EPISODE #357

Hey, builders. Before we begin, I have a quick question for you. Are we connected on social media? The reason I'm asking is because as much as I love giving you the podcast episode every single week, I'd love to take our relationship deeper. So if we're not connected on social media, let's connect. I'm on LinkedIn @robinmindsteps. I'm on Twitter @robinmindsteps. I'M ON FACEBOOK at Robyn Jackson, please let's connect so we can keep the conversation going.

Now. On with the show. You're listening to the School Leadership Reimagined podcast, episode 357. 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 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, Robin Jackson, and we are in the final weeks of our eighth anniversary month. And I've been. I've been spending this time going deep. Probably some of you think maybe too deep, but it's really something that I think matters more right now than anything else that I could talk about. So last week I talked about the leadership ceiling, and today I want to talk about what's on the other side of it.

Standing in your faculty room or in your PLCs, or looking at you right now across the table every single day. And I want to start by reading something to you. So last summer, I asked the folks in my community a very simple question. What's your. What's your biggest challenge right now when it comes to staff alignment? And I got hundreds, hundreds of responses. And here's some of the things that I heard. So I heard.

I can't get my teachers to buy in. They smile, they nod, they go in the meeting, and then they go back to the rooms and do whatever they were already doing. That's one quote. Here's another quote. My teachers don't believe our kids can make it. I'm fighting low expectations every single day. Here's Another one. The negativity is killing my culture.

I have a few people who are toxic, and I can't seem to stop the spread. Here's another one. I feel like I'm doing this work alone. I push and I push, and the moment I stop pushing, everything drifts back. And then there's this one. I don't know how to get them to take ownership. They wait to be told what to do instead of stepping up. Now, tell me something.

Does any of that sound familiar to you? I'm going to guess yes, because like I said, those responses came from hundreds of different principals and hundreds of different schools and every kind of community that you can imagine. There were urban schools and rural schools and suburban, high poverty, high performing, wealthy new principals, veterans, principals who love their staff, principals who are quietly wondering if they made the wrong career choice. So this came from a range of principals. And no matter who the principal was, their challenges were, I would say, remarkably consistent. And I think these challenges are real. The frustration behind them is legit, the exhaustion that they point to earned. So you're not imagining what you're experiencing in your building, but today I want to offer you a different way of seeing it.

Because the teacher that you were trained to lead and the teacher who's actually standing in your building right now, they are not, not the same person. And nobody told you that. So think about how you were trained, and whether that was five years ago or 25 years ago, you were probably trained to a very specific kind of teacher. This is a teacher who, generally speaking, deferred to authority. I mean, they may push back a little bit, but most of the case they just serve. They deferred to authority. They accepted the official version of things. They worked within the system because that's just how it worked.

They showed up, they did their part. They trusted the structure. This was a teacher who, when you cast your vision with enough conviction and enough energy, they would get on board. They responded to inspiration, and they extended to you a certain level of goodwill while they were waiting to see if your new direction was gonna pan out. Right? They, you know, this is schools where we raised our hand to speak. They waited to be called on the entire leadership playbook.

Every tactic that you were taught, every strategy that you tried, every approach that used to work was designed for that teacher.

And to be clear, that teacher still exists. I mean, there are teachers in your building right now who operate exactly that way. And they are wonderful. We love them. Right? But I'm not sure they're the majority anymore. Something has Changed. And it hasn't changed in schools specifically.

It's changed in the world. And the world produces teachers the same way it produces everybody else. They're shaped by the same forces. They're operating under the same assumptions. They're carrying the same expectations. And so when the world changed, our teachers changed with it. And so before I go any further, I need to be clear. This is not a complaint.

I am not shaking my finger. You know, these kids these days, you know, I'm not doing that. Right? This is. I'm just saying that this is our current reality. And so when the context shifts, fundamentally, the people shaped by that context, well, they shift, too. And right now, in your building, you have a new kind of teacher. It's a teacher that the leadership playbook that you were trained under doesn't work for anymore.

