EPISODE #307

You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 307.

How do builders like us make a dramatic difference in the lives of our students in spite of all the obstacles we face? How do you keep your vision for your school from being held hostage by resistant teachers, uncooperative parents, ridiculous district policies, or a lack of time, money, or resources? If you're facing those challenges right now, here is where you'll find the answers, strategies, and actionable tips you need to overcome any obstacle you face. You don't have to wait to make a difference in the lives of the people you serve. You can turn your school into a success story right now with the people and resources you already have. Let's get started. Hey, builders.

Welcome to another episode of the School Leadership Reimagined Podcast. 

I'm your host, Robyn Jackson. And before we dive into our topic today, which is pretty provocative, I want to just, first of all thank all of you who came to the master scheduling masterclass. The more we do these masterclasses, the better that they get. We gave you a master scheduling playbook. We talked about how builders think about master scheduling, and it wasn't a conversation about bell schedules and hours and blocks and all of that. It was more about how we think about master scheduling and that our master schedule should reflect our vision, our mission, our core values, and some creative ways of doing that. It was a really good class.

I'm so excited you came. We'll let you know what next month's masterclass is. I'll probably announce it next week or so, but if you want to just stay in the loop on the masterclasses, make sure that you are subscribed to our email so that we send you something. We send you a Monday morning mindsteps every Monday, which is something inspirational for the week. On Wednesdays, we send you notification that the podcast has dropped. And then we also send you information about our upcoming masterclasses. Now, if you missed the master scheduling masterclass and you want to get access to it, the way you do that is by joining the 100% collective. That's our community inside of Buildership University.

Not only do you get the replay from the masterclass and the playbook and all the tools, so good. We have. We have sample master schedules. We have a communication pack to show you how to communicate with your staff about master scheduling, we have the secret weapon for getting your stuff staff on board early with the master schedule so they have input without taking over your master schedule. That was probably the most popular tool in the whole package. All of that's there in the collective along with last month's masterclass, which is all about 5 ins and 5 outs. And let me tell you, people are doing that and major transformation is happening that it's so cool to watch. Right?

Because I love the 5 in 5 out method. People are doing that this spring. They are having conversations as a staff that they've never had before. They're getting alignment. It is so be beautiful. I love that one. That playbook alone, oh my goodness.

And then we're dropping other tools weekly.

So there's some follow up tools that we're going to be dropping inside the collective about master scheduling to really help make it possible. I mean, to make it easier for you to be able to do. There are other tools. Someone just told me they hired their brand new AP by using the hiring your next AP playbook. We have a playbook on student focus group. You know, it's so much in there, I would just, I'd bore you if I just listed all the things there. You should check it out. And so what you want to do is go to buildershipuniversity.com community.

Buildershipuniversity.com community. Sign up for the A Hundred Percent Collective. You get all of the masterclasses, all the playbooks, all the tools, all the toolkits, all the archives, all there in the 100% collective. And we're adding new tools weekly. So buildershipuniversity.com community. All right, now let's talk about today's topic. This is going to be a little provocative and not intentionally so. And I thought about, should I do it, Should I not?

But this topic has been coming up so much during office hours inside of Buildership University that I felt like it's something that we probably need to talk about here on the podcast as well. And that's. What do you do when you're working for a boss hole? Told you. It's gonna be a little provocative. And maybe it's not a boss hole. Maybe it's. Maybe you're just working for a boss that doesn't get what you're trying to do as a builder.

You see, when you're a builder, you assume this 100% mindset. You become a 100% principal and people don't get that. And the person you think it's gonna be, your staff, you think the staff is gonna be the ones who give you the pushback. But your staff gets on board pretty quickly in most instances, but your boss sometimes doesn't. And so you are moving along, you're getting started with the work that you're doing, and then your boss comes in and says, nope, nope, we're not doing that. We're going to do this other thing over here. And they try to drag you back into leadership. This has been coming up office hours for those of, you know, Build Sheep University is a mentorship.

And every week we have office hours where you don't record it. People come, they have challenges, challenges. We help them get unstuck. Sometimes people come, you know, just to fill their cups. You know, they just. I need to be around people who are builders and who think like me. It's my favorite thing about Buildership University, and it consistently is probably. It's just a place where you can go and get support and advice, and people are helping each other.

