The Principal's Handbook

Being Your Own Worst Critic as a Principal
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I want to talk about being your own worst critic as a principle. Stay tuned.
Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.
From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work life balance, I'm Barb Flowers. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority. Welcome everyone to the podcast today, we're diving into the topic that affects everyone. And it can be a real challenge as a school principal of being your own worst critic.
So really we'll explore how self-criticism [00:01:00] manifests in our role as a principal and what that looks like. How does it impact our leadership? And most importantly, we're going to look at how we can overcome it. So I want you to think about this scenario. You're sitting in your office late on a Friday afternoon. The week is wrapping up and you're reviewing everything that happened.
Right. And sometimes it is just a whirlwind. You can't even believe all the things that happened. And as you reflect, you start to notice a nagging voice in your head pointing to all the things you could have done better.
You think about the student discipline. You think about the parent who called, who was angry, how you handled that discipline. You think about the teacher who might not have liked how you handled the discipline or the teacher who was mad about her evaluation or his evaluation, or. The teacher who got in a conflict with another teacher that you were mediating, , or just dealing with constant discipline.
I remember there being so many weeks where there was just constant discipline. Does this sound familiar that you have this inner critic at work and it's really [00:02:00] evaluating everything you're doing and it's just criticizing it all. Before we dive deeper.
I really want to talk about what does it mean to critique while critique is really that voice inside our head that is judging our actions, the decisions, and everything we're doing as a school leader, judges are worth as a person. And while it's good to look back and think about situations and think about how you would do it differently. 'cause that's good.
Self-reflection we have to be really careful because there's a fine line between self-reflection and being our own worst critic where we're taking what happened and we're really beating ourselves up about everything that happened. And what happens is that negative judgment.
It keeps going. And it stays in our brain and then it undermines our leadership effectiveness. And so then we're constantly thinking about that and if we don't watch it, there's some huge impacts of having that negative, self-critic playing all the time. So judgment shows up as a [00:03:00] principle in three ways, judging ourselves. We judge others, whether that's staff, students, or parents, we make judgements. And we judge circumstances.
Okay. So we're going to break these three down and really explore each one and think about , how we judge. Ourselves others and circumstances. So number one, judging ourselves. I think about this, you just finished a really difficult meeting with a parent whose child was involved in a discipline incident.
The parents upset.
You just finished , a really difficult discipline meeting with a parent whose child was involved in a serious discipline issue. Maybe they got in a fight and you had to give consequences and that can be really hard, , based on what you think the consequence should be and what those parents think the consequence should be.
And as you're sitting in your office afterwards, the meetings over. Your mind just starts racing with thoughts. Like I should have been more assertive and explaining the policies of the building. Why didn't I anticipate that this parent was going to be so upset and come in [00:04:00] screaming at me.
Why didn't I have better responses? Why didn't I practice what I was going to say? , maybe I'm not cut out for these difficult conversations. Maybe I'm not cut out for handling these high pressure situations. Maybe I'm not cut out to be a principal. I'm not good at discipline.
That's the part of the job I hate and I'm not good at it. You have these thoughts that are just classic examples of self judgment they're going on in your head and it's negative, negative, negative, all the things you did wrong. And you're finding every weakness in this situation to judge yourself on it.
It's not constructive. It's not a reflection. That you're using to get better, but you're just criticizing yourself and really what's happening there is it's chipping away, little by little at your confidence and your leadership self-efficacy and how you view yourself. As a leader. I think about judging others.
Imagine you're observing a teacher's classroom and it's a veteran teacher. You gave lots of feedback in the past and you notice that they're still struggling with this same thing with implementing new [00:05:00] instructional strategies. It could be that you're in an elementary and they're not implementing those strategies that you're learning from the science of reading.
And you're thinking we just had so much professional development on that. And instead of considering potential barriers or what supports needed. You find yourself thinking these thoughts, they never change. They don't want to change. Why can't they just follow the new curriculum? It's not that hard. How have they managed to teach for 20 years?
And they can't master a basic teaching engagement skill. I can't believe I gave them a good evaluation last year. This is all a judgment. This is judging everything that teacher's doing. It's not reflective. It's not helpful in any way.
You're not going to give the teacher any good feedback from those negative thoughts that you're having. Right. Because they're all just judgements about the teacher. You're making very big judgments about them. Like they never changed. That's very broad. Right. The negative thoughts you're having, they're not going to help the teacher improve. It's [00:06:00] actually going to be hard to give back any feedback that the teacher's going to receive and be able to implement.