This is a teacher who's operating assumptions about authority and truth and power and position. They're fundamentally different from the teacher that you were trained to lead. And that mismatch between the playbook that you were given and the people you're facing right now, it's not your fault, but it is your problem to solve. Because, you know, we see a version of this mismatch all the time, don't we? Like, I mean, how many times have you walked into a classroom and, you know, you watched a teacher use strategies that just. They don't work for today's kids? I mean, how many times have you tried to convince a teacher that they need to adjust their instruction to the kids in front of them instead of insisting that the kids change? They need to change, not the kids.

Well, now it's our turn. We've got to walk our own talk. So let's talk about who this new teacher is. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to describe three characteristics of the new teacher. And before I do that, I do need to say something, right? Because nothing I'm describing is a criticism or a complaint. You will never, ever hear me bashing teachers. But I do want to give you a clear picture of the person with whom you're actually working right now, so that you can start making some adjustments now and use an approach that was actually designed for them and not for somebody who used to exist, but who no longer exist.

Characteristic number one, the new teacher has a very, very different relationship with authority. So probably the challenge I hear most often is some version of this, right? So this one is, my teachers don't respect my leadership. They push back on everything. They question my decisions. They won't just trust me and follow. And then sometimes it doesn't look like this, it's a quieter version, which is they comply, but they don't commit.

They do what I ask when I'm watching, but then they do something different when I'm not watching.

So if you've ever felt like that, if you've ever felt like this sense that your authority isn't landing the way that you expected it to, here's what I think is actually happening. You see, the new teacher doesn't defer to authority, they evaluate it. And that's not disrespect, it's just that it's a fundamentally different operating assumption around what authority means and what it has to do to earn their compliance, let alone their commitment to. So the old teacher operated in a world where the principal had the access to the information, the research, the resources, and they had access that teachers didn't have. But that world is gone, right? The new teacher can access the same research that you're citing before you finish your sentence. They can find three competing frameworks for whatever initiative that you're launching or you're trying to get them to do. They can read the study that you're citing and the study that contradicts it.

And they can do it while you're still talking. They can watch the PD that you are referencing. They can see it on YouTube before your next staff meeting. They have access to every thought leader, every podcast, every conference session on demand, for free, all the time. And listen, teachers have always known things that principals don't know. That's not new. What's new is now they can prove it. The information that used to flow through the hierarchy, well, the information that used to give institutional authority its credibility, it's now available to everybody simultaneously and for free.

So when you stand up and you present a new direction with confidence and with conviction, the new teacher isn't thinking, oh, I should trust this person. They're thinking, wait a minute, let me see if this holds up. They're pulling out their phones, right? And so the old leadership response of asserting authority more forcefully to this, to make the expectations clearer, to enforce compliance more consistent, to, to interpret pushback as insubordination and respond accordingly, it's not going to work. And listen, I know how I was trained. I still remember reaching for that write up form anytime a teacher pushed back early in my career, you know, before I knew better. Right. And it wasn't a great strategy then, but it's even more disastrous now because the new teacher who evaluates Authority who, who already knows that they have options.

They do not respond to force compliance the way the old teacher might have. The old teacher might have grumbled and gone along, but the new teacher is going to push back. They're going to ask why, they're going to challenge the premise, and in the worst cases they can say, I'm just not doing that right. The new teacher doesn't respect authority. That comes from your position alone. Doesn't mean they don't respect authority, but not positional authority. The title doesn't move them. The org chart doesn't move them.

Even a reputation, reputation that precedes you might not move them for very long or very deeply. What moves them is evidence. Evidence that you are clear about where you're going. Evidence that you're going to be consistent, that what you said in August is still true in November and March and June. They need evidence that what you're asking them to do actually takes them somewhere real. That this initiative isn't going to be quietly retired by spring, that the going to shift the moment the district changes priorities, that the work that they invest in today is going to compound into something that matters. And when that evidence exists, when the direction is clear and the systems are consistent and the results start to show, the new teacher doesn't just comply, they actually commit. So that's the first characteristic.