It's awesome. Anyway, this has been coming up, and in the last six weeks, it's come up at least three times in office hours where people are doing this incredible work, and then somebody from the district, you know, sails into the building, says, what are you doing? We're not doing that. We're going to do this thing over here. And so, because it's come up so much, I think we need to talk about it. We talk about why it's happening. We need to talk about how you can handle it like a builder. And then I want to talk about how you can use their pushback in your favor.

So let's dive in. 

So let's talk about first why it happens. Now, the big reason why it happens is that buildership is not leadership. And so this is not your boss's fault if they are not builders themselves. They've been taught leadership. They have gotten to the position where they are now because they are good leaders. And remember, buildership and leadership don't play well with each other. So your boss is thinking like a leader, and when they see you doing something that's thinking like a builder, it's so alien to them, they honestly don't get it.

And because they have gotten to where they are because they're such good leaders, they do what leaders do, which is try to get you back in line. And so that's the first reason. They just genuinely don't get it. Now, the second reason this happens is that a lot of times what you're doing is intimidating to your boss. Like, you are being innovative, you are moving forward, and they become intimidated or feel threatened by your past passion because it's your. It's bigger. Your vision is bigger than theirs. Your passion is bigger than theirs.

You're doing something really incredible. And they have. They've. They have this tightly controlled area where they're good at. And when you push beyond that or. Or expose what. How. What they're doing isn't going to help students, that can make them feel very threatened and can make them feel very, very insecure.

Okay, so that's the second reason. Now, the third reason is that if they're already insecure, they can interpret your innovation as insubordination. Some people think their job is to get everybody doing the exact same work the same way they think their job. And that being a good leader is about how in control you are. So you'll notice that leaders will use words, and bosses will also use words that, you know, terms like, well, I got to get my team under control. We got to get everybody on the same page. You know, all these things that they're saying. And they look at that.

They. They are tightly controlling. They think that's what it means to be good at what they're doing. And when you innovate in any way, it feels like, well, you're over here, and I'm trying to get you over here. And that may feel to them like insubordination. They may interpret it that way, especially if they're insecure. Okay. The other thing is that a lot of times, because they were trained to think like leaders or bosses, they see initiatives like turf, so they have their own thing that they're trying to roll out.

And when you do something different from what they're trying to roll out, it feels like you are trampling on their turf. And if that's the case, if any of these are the case, then that boss or that leader is going to come in, and they're going to do what bosses and leaders do, which is to shut you down and to get you on the same page. So what do you need to do? So the first thing is you're not going to fight it. You're not going to go to war. It's going to drain your energy. It's going to distract you from what you're doing, and you're not going to also dim your light to make them feel better. Why are you doing that?

Your kids are depending on you to defend your vision as 100% principal. 

Your job is to go in and fight for 100%. That doesn't mean going to war and thinking that the enemy is your boss. Your boss is not the enemy. You've got a bigger fight. The enemy are all the things that are stopping your kids from getting to 100%. That's the enemy you need to be fighting. Not your boss, your person.

You don't need to be fighting people, right? So you need to be fighting for your kids, fighting for their success. So you're not going to dim your light. You're not going to go to war. And here's the other thing. You're not going to try to convert them. It's not your job to make them a builder. And a lot of people, this is where a lot of builders mess up.

You know, they, they, they, they see buildership. They have, they fully, you know, guzzle down the buildership Kool Aid and then they, like any new convert, they go out and try to convert everybody else. It's an exercise in frustration that you're talking about. Buildership is not going to convert anybody. What will convert them are your results. So you don't have to work on converting them. You need to work on creating and building results that blow everything out of the water. And all of a sudden, then buildership starts to look really good.

But before that, it's just an idea. It's another crazy idea. It goes in the bin with all the other crazy ideas. Do what I say. That's how your boss is thinking. So stop wasting time. So again, you're not going to fight them, you're not going to try to convert them, and you're not going to dim your light. Here's what you are going to do as a builder, and this is really important.

So I want you to pay a close, play close attention here. So the first thing is that if you are receiving pushback, it means then that you need do a better job of translating your ideas into language that other people can understand. Now, those of you in Buildship University, you know, you've heard me say it over and over again that vision story is the number one tool that you have to do that, right? So using your vision story to help take your vision and, and, and, and share your vision in a way that other people get. Now people say, well, I did it. I shared my vision story once. Nope, that's not enough. You need to keep sharing.

