The Principal's Handbook

Leading Through Principal Burnout: Strategies and Boundaries
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[00:00:00] In this episode we're talking about leading through burnout, what principals can do when you're exhausted and still expected to lead.

Speaker: 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. 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. I.

Welcome to the podcast. In this episode, we're talking about burnout and what principals can do when they're exhausted and still expected to lead.

Now, I just wanna say, if you are not feeling burnt out, [00:01:00] that's okay. This episode is still for you because it can help you prevent burnout in the future. I always say it's really important to be proactive. And intentional so you don't get blindsided , and find yourself burned out when you weren't even expecting it.

So even if you were in a place that you are feeling pretty positive about your job, I think this is a great episode for you to listen to so that you can make sure that you're preventing burnout in the future.

And so I just wanna start by talking a little bit about burnout. And I just did a survey with my email list to get an idea of different topics and different topics, struggles that principals are facing for the podcast, to know what people really need as far as content. And one of the things that came up was burnout.

People are just feeling very burnt out, feeling like they're doing everything. So I'm going to be doing a podcast episode on delegation. , They're just tired, , and the job of a principal is very exhausting. And so today my goal is to really help you understand what burnout [00:02:00] looks like for principals, what you can do in the next week to start feeling better right away.

And then hopefully I have some tools that you'll be able to take with you to really help you start feeling better and to start resetting your leadership so that you're not feeling overwhelmed and burnout. . , So I just wanna start by talking about burnout, what the signs are of burnout.

So some of the signs of burnout are waking up tired, even after you had a full night's rest. Maybe you got your standard seven to nine hours and you still feel exhausted. , You dread walking into the building. And I'm not just talking about like the Sunday scaries as they call 'em. I'm talking about you.

Get overwhelmed thinking about going to work and you almost get physically sick. You don't wanna go. You really feel stressed about it. , You feel like when you are at work, you're constantly interrupted, you can't get anything done. You start to feel like small issues just drain you faster than they used to.

So your capacity and leadership has [00:03:00] really gone down and you lose excitement for why you became a principal in the first place, and you kind of just feel blah. . There, and I'm gonna talk about in a second some different burnout profiles. But for me, I did go through a period of burnout as a principal, and it was a terrible feeling.

, I felt very blah. I just didn't really find excitement in what I was doing anymore. , I had a hard time going into work. Actually. What kind of brought it to its head that I needed to do something is I had a panic attack driving into work, and I couldn't even. Get myself there. So I had to go home, schedule a doctor's appointment, and I had to get on anxiety meds just so that I could go to work.

And then over time, , I'm currently a principal. I'm not on anxiety medication. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I just needed it at that period of my life to be able to go to work. , And so I just like to. Share that experience that I had, and that's what burnout looked like for me, that I was just really struggling to be there and had a [00:04:00] lot of anxiety.

So I wanna talk about some burnout patterns that I see in principals. And so I created a. , The Principal Burnout toolkit, and I have six profiles, and I'm gonna go through those profiles of what burnout can look like. I actually have an assessment in that burnout toolkit that you can assess yourself to see which one you fall under, but you might, as I'm talking through them, find which one you are.

, So the first one is the over extended principle. So you feel like you have an endless workload, depleted energy, no protected time, you're just working all the time. Another profile is the leadership overwhelm principle. So everything goes through you, like you're doing everything. You have to make every decision.

You're not really delegating, and so you're just feeling this constant decision fatigue. Another one is the exhausted human behind the role. So this is when you, , are not eating, you're not doing self-care, you don't take breaks, you work all the time. You're emotionally drained and you are [00:05:00] just exhausted because your whole life is about being a principal.

Another profile is the boundary bleeding principle. So you are available all the time. You don't have any boundaries, you respond at all hours and work is your life. , The fifth one is the isolated or strained leader. So. Maybe you have relationship stress. , You're struggling with hard conversations with teachers.

You just feel very alone. And, , there's a lot of just relationship strife in the building. And the six profile is the vision. Drained instructional leaders. So there's no time for walkthroughs. You're just putting out fires all the time. , You went to school to be a principal, to make a difference, to help with instruction, and you're not doing any of that.

You lost your spark because you feel like. Everything that