No Excuses Leadership

Controlling the Game

One of the great joys in my professional life is being given the chance to work with struggling schools. I’ve always believed that every one of them were a great story waiting to happen.  Almost without exception however, they all start with a major roadblock . . . . they’re living in denial.  Rather than accept their need to change the way they do business, they often share with me things like:

“If the district would just get off our back and let us do what we know is right for kids, we would be so much better off!” 

As someone who despises bureaucracy, I agree that mandates from the top down are often detrimental to the progress that needs to occur at the site level.  Where I emphatically disagree with them is that any leader from the district office is going to say to a failing school, “You’ve shown no growth for a number of years and your students are failing, so we’ve decided to let you go ahead and do whatever you think is right.”  In this business, if you want to control the game, you’d better have results.

TAKE ACTION

Most of us would agree that student achievement should drive all of our decisions.  This should shape the way we lead.  For example: Let’s say you’re a principal of a struggling school.  You know your results have a lot to be desired and therefore you’ve given blanket mandates to the entire staff about programs, goals, lessons, etc.  This is absolutely the wrong decision!  What you should be doing is taking your thumb off of the staff members who are seeing great gains and focus your time on spotlighting their work to the others so that such results are spread across the grade levels and departments. The greatest reward we can give to individuals at the school level, schools at the district level, and districts at the state level is to:

1. Celebrate and spotlight their successes

2. Find a way to spread the results

3. Get the hell out of the way.

When we lead with this mentality, we encourage more results. Everyone wants to control the game.  Create a culture that embraces the idea that the greater the results, the greater control someone has of their initiative they're involved in, classroom they're teaching in or school they're trying to lead.

BE BOLD

"Don't tell me your effort, show me your results."

-Tim Fargo-