If you're coming from such a negative judgmental place towards that teacher. It's creating this negative energy towards that teacher that you might not even realize that you have because you have so many negative thoughts about them. And then it's going to damage your relationship with them as a staff member. And the last example I want to give is judging circumstances.
So pretend that you decided that you wanted to launch a school-wide initiative. To improve parent engagement.
So you plan a family night and you got a team of teachers and everybody works so hard to plan this event. You're so excited for the event. And the night comes and you're about to have the event happen. There's a lot of anticipation. The event happens, you worked really hard and two parents come..
The stuff happens. I've had events that we've worked so hard on it, and we barely got any parents. We got food donated, all the things. No parents showed up. And so you find yourself thinking this [00:07:00] always happens. Our community never supports our efforts. Parents never show up to these events. It's a waste of time. I knew this was a waste of resources. Why did I even bother trying to do something like this?
Right. And you turn it into all these negative thoughts where you're taking a neutral, where you're taking a neutral event that you had. This event only a certain amount of parents came. Right. You could look at that and evaluate it in a different way, but instead you start to have all these negative thoughts about it. And so then what happens when you have these negative thoughts is next time someone brings up an idea like, Hey, we should do this parent event. You're going to have a negative response to that.
Like we've tried that it never works. Parents never want to come to things, . It just brings up this negativity towards parents because of a circumstance. What I want to really encourage you to think about is every time we engage in these types of judgments, whether we're judging ourselves, we're judging others, or we're judging a [00:08:00] circumstance, we're literally rewiring our brains to default to the negative. So it seems like this is helpful, right?
You're pointing out the negatives so that you can improve, but really it's not because when you come at it from such a negative lens, you're rewiring your brain to just be negative. And so for principals, this can have some really big consequences. It really will decrease your confidence in your decision making.
When you judge yourself all the time on the decisions you make, it does decrease your confidence. And I just want to point out I do have a free. , stop doubting your decisions, workshop that you can click the link in the show notes and watch. And I created that because I used to really struggle with the decisions I made in doubting them, because I had that inner self critic. It's also going to strained relationships that you have with staff, students and parents, because. Even if you're not telling them all the judgements you have, if you have all those judgements about people going on in your brain, people sense that they know that.
And so it's really going to be hard to connect with them in a positive [00:09:00] way. It's also going to be hard to take risks. And try new things because you're judging circumstances, you're judging the people. And so you're thinking, I shouldn't even try this because it's not going to go well, you're having that negative thought already, and really what's going to happen.
It's going to increase your stress and there's more potential for burnout because. Everything you're doing is coming from a negative lens. I want you to really think about that. Every thought you have, you are either strengthening or creating new neural pathways.
And so you get to decide, are you strengthening those negative pathways, making it really fast and easy for you to have those negative thoughts. . Which is going to lead to leadership style that has a lot of doubt. Criticism pessimism. . Rather than being inspirational, supportive, having vision. And if you find yourself where you are strengthening those neural pathways, I really want you to be aware of that because the first step to changing it is being aware.
So. Right now, before we move on, what I want you to do is start to [00:10:00] recognize your inner critic. Where do you find that? You are really being negative. Where in your leadership, do you find that or is it more judging yourself? Is it judging others? Is it judging circumstances? Stop and really think about that. Also some signs that you might be judging a lot is if you're using words, like if you're using phrases, like I should have, I needed to, I wish I would have when you're reflecting on your decisions or you're ruminating. If you constantly ruminate on your past interactions with staff members or challenging parents, things that you wish would have went different and you're not just reflecting on them.
You're ruminating. It's just playing over and over in your brain and you can't stop thinking about it. Or if you're constantly frustrated or disappointed with your school's progress or your own personal performance, or you hesitate to make decisions or delegate tasks because. You're having that perfectionist tendency, you can't just make a decision.
You don't trust your decisions. [00:11:00] Right? So if any of this is happening, you're probably being too much of a judge or probably your inner critic is really strong. And so when you become aware, I want you to really start to think about all the areas that you're criticizing yourself and write them down if you can , or stop them in your thought, as soon as you think that thought, notice it. That's going to help you become aware and that's the first step to stopping it. Okay.