Now the second one is that the new teacher has a very different relationship with truth. 

And so this goes with the second complaint that I hear, and it sounds like this. My teachers have a fixed mindset. They don't believe our kids can make it. They make excuses. They sort kids into the ones who can and the ones who can't. And no matter what I do, the growth mindset workshops, the professional development, the data conversations, I just can't seem to shift their beliefs. Now, if you've been fighting that battle, if you've been, you know, pouring energy into belief change and then watching it fail, well, here's what I think is actually happening.

You see, the new teacher does not accept the official version of truth. They interrogate everything. And that's because the new teacher lives in a world where truth itself is contested. Not just educational truth, all truth. Right? They, they, they grew up, or at least they grew into their professional identity in an information environment that is full of like, scams and deep fakes and, you know, fake news and AI generated content that looks indistinguishable from real content. They, they, they've grown up with experts who contradict other experts on everything from, you know, how we should diet. And, you know, one week this food is the healthy food, the next week this don't eat it, it's going to poison you.

Right? Everything that you read, you have to wonder if it's even real. And in that world, skepticism is just a survival skill. And here's what that produces in your building a teacher who doesn't automatically accept the official version of anything. And it's not because they're being difficult. It's just that they've learned through lived experience in the broader world that the official version is isn't always true. That the research that you're citing might be contested a year from now, that the expert you brought in might have a competing expert with an equally compelling set of credentials, or the data that you're presenting might be telling one story while their classroom is telling a completely different story. And so for them, truth is fluid.

There's your truth and then there's their truth. And so they often need to see it for themselves before they believe you. And in a world where truth has become this fluid, where everybody can have their own version of the truth, well, that makes it harder than ever to create a shared belief and a collective direction that a school needs to move forward. And so you can't build alignment on a foundation of contested truth, which means that your job isn't just to present the right information anymore. You've also got to build something so clear, so consistent, so visibly real in its results that it isn't just true to you, it feels true to them too. But instead of doing that, what we're trained to do is we're trained to treat doubt like it's some sort of mindset problem. So we go and conduct a mindset intervention. We do a, I don't know, growth mindset workshop or do a book study or, I don't know, bring in a motivational speaker or do a culture initiative around changing people's beliefs.

In other words, we've been trained to treat a truth problem like it's a belief problem. You are asking somebody to change their mind through inspiration instead of through proof. And the new teacher won't believe 100% is possible just because you told them, they'll believe it when they see a system that actually is built to get them there. You see, as long as we keep handing them 30 kids with wildly different needs and no real support structure or an underfunded or under explained intervention program and a pacing guide that assumes that everybody started in the same place, and then on top of that, we hold them Personally responsible. When the gaps don't close, we are going to continue to face their skepticism. And quite frankly, we should. Because you cannot keep asking teachers to compensate for broken systems by working harder or doing more.

At some point, their energy is just going to run out.

And when it does, when the kids still don't make it, despite everything, everything that they gave, then the teacher doesn't conclude that they need to try harder. The new teacher just concludes that the work that they're being asked to do is impossible. Hey, builders, real quick, before we get on with the rest of the episode, I want to talk to you about the 100% collective. If you are interested in becoming a builder and developing that 100% mindset, then the 100% collective is for you. Not only do we have monthly masterclasses, live masterclasses, where I show you how to take some work that you are already doing, but do it like a builder. Do it in a way that's more effective, more efficient, in a way that takes the work and stops it from being drudgery and makes it actually something that feels meaningful, that moves you forward. We also have done for you toolboxes with all the tools you need to be able to implement. And we have step by step playbooks that lay out the entire process for you so you don't have to even think about it.