You need to keep iterating your vision story and evolving your vision story so that you get closer and closer to people's internal, external and philosophical desires. You need to make sure that you are honing in. You can't just say your vision story once and think that everything's going to be okay. You're constantly sharing your vision story and what that vision story does is it translates your vision into language other people can hear and embrace. And so if people don't get what you're doing and you're saying, well, you don't know, then you're doing it wrong. What you need to be doing is you need to take the things that you're trying to do, create a vision story around it so that they hear it in language that taps into what they care about without watering down your vision. And so if you're not doing that, if you're facing pushback, if people don't get your ideas, part of the problem is you need to be translating those ideas better so that people can hear it. Because when you use that vision story, the right people hear it, they embrace it.

Oh, is that what you're trying to do? 

And you can, you'll be amazed at the support that you get around the work. So that's the first thing. The second thing is a lot of us just go out, we're so excited. We go out and start doing something and we didn't prep our boss, right? So nothing. But there's nothing a boss hates more than for you to start doing something and then they hear about it thirdhand. That feels threatening to a boss or leader.

And so you need to get really good at, at previewing rather than surprising people, right? You don't want them to hear about what you're doing out in the streets. You want them to hear about it from you. And so you need to give them a heads up. Even if it's just something like, well, look, I just want to share what we're trying to do with our team. Some of us are nervous to do that. We think it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. But trust me, if you are using that vision story the right way, and if you are previewing stuff with them, you don't have to give them the whole breakdown of it, right?

You can just, you give them the heads up so that you give them the sense of control that they need without actually controlling you. So there's a way to do this, right? It's not just like, hey, calling you to give you a heads up. I know that thing you want us to do, we're not doing that. We're doing this other thing over here. What you want to do instead is you want to just, you have to, again, as a part of that vision story, get the support around your vision first and then say, as a result of that, we're thinking about doing this thing and getting them an opportunity to get some input. And they may say, well, no, I mean, you know, we've got this other thing over here. I know.

And I don't. I don't want to miss it. We're doing that, too. But we feel like this additional thing will give power to the thing you're trying to do. And we're doing it in a way that aligns with where we are as a school. The staff is already on board with this other thing, and I think that this could really help with the initiative that you're. You know, do you see what I'm doing? I am taking what we're trying to do.

I'm giving them a preview, but I'm tying it to their objectives. 

We don't do that enough, y'all. We just think that the. The work we're doing is self evident. And for somebody who doesn't get buildership, nothing is self evident. You have got to sell your ideas, and we're horrible at that. You know, we always worry about, I got to sell it to my staff.

Do you? We neglect entirely the fact that we also have to put that same work in to selling our. Our ideas to our bosses. Now, notice I didn't say tell them everything. It's not their business, but tell them enough to make them still feel in control, to make them still feel like they know what's going on, and to help shape the narrative around the initiative that you're doing. That's really important. We don't do that enough. And so when you lose control of the narrative, you lose control of your culture.

I've said that a bunch of times. And so you've got to shape the narrative in there. That's why they need to hear from you the first time. Because what you're doing is you're laying the foundation for how they see your work. You are giving them language and a lens through which they can interpret your actions. If you don't do that and they're making up stories about what's happened in your school on their own, then they could feel threatened. They could see it as insubordination. But when you set the narrative in their heads first, then when they hear about it, you're like, oh, yeah, I know about that.

That's what they're doing. And then they start telling other people what you're doing, and they can shape it in a way that keeps. That keeps them feeling in control and that. That you're giving them the language to talk about what you're doing and the language to interpret what you're doing before they start to feel threatened. Okay? Now, the third thing is that you need to. I'm going to say this. I'm going to try to say this the right way.

You got to understand politics, right? 

And when people get to a certain level, they. They're looking. They're fighting for credibility, they're fighting for. They're fighting to feel like they're doing something. The initiatives that they've created, that's what they're building their credibility on. I know we're supposed to be thinking about the kids. I know that we're supposed to be doing that.

We're not. Most of us are not, unfortunately. Especially the more you get into a leadership mindset and a boss mindset, you're also thinking about your career. And we don't talk about it. But that's just the truth. People are trying to climb. People are trying to justify being in a position or trying to hold on. You don't know the pressures that they're facing.

