know how fragile you are until you are battling against mother nature. With my inexperience I never knew how serious the weather was or what realistic level of danger we were in as a crew. I would look to our captain Tom as he was manning the steering wheel to see what his body language was telling me. No matter how rough the water or how strong the sea, he held the wheel and held a firm but steady demeanor. This would calm me and allow me to breathe easier and focus on my task at hand.  ...

As I am transitioning into my new role as a principal I am amazed at the unleashed power in human capital. Human capital is an expensive word for relationships. I have a circle of people that I lean on for advice. My eyes were opened by my cousin who is an upper level manager at a large cosmetic company. He is invaluable as a resource for me, and I always appreciate his insight. He reached out to me to give me feedback on my blind spot article that you can find on this site. He asked me if I wanted to hear my biggest blind spot as a leader, and I was eager to hear his insight. He stated that my biggest blind spot was that I do not put enough value on my likeability, and that my greatest skill is as a listener and allowing people to share what is important to them with me. He scolded me in ...

This has been a unique time in my life, and a unique time for many people. As we have progressed through the safer at home order there have been stages to my emotional state. At first I was kind of shocked that everything just ended and we are staying at home. Then the day that the state shut down schools for the year I was good until I received a call that there was a large group of students at school. I went up there and found a group of students with sidewalk chalk, and they were writing messages as a class on the concrete. There were some touching messages, but it became clear that school this year was done. It was emotional. Since that time, I have progressed in dealing with the current situation.  I was on a webinar with an education consultant and he presented the question o...

Wow that did not go like I anticipated. So, what do we do now? As a leader this is one of the most uncomfortable moments you encounter. When implementing an initiative or sending a communication, you have an idea of what you would like to happen. Then all of a sudden you start receiving questions or pushback and you wonder how you got here. While this is not the desired outcome it is unavoidable as a leader. So how do we avoid that uncomfortable feeling? Previously I had talked about humility versus ego and how that shapes leadership. As a leader one of the best ways to demonstrate humility is to have authentic reflection around what your blind spots are as a leader. Being aware of your own growth areas can help avoid those frustrating moments where things do not go as you intended. Bli...

Leadership is a lonely endeavor, and the saying goes that success has multiple parents while failure is an orphan rings true. Often times as a leader you are working alone. There is only one CEO, one plant manager, one principal or one head coach. This solitude takes an already hard job and makes it exponentially more difficult. So how do you deal with this as a leader? My cousin is a plant manager for a large cosmetic company. He is a key piece of my personal professional network. He is younger than me and we both lean on each other for advice. As we were talking about me taking on my new role as a principal, he asked me if I would take some advice from my younger cousin. I am always looking for advice, so I obliged. He told me to find other principals that I know and trust, and that I...