You just take the playbook and you can implement it right away in your schools. And we have a supportive community. So this is a safe place where you can bring your challenges. And there are other people, other builders just like you, who are encouraging you, who are applauding you when you win, and who are giving you their experiences as well so that you can learn from each other. If you are tired of just kind of going through and doing the work the way you've always been doing it, and you're ready to stop being a leader and to start building something amazing. The 100% collective is where you need to be. Join us@brewershipuniversity.com community now. Back with the program.

And in that moment, they're often right. You see the teacher who is skeptical about 100%. They are not your enemy. They're actually making a lot of sense. Their skepticism is. It's pretty logical. If the systems you've built haven't earned their belief yet. Belief follows evidence.

And for the new teacher, it also, it always does. Which means that your job isn't to change their minds. It's to build something that's worth believing in. So that's the second Characteristic. Now, the third one is that the new teacher has a different relationship with this profession. And this is related to the third challenge I hear, which sounds like this is my teachers are just going through the motions. They do the minimum and leave. They don't stay late.

They don't go above and beyond. They treat teaching like a job. They clock in, they clock out, done. And I don't know how to reach people who just don't seem to care enough. That's a quote from the survey. Here's a more painful version. Someone wrote, I have teachers who are good in the classroom, but completely checked out of everything else. They don't engage in the work of the school.

They show up for their kids, maybe, but they don't show up for our bigger school mission. So if that's what you're seeing, and frankly, almost every principal I talk to is seeing some version of that, here's what I think is actually happening.

Teaching used to be an identity. 

It wasn't just a job or a career. It was an identity, a calling, something you committed to for life. Like, you know, the way people commit to a marriage or religion or, you know, a sports team. Right? It's bound up in who you were, not just what you did.

And that identity gave schools enormous leverage. Right? Because if teaching was who you are, if your sense of self, your community, your purpose, your daily meaning, all live inside of this profession, then anything that threatens your place in this profession or this institution, that threatens you at your core. So you end up taking things that you shouldn't have to take. You comply with things that you don't necessarily agree with you. You give more of yourself than is reasonable. Because leaving isn't just leaving a job. It's.

It's kind of feels like it's losing yourself. Well, that's a teacher that the leadership playbook was designed for. But the new teacher does not have that same relationship with this profession. And let's be clear, it's not because they don't care about kids. They do. And it's not because they're not committed to doing good work. Many of them are excellent teachers, but they live in a world that has given them a fundamentally different relationship with work itself. So these days, you don't see a lot of people working the same job from the time they leave school and until the time that they retire.

People often have multiple careers over the course of their lifetime. And what's more, there's a gig economy that's happening right now, and it's normalized. The idea that you can do meaningful work without being part of a bigger organization or institution. So this new teacher has watched people create income streams, entire income streams build audiences, launch businesses, build wealth completely outside of traditional structures. So these days, work is just what you do. It's not who you are. And so for the new teacher, teaching is something that they do, something they may do even well, something they may even love, but it isn't who they are. And that distinction fundamentally changes how they engage with the work.

So the old leadership response to the teacher who seems checked out is to appeal to their sense of calling, to remind them about why they got into this, to reconnect them with them mission and reignite the passion that brought them into the classroom to find their why. But with a new teacher, that response doesn't just fail, it fails disastrously, because you are appealing to an identity that they may not have. You're speaking language of a calling and a mission and a purpose. But what they hear is just pressure to give more of themselves to an institution. That hasn't really demonstrated that it deserves that level of commitment. And here's the thing that people who hold their institutional affiliation loosely do. They cannot be guilted into deeper commitment. They can't be inspired into it, and they can't be shamed into it either.

That kind of commitment can only be earned from them. 

So the new teacher who seems checked out isn't cynical or indifferent or lazily lazy. I think that you're just making a deliberate daily calculation about where to invest their energy and identity. And right now, in your building, that calculation might not be landing in your favor. And it's not because they don't like you, right? So let's not make it personal. It's not because they don't care about kids. It might just be that nothing in the system has yet given them a compelling enough reason to go all in.

