Navigating the Rough Waters

There are enough books on leadership to fill a classroom floor to ceiling, wall to wall. Theories, tools, instruments to measure and evaluate teaching and learning, frameworks we can implement. There’s the latest research depicting the part of the brain that lights up when we’re learning, when we’re being creative and even while taking tests that evaluate our diversity intelligence. The list goes on. There are as many theories as there are books and experts.

But the one thing that is frequently omitted from the mix is compassion. And compassion is one thing we must practice – purposefully and intentionally – particularly when we're pressed against the wall of stress.

For seasoned and emerging leaders, compassion is the one constant that we can count on to help navigate the rough waters of urban school leadership. Compassion helps us remember what it feels like to walk in someone else's shoes, if they're lucky enough to own a decent pair.

Anything but Touchy Feely

I was recently introduced at a workshop to a group of emerging and seasoned School Leaders with whom I was about to spend the day. The director said very gracious things in his introduction. Then suddenly, in that one moment, all the preparation I did, all the advance planning with the director, and with participants through individual emails – in that one moment, it was all nearly sabotaged with two words. “And now, it is my great pleasure to introduce Linda, who has taken time from her work with KIPP to work with us. We’ll be doing touchy feely work today, so get ready.”

“Oh no!!! Not the dreaded “touchy feely.”

People will often hear me say that I’m guided by knowing that I’m never confused about who my primary stakeholders are. Here was another opportunity to practice that as I made my way to the front of the room. I turned to face the 30+ participants and knew I had to redirect the images reflected in their faces: Please tell us we’re not going to be holding hands, singing Kumba Ya, and passing the talking drum around the circle of trust.

“Thank you for inviting me. It’s so wonderful to see you face to face after communicating through email, and I’m so glad to be here with you today. There’s nothing I would rather do than work with you because you are committed to urban education and changing the outcomes and opportunities for our Kids. It’s the hardest work there is and it demands so much of you. (Beat, beat – a quick look toward the floor then back at them. With feet firmly planted and a teaching heart and intention):

“And thank you for the lovely introduction. With all due respect, however, there is one thing I want to make very clear: There is nothing touchy feeling about the art of communicating, interacting with and leading people. The work of human dynamics is very rigorous. We will be engaging in that rigorous work today. It takes stamina, complete attention and engagement, and now I ask you to commit to that.”

I could feel the mind of the room shift, and a collective exhale of relief as well as anticipation. And then we began.

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Manage people?

In a conversation with Carol Tomlinson as part of the KIPP/NLU Distinguished Educators series, she said: "Teacher as a leader first, a leader of people and a manager of details, almost inevitably works better than trying to manage people. People don’t much like being managed." What an inspired concept for all leaders. The full audio of this conversation can be heard at http://www.kipp.org/00/audio/

Making Change

To make positive change, focus on what you want to see happen, rather than on what you don't want to happen. The brain needs an image so it knows what to do.

The power of story.

Staying the Course

Leading an urban school for historically underserved kids is the hardest work with the highest consequences. And it's lonely work. School Leaders set and live the vision and values that guide our teachers every day to make it possible for all of our kids to have equal opportunities.Educators deserve and need expert witnesses to their lives who can help them stay the course at their highest level.

Kindness
Social scientists build case for 'survival of the kindest'
ScienceDaily (Dec. 9, 2009) Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists ...

Put poetically, here is one of my favorite poets and poems.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words