You don't know the mandates that they're struggling under. Right. You don't know how they're being undermined by their bosses. So you gotta give people the benefit of the doubt, and you've gotta create political cover. And one of the ways that you can do that is that you need to make sure that you are giving them credit. Not for the work, necessarily, but you might want to say, hey, I was really inspired by our conversation around student engagement. And so we're testing a new approach. So you want to tie your idea to something that they've said, because then it's not just your idea.

You're coming up with a new idea. You are helping them say, see that what they're doing matters, even if it doesn't. You're helping them see what they're doing is inspiring you. You're tying, again, what you're doing to something they're already trying to do. Because people don't tear down what they helped build. That's as true for your staff as it is for your boss. Okay?

Now, the other thing is that all of those tips are great.

Yeah. You know, cute little things. If you haven't considered it, you should definitely do that. But here is the work. This is the real work. This is. This is. You might have figured those things out on your.

But here's the difference that builders do. And this is what makes you a builder rather than just a savvy political operator. Okay? Now, it goes back. So, you know, one of the things I like to do, I like to garden. Right. And so I dabble in. You know, I'm interested in permaculture.

I know it's weird and geeky. Don't go look it up if that's not your deal. Just take this. Permaculture is this idea of you. You, you build, you, you work with nature instead of against nature gardening so that you can build something that's sustainable and will thrive. And you're building something that will give you food over and over again. Okay. Giving you background for this next piece.

There's a permaculture principle that. Probably the hardest principle for me to really understand. But once I understood it, it just changed the way that I looked at the world. And that is the problem, is the solution. So in gardening, let's say that you have a place in your, on your, in your yard that's particularly soggy, right? Well, it's soggy. But if you, if you see that as a problem, then you're going to try to like, fill it in and do this sort of thing. But the solution is that is a place that's not just soggy.

That's a place where water loves to go. That's a place where if you, if you build it or restructure it, right, you can take that extra water that the land can absorb and put it to another part of your yard or part of your garden that doesn't have water, right? So that instead of looking as a problem to be solved, you look at every problem as a solution to other problems that you have. When you see your problems that way, everything changes. You stop getting stopped by problems. You stop every stop. Stuff that looks like a roadblock becomes just more tools. Remember I told you that when you're a builder, you build with whatever they throw at you, right?

So when your boss stops you, that is not a problem. 

That problem, that your boss stopping you becomes a solution. If you think like a builder, right? So here's the first thing. Like when a boss pushes back, their pushback reveals their priorities, right? So if they're fighting your initiative, the friction reveals exactly what is important to them and what people say is important to them and what's really important to them. Two different things. Things.

So if you pay attention to their pushback, just like I tell you to do with teachers, right? So when a teacher pushes back, I always tell you, listen closely. They're telling you their wheel drivers, they're telling you their internal, external and philosophical problems that you can use in your vision story. The same thing is true for your boss. So when they, they push back, they're giving you data to show you how to convince them to move forward, right? So instead of, you know, getting mad at their pushback, study it. Go be an archaeologist. Go through and excavate that.

Excavate? That's not even the right word. Explore their pushback, right? Figure out what their pushback is telling you. It'll reveal their will drivers. It'll reveal their priorities. It'll reveal their internal, external, and philosophical problems. When people push back against me now, I'm always like, tell me more.

Because I am, I am going through that stuff with a fine two cone, like I'm an ncis. Is that right? NCIS investigator. Because I am looking for information in their pushback that is going to help me make a better, stronger argument for my ideas. Hey, Robin here. And I just want to break in real quick to ask you a huge favor. You see, I want to get the word out to, to everybody about buildership, and I could use your help.

If you're really enjoying this episode, would you mind just going to your podcast platform and leaving a quick review?

You see the reviews, get the word out. They tell other people this is a great show. Other people who have never heard of school leadership reimagined before can hear about it. And you'd be sharing the word about buildership. So would you mind just leaving a quick review? It would mean the world to me. Okay, now back to the show, right? So that way you can use that information to be able to shape what you're trying to do so that they can see it as something that's going to help them do something they want to do anyway, it helps you to make a better argument.