And that's kind of what makes this harder, right? Because they have options. The old teachers, they stayed partly because the alternatives felt abstract or frightening. Like leaving teaching meant leaving your whole identity and stepping into a lot of uncertainty. But the new teacher, they don't experience it that way, right? They have alternatives that are concrete and visible, right? Sometimes those alternatives can even feel a little bit more appealing. So when the job asks too much, or if the job gives them too little, when the equation stops making sense, they don't talk themselves back into it the way the old teacher did.

They do the math. And the math is simple. You know, like, they think, I could just drive for Uber and That's not a threat. They. They have options and they know it. So if they stay, it's because they are choosing to do so consciously, which means that they are also choosing how much of themselves to bring to the table every single day. And the principal who responds to this by, I don't know, trying to reignite their calling, well, they're going to keep running into the same wall, because the calling is. Is not what's missing.

The conditions are. And the new teacher. The new teacher will go all in. They'll bring everything. They will stay late. They will invest deeply. They will make the school their purpose when the conditions justify that level of commitment. And what I mean by that, I mean, you know, when they have a clear direction that's worth believing in, when they have systems that are strong enough to make the work feel sustainable rather than unsustainable, when they have evidence that finally shows that.

That what they're building here is real, it's lasting, and it's worth their best self. They are not withholding commitment arbitrarily. They are simply waiting to know that it's worth giving. Now, after hearing all of that, you might be feeling like, I mean, come on, Robin, this is a lot, right? Like, this new teacher is a lot. Like, how am I supposed to lead people whose relationship with authority and truth and the position itself is so different from everything that I was trained for? And you might, if you're really being honest, be feeling. I don't want to call it this, but it's something close to resentment.

Like, you know, the job has changed in ways that nobody warned you about and nobody's acknowledging it. And you might even be resentful of this new teacher a little bit because it's uncomfortable, because what they're demanding from you was something that you were not trained to give. And I'll just go, you know, I'll say that I get it. Those feelings are legitimate. This is hard. This is something different. But what I want you to hear most clearly in this episode is the new teacher is not doing this to you. They're not being difficult on purpose.

They're not trying to undermine your authority. They're not broken. They're not toxic. They're not burned out. Well, okay, most of them, right, they're just simply shaped by a world that operates differently than the world that shaped the leadership playbook that we were handed and trained to use. So a lot of the frustrations and challenges that we have with teachers really comes down to one thing. We are using the wrong tools for the wrong era. So let's talk about what the new teacher actually needs.

Well, before I do that, let me tell you what they don't need, right? 

They don't need better inspiration. They don't need more motivational professional development. And they definitely do not need a stricter accountability system. Here's what they do. They need clarity. They need evidence. They need systems that make the right work obvious so that they don't have to guess or evaluate whether this initiative is going to survive the year.

And they don't have to protect their energy against a direction that might change. The new teacher needs three things from you that the leadership playbook never taught you to provide. So that's what I'm going to tell you here. They need you to earn your authority, not claim it. They need you to show them where you're going and prove through your consistency that you're actually going to get there. They need you to build something worth believing in, not just telling them to believe. The new teacher interrogates truth, and they've learned to hold information loosely. This person is watched too many initiatives die.

And that teacher, that teacher doesn't need your conviction. They need evidence that we're going to do this. This is going to work. And the last thing they need is they need the work to be worth their commitment, not just their compliance. You got to give them a school where the direction is clear, where the systems are real, where the work that they pour themselves into today is still standing. Next year, you got to give them something worth coming back for. In other words, the new teacher doesn't need a better leader. The new teacher needs someone who's going to support them and build them 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, this is Robin, and thanks for listening to the show. Now, if you really enjoyed the content, would you do me a favor and share it with somebody else?

All you need to do is pull out your phone, click on the little three dots next to the show, and you'll see an option there to share the show. Click that, and send it to somebody else who could really benefit from what you learned here today. Not only are you gonna look like a rock star, but you're gonna be helping out somebody else who really could use this information. Plus, I will be so grateful. So just go ahead. Right now, click on those three dots and share the show. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next time.