“That was a great meeting.” I love having that feeling at the end of a meeting - especially if it’s one that I’ve had with my staff. I met with our leadership team this afternoon. “Leadership,” as we call it, is made up of department heads and our administrative team - fifteen people all together, plus me. This team of people is responsible for leading groups of teachers across our school. I love Leadership. It’s where a lot of magic happens.
Today was a great example of that. We have a series of department collaboration sessions coming up and I knew the best way to get the most personalized and impactful work done at these sessions was to have the department heads plan them. A misstep that I see leaders make sometimes is that we think it’s our job to determine what everyone needs - and then mistakenly give everyone the exact same thing.
We have seven different departments who are all in different places in terms of what they need to focus on right now. Which is why I had them determine their own individual plans. They typed their draft plans into a shared document so that we could see what they were planning and could be prepared to offer support. “Is there something that your department wants support with? If so, we’re here and ready to be of service.”
You know what? They each developed thoughtful and strategic plans for their teams - and they didn’t need our help. I love this. They took full ownership and led like true leaders. They spent time during the meeting to create their strategic plans. Y’all…during the meeting.
I am a strong advocate for providing a structure for people to get work done during meetings. My goal is for people to leave meetings with a renewed sense of purpose and direction, and new information, when necessary - and to have already accomplished some of the work or planning.
This is what empowers people. Inspire your leaders and then get the heck out of their way.
The school leadership team members were buzzing with ideas as they worked through the meeting. They got a lot done, but also felt the weight of their responsibility - which is not bad, it’s good. Their work as leaders matters so much.
At the end of the meeting I asked each team member to share a word to describe these coming weeks and the upcoming work they will be doing with their teams. We went around the table. Several team members shared a word about the amount of work - about how there was a lot to do in the coming weeks. It was clear that we were feeling the pressure, myself included.
The last person to share is the newest member of our team, and even though he is new to our team, he took us where we really needed to go. He paused, looked at all of us, and shared his word about our upcoming work: “Important.”
I looked around as the team soaked in this word and nodded with a renewed sense of determination.
YES.
Great meeting.
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