The more they push back, and the more you sit and listen to that and ask questions in a respectful way to really try to understand their pushback, the stronger your arguments become. Okay, so the other thing is that when you see their resistance not as an obstacle, but as a solution, right? The problem is a solution. The obstacle is the way. If you really start thinking that way, then when you, when, when you hear their pushback, it forces you to get more clear about what it is you want to do and why you want to do it, right? A lot of times we, you know, we come to something, we have just kind of this idea like, hey, I want to do this. And we haven't really thought it through. We just have gotten excited.

When you get pushback from your staff or from your boss, that tells you there's a part of the idea that's not clear yet. And if you listen to that pushback. It helps you to get better and stronger ideas. We gotta get over the emotional stuff. With the pushback. I do it too. I get mad. How dare you?

And so give yourself 10 minutes to be mad. Go for broke. If you're a cusser, Cuss, cuss, cuss. I mean, don't cuss them out. Get in your car and cuss at the top of your lungs. Right? There's even studies that say that's good for you. I don't know.

I'm not a big. You know, I'm not a cusser, but. Or if you need to eat your feelings, go buy yourself a candy bar. Whatever you need to do, give yourself 10, 15 minutes to just be in your feelings. Do it away from people so that you don't go off on anybody. After that's over, you can say, okay, we. Were we done yet? We.

Have we. Have we gotten all the feelings out? Yeah. Okay, now let's go back and let's figure out if there's any legitimacy to what they're saying. And it forces you to be clear. You see, sometimes the resistance that you face from teachers, from your bosses, it's not about resistance.

It's because your ideas are kind of fuzzy. 

And so the pushback forces you to get clearer. And the clearer you are about what you're doing and why you're trying to do, the better you are able to find poss, the better you are able to work around all of these obstacles. So take this as a sign that maybe your message isn't clear. And get clear, get more cemented in what you're doing. Now, the next thing is that when you're working with a boss that somehow feels threatened, it forces you to find other alliances. It forces you to find other data or teacher voices to bolster your idea. Right? So this is an opportunity when you face pushback to start creating other relationships in the district, to find other alliances. If somebody's not on your side, they're not the only person out there.

Find somebody else and build alliances with other people. We kind of stay in our lane and stay. A lot of principals say, I'm not political. Listen, the position is political. You have to be political. But this is an opportunity to build support for you and for your ideas with other people. You should be doing that anyway. You should be cultivating the support from your parents anyway.

You should be bolstering the support with your teachers anyway. You should be bolstering the support with your superintendent and others anyway. You should be bolstering support with the community anyway. And so when you get this pushback, you don't have to stand there and take it by yourself. So this is a reminder. You need to be going deep and wide about what you're trying to do, about building the case, about getting people excited about that. Now, they still may try to shut you down, sure. But when you build this political cover and support, what happens is you begin to create a coalition around the work and so that you don't have to fight alone.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this. 

When you face pushback, it shows you a weakness in your system. And if you begin to address the weakness instead of fighting the pushback, not only does what you're trying to do get stronger, you get more clear. Now, I've seen this happen to me a lot. You know, a lot of. I used to get mad. You know, I don't know if that's a sign of arrogance or what, but I used to get mad. I have this great idea.

I get so excited about the idea, and I roll it out and I try tell people. Like, I remember one time when I was an assistant principal, I had this great idea. Like, I wanted to do this, and I thought it through, and I talked to a couple people in the building, and they were all excited about it. And then I go to my principal, and my principal's like, yeah, we're not doing this. What do you mean we're not doing this? This is a brilliant idea. And I just immediately got mad. I mean, I was mad.

I was like, I'm dusting on my resume. I'm gonna go look for another job. You lucky I'm not through the principal training yet. Cause if I did, I'd come back and take this. I mean, I was mad. And then I calmed down. And then I went back over what he was saying, and I thought about his priorities. I thought about what he was trying to do.

I thought about he was a new principal to the school. He's trying to get established here. I come with this new idea that's taking us in a totally different direction. And I was so excited about it that I didn't spend the time thinking about how I approached him with the idea first. And he was also mad because I'd talked to teachers about it before. I talked to him about it, and he's the principal. So instead of going to war, which is, you know, my natural impulse, unfortunately, I fight instead of shrinking and just saying, well, I'm just going to put my head down and do my job, I'M not going to bring him any more ideas because he'll listen to my ideas anyway. And so instead of shrinking about something that needed to be done, and instead of.

