“Success Leaves Clues”

You’ve heard that before, right?

Well. after personally coaching hundreds of school leaders I got to wondering. 🤔

Do the top Ruckus Makers share some leadership skills??

And if they do, can others learn these skills …

to become an even more effective leader???

Turns out, that YES top performers do share some skills …

And YES you can learn them …

That’s what I call The Principal Success Formula™

It’s made up of four parts:

🧠 Mindset

✏️ Design

❤️ Culture

✅ Results

Last night I did a training. The first part of a 4-part series I’m calling the “2023 Success Series.”

If you missed it, and want to attend the rest of the series there’s a link at the end of this article.

Otherwise, here are a few ideas that you will help you in 2023 …

“We become what we thing about”

-Earl Nightingale

What you let into your mind is one of the most — if not the most — important decision you make each day.

The content you consume (like this) …

The friends you keep …

The opinions you take to heart or discard …

The scripts you say to yourself time and time again …

Be mindful of what these messages are because they influence and predict who you are becoming in each moment.

“We spend a lot time designing the bridge, but not enough time thinking about the people who are crossing it.”

-Dr. Prabhjot Singh

What a metaphor for design!

With every new initiative, project, or experience you create at your school …

How would you rank the ratio of time you spend thinking on the metaphorical bridge versus the people crossing it?

80/20? 60/40? 50/50? Something else?

As a leader you are task driven. Often you focus on the HOW and the steps to accomplish the goal.

That is a mistake when it overshadows the most important part …

The people you serve.

“Quality relationship lead to a quality culture”

-Me

What is the foundation of every top performing school out there?

The quality of relationships between adults.

Last night I taught a new idea in education that I learned from business.

I call it a SRM …

Or Staff Relationship Management System.

When I asked last night’s 2023 Success Series participants, “What was the #1 insight from the training?”

They surprised me and said it was the SRM.

There’s a lot that goes into it, but I’ll do my best to give you an overview in this post.

Basically, every time you have a chat with a colleague do you realize they are revealing to you very important data?

They are sharing their hopes and fears …

Their dreams and challenges …

And on and on …

Each time you learn something new about someone on your team, where do you put that info?

Most leaders think, “Huh, that’s interesting …” and it goes in one ear and out the other.

Ruckus Makers do something different, they think, “Huh, that’s interesting …”

And they store that data somewhere. That’s the system.

Maybe you add it to a note on your phone, a spreadsheet, a journal, or an app like Trello.

The important part is that you save the info …

And do something with it.

Given enough time acting on what you learn, you’ll elevate the quality of relationships in your building.

Creating an even more remarkable culture.

“If there was only more time …” and “If I could only clone myself …”

-Every school leader ever.

You can’t clone yourself (yet) and there is finite amount of time each day.

And …

You still have more than enough time to get everything done you want in a give school day.

How?

By leveraging the “results multipliers” …

The results multipliers are:

• delegation
• having a plan
• using a calendar
• creating an ideal week
• keeping score on accomplishing your priority task each day

And often, what you DON’T do is ever more important and a “results multiplier” too …

• dividing tasks into two buckets: high value and low value (guess which you should focus on???)
• minimizing distractions (you actually control that)
• stop scrolling on social media
• turning off notifications
• limiting your phone to NO email app and only one social media app
• and refusing to have an “open door” policy — one of the most ineffective things you can do as a school leader!

So that was about 15% of what I taught last night in the first part of the 2023 Success Series.

The rest of the series will focus on …

• Dec 28 · “3 Practical Tips to Strengthen Your Mindset”
• Jan 2 · “How To Use Intentional Design And Curiosity To Transform Your School”
• Jan 9 · “How To Make Trust Soar In Your School”

If you’d like to generate some great momentum for the second half of the year, sign up here: https://betterleadersbetterschools.com/2023-success-series/