So in order to stop those thoughts, we have to become aware. And then now I want to give you a couple of strategies for overcoming self judgment. So the first strategy is practice empathy. Empathy is the opposite of judgment,
when you're being empathetic, you can understand , where you're coming from and why you made the decision. So, for example, let's say you had a meeting with a parent and. You know, Reflecting on the meeting, you thought, , I didn't really like how that meeting went, but you could have empathy for yourself and think I did the best I could in that [00:12:00] specific situation.
But moving forward, this is what I would do differently. And so that's reflecting and coming at it from an empathetic way. . If you're thinking about a teacher and ways that they're struggling, instead of judging everything they're doing, like they never change.
They never get better. You need to evaluate them and then think of what areas are their strengths and what areas are their weaknesses. And then how can I offer support? And really give them feedback to get better in that area in a way that's supportive and holds them accountable versus just thinking these negative thoughts.
How can I have empathy for them that they need to get better in this area? However, I'm here to support them. Having that empathy can really help you get better. At not judging yourself because you know that there's more to it. Also practice, reframing your thoughts. So instead of I should have been tougher with that discipline situation. Maybe think next time I could have some bullet points prepared ahead of time. To make sure I get [00:13:00] my point across. . It's just a subtle shift there. That helps you reframe how you're looking at it. , instead of thinking. That teacher never changes. I think that teacher needs help and support in this one area. Okay.
So instead of making big general terms that are negative and judgy, reframe them to exactly what's happening. Because another thing I like to ask myself when I'm having a thought, is it fact, or is it fiction? Are you making up a story about that? And so when you're judging, it's usually it's fiction, right?
It's not neutral. You're making up a story. You're making a bigger deal out of something than maybe it is. The other thing I want you to try to overcome self judgment is mindfulness. So really pay attention to your thoughts. Without engaging in them. So it's okay to have those negative thoughts come across.
It's what we do with those negative thoughts. So during your next walkthrough, if you find yourself judging teachers and how they're teaching. You can have a negative thought, but just let it move on.. [00:14:00] If you have a negative thought about yourself, you could have that thought and then just let it go and not entertain it. We have that choice. The other thing with mindfulness that I want to say is when we're focused on the present moment, you can't be negative. If you think about all the times you're negative it's because you're focused on the past and something that already happened. Or you're focused on the future and you're anxious or worried about something that will happen. But if you're truly focused on what you see and what you hear right now, It's hard to be negative.
That's another part of mindfulness. Is really thinking and being in the present. So if you get yourself in a situation where you're constantly being judgy, I want you to ground yourself in the present moment. What are things that you see around you? What are things you hear? What do you smell? What can you touch?
You know, I like to do an activity where I rub my fingertips together. , how can you engage your senses in a way that you become super present in the [00:15:00] moment?, These are just some basic, simple strategies that you can use to overcome self judgment. But if you really want to dive deeper into your critic into that, judge, I have a free assessment that I give to principals that you can do. You do the free assessment, then we meet and discuss the results and we'll see all the way saboteurs are sabotaging your success.
And so I'll help you be aware of those. And we can make a plan moving forward.
This is all part of positive intelligence. And this is something that I like to work with my clients on, where we're really focusing on weakening that judge.
And we have specific exercises and strategies that we use to strengthen that more positive part of the brain. Because again, the more you're saying negative thoughts to yourself. About, whether it's yourself, other circumstances, you are rewiring your brain to be negative. And that's not going to help your leadership.
So I really want to help you. If you see that you are your own, worst critic, we have to overcome that. [00:16:00] And overcoming self judgment is a journey. It's not a destination. It's not a one-time stop. You have to constantly learn to recognize your inner critic and work on improving this.
And by doing this, you're not just improving your own leadership. You're really modeling resilience and growth for your entire staff. So I hope that you found this helpful today. If you want to take your leadership to the next level, I'd love to do a free saboteur assessment with you. And then we could see how I can help you improve as a principal, because focusing on your own worst critic is really going to help you have better relationships with others. It's going to help you have better performance as a principal. And it's going to actually help you be more productive with your time.
So if you're interested in that, reach out to me, I would love the opportunity to do that free saboteurs assessment. But if you love the show, if you're listening on apple, scroll down in your app, lever of you, keep in mind that you have the power to shape your life. According to the mindset you choose.
I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.
[00:17:00] Mhm. Mhm.