Of. Of, you know, kind of trying to convince him to do this thing when I hadn't shown that I'd even heard what he was trying to do, I took the feedback and I just said, okay, there's a. There's another vulnerability here, which is that our relationship hadn't. There was a lack of trust amongst us, and I was moving faster than he was ready to move, and I was pushing when he needed support. So I went back to him and I said, hey, listen, I need to be honest with you. I came to you with an idea, and I felt shut down. But I get why you did it, because he was about to. Listen, I'm just gonna be honest.

I'm mad, but I understand why you did it now. 

And so what it reveals to me. Let's put the idea aside for a moment. What it reveals to me is that I have never sat down to listen to your vision for the school. So let me start there. Then I sat and listened, and he talked about his vision. The more he talked about his desires and what he was trying to do for the school and what he wanted to see. And then I asked questions.

And the more I did that and the more I understood his vision, the more I started seeing how this idea supported his vision. Vision. And so when he finished talking, then I gave it back to him. I said, okay, so here's why I think I hear you saying, okay, I think I understand now what you're trying to do. Is this, right? And I kind of gave it back to him. And he was like, yeah, that's it. And I said, how can I support you on that vision?

And then he said, well, you know, and he started talking about the things he needed to support. And I didn't push the idea at the time. I just said, okay, I got it. Because it wasn't time to push that idea. I needed to understand. Then I went back and made my idea stronger. I went back and I saw some holes in my idea. I saw why he initially was pushing back on it.

I saw how I did a poor job of selling it, and I went back and I worked on my idea. A couple weeks later, we were in a meeting. An issue came up, an issue that my idea was designed to solve. But this time I was ready. So I didn't say, yeah, well, if you just did my idea, we couldn't. We wouldn't have had this issue. I didn't do that. I just said, you know, this is an example.

This is, this instance is one of the reasons why I bought the idea to you a couple weeks ago and I heard your feedback. And so I've been thinking a lot about that idea. And here's, here's what I've. Here's where I've. Here's how it's evolved. And I haven't talked to anybody about it, but this is where it's evolved. And I just started talking about the idea. But I'm using the language of his vision.

I mean, I've also shown that I'm listening to him and I said, in this situation, if we do this, then this is how it could fix the situation and also prevent it from derailing the things that you want to do. And he was like, that makes sense. Let's do it. And it stopped being a battle of whose idea gets done. And I was able to do the thing that I want to do. And I'll be real honest with you, had I done it the way I initially thought to do it, it wouldn't have worked as well. But because I took the feedback, even though I didn't like how we did it and made my idea better than when I came back to with it, it was a better idea. You see, the obstacle is the way the problem is the solution.

You are going to face pushback. 

Let me just be honest with you. Buildership is not leadership. It's not a version of leadership. It is something entirely different. And the more you become a builder, the less other people get what you're trying to do. That's why office hours is such a big deal for us inside of Buildersham University, because people are in environments where they're the only builder in their district. And especially when you're first getting started out in the process, it could be so isolating and so hard to.

Because once you see buildership, you can't unsee it, right? Like you see inside the matrix, but everybody else is still attached to the machines in their head and they're floating in, what is it, the amniotic fluid and, you know, being sucked alive by the machine and buying into the whole buildership thing. And when you see it, you can't unsee it. And so it can become really frustrating when you're sitting in a principal's meeting and everybody is talking about incremental gains, when you're like, why are we talking about that when we should be talking about 100%, it can be really hard when you are trying to do something like five in, five out and your boss is like, yeah, let's look at curricula, alignment and power standards and da, da, da, da, da. And you're like, why are we doing this? It can be really hard when you want to spend time creating a 90 day plan and your district is telling you to do a fishbone diagram and create a year long strategic plan and, and project a minimum of 3.5% growth in math. It can be so hard and so lonely and so isolating. And so if that's you right now, don't.

