How to Eat an Elephant-Balancing the Priorities of Leadership as a New Principal

Today I participated in a visioning meeting with our school leadership team and the district leadership team. It was an invigorating experience as we worked through the agenda with an icebreaker, writing our personal mission statement for the school and talking through some other things related to the district and our building. Everything was going well and I was feeling excited and optimistic. My brain was moving at a rapid pace and I felt comfortable with the work that we would be doing together for our students.

Then we moved to a SWOT analysis around our building. This was intense and very healthy. Everyone was open and honest with what they were sharing in each of the categories. I appreciated the discussion, and I was completely engaged in each of the four categories. The discussion focused on many of the things that weigh on educators all the time. We talked about equity, instruction, behavior management, staffing and messaging for staff and parents. Towards the end of the conversation my emotional state shifted from excitement and optimism to focusing on the burden of balancing the many facets of leadership. I was reeling thinking about how to align this work, how to communicate to staff, students and parents. There were so many thoughts running through my head and uneasiness about how to prioritize and implement everything.

As I was reflecting, I was reminded about the old adage about how to eat an elephant. The only way to successfully eat an elephant is one bite at a time. It was at this time that we were asked about what kind of support we need at the building level from the district leadership team. I asked for support in connecting the dots on all of the initiatives, and guidance on creating key terms for key moments to ensure that our leadership team had similar talking points when dealing with stakeholders. I also asked the building support team member to help me butchering this elephant and to keep reminding me about the one bite at a time mantra.

The rest of the day I have been brainstorming and processing all of the different pieces of leading a school. I am grounded in the fact that I am surrounded by great people, and my mind has shifted from this burden being on me alone. I have developed some strong relationships with the team and I will be relying on different people to support our building in our work. I am excited and optimistic again! I am anxious to begin this work around creating a world-class environment for ALL of our learners. Sometimes you need a butcher to help you slice the elephant, but the work must be done one bite at a time. It is always better to eat together and I cannot wait to break bread with this team.