You're not alone, right? You just have to find other builders. Because if you're a builder and you recognize that not everybody gets what you're trying to do, stop trying to proselytize everybody and convince everybody to become builders too. And instead you just get about the work. And sometimes that work is about helping your staff to get on board in alignment with your vision. Sometimes that work is about helping your boss to get on board in alignment with your vision. And if you do it the wrong way, people will think that you're being insubordinate, people will think that you're not a team player, people will think that you have all these cockamamie schemes that run up against those, the evidence based practices that they want you to use. People will think that they will look at you and start making personal assumptions like, oh, when you're fighting for your vision, you come across for somebody like me, angry black woman or arrogant or whatever, they start to interpret your passion differently.

And it can be so frustrating when all you're trying to do is ensure success for every kid in your school. And it's frustrating because why don't other people see it when it's so clear to you? But there's a way to handle it. And in the same way that we spend a lot of time talking about staff alignment and doing specific and intentional work to get your staff aligned. You know, those of you who are in Buildership University, you know this, right? We start out with your vision, your vision story, your one mission, your core values, your or one plan.

Each of those steps is about being intentional and deliberate about building staff alignment, right? 

So you know, just because you have a vision doesn't mean, and it's 100% vision, doesn't mean everybody's gonna be in alignment.

You need a vision story, then after you share your vision story, it doesn't mean that everybody's gonna stay excited, right? That's why you need that mission process so that they begin to own the vision too. And then you go through the mission, you got your vision. And mission doesn't mean everybody's gonna be doing the work they should be. That's why you need core value valid. So each step in the process creates more and more staff alignment. So by the time you get through all of that and you get to your one plan, you know your staff is on board. And even then, you have to maintain it with the right feedback, support, accountability, culture.

It's a work. That's why we have the buildership curriculum. That's why we have the roadmap, the process. Because building alignment around 100% vision is intentional and deliberate work. We accept that for teachers. But there's a same level of intentionality that has to happen when you're dealing with your bosses. And we just skip that part, right? We're like, well, I'm working on getting my staff aligned, or I have my staff aligned, my boss should get in alignment, be happy.

No, you have to do that same work because they're not builders yet. So that means that you have to have your vision. You need a vision story for your boss. You need to sit down and help your boss understand the why behind that vision. Vision. You need to sit down with your boss and say, here's what I need from you and what do you need from me, and create a set of core values in terms that are non negotiables, in terms of how you all work together. You need to create a plan that's in alignment with their plan but still allows you to do that same. Intentional work has to happen not just going towards your staff, but it also has to happen going towards your bosses.

And if you are not intentional about doing that work, you're going to get your hand slapped. So you need to be thinking like a builder. And when you are a builder, you don't worry about pushback. You don't battle against pushback. You don't try to shrink because of pushback. You don't give up on your vision. You don't get mad and say, well, I'm just going to take my ball and go.

You don't do any of that.

The kids that you serve right now need you to fight for your vision. But you gotta be smart about how you fight, which means that you gotta understand the nuances, you gotta listen to the pushback and use everything they throw at you to build. And then over time, as you begin to produce results, your results begin to speak for you. Your results begin to make the Argument for you. Your results make people leave you alone. Don't get caught up fighting your boss and getting mad at your boss. And, you know, like I said, give yourself 10, 15 minutes to feel all the feels. And then after that, you need to figure out how to build up in the same way that you build your staff.

How do you build the people above you? Like a builder. I'll talk to you next time. Hey, if you're ready to get started being a builder right away, then I want to invite you to join us at Buildership University. It's our exclusive online community for builders just like you, where you'll be able to get the exact training that you need to turn your school into a success story Right now, with the people and resources you already have inside, you'll find our best online courses, live trainings with me, tons of resources, templates and exemplars, and monthly live office hours with me where you can ask me anything and get my help on whatever challenge you're facing right now. If you're tired of hitting obstacle after obstacle and you're sick of tiny little incremental gains each year, if you're ready to make a dramatic difference in your school right now, then you need to join Buildership University. Just go to buildershipuniversity.com and get started writing your school success story today. Hey, real quick, before you go, if you enjoyed today's episode and you know someone who would really benefit from what you heard here today, maybe they're struggling with the thing that we talked about in today's episode, would you take a moment and share this episode with them?

Them? You see, not only will it help us get the word about Buildership out to more people, but you're going to look like a rock star because you're going to give people something they can really use to help them get unstuck and be better at building their schools. Plus, it would mean the world to me. Thanks so much and I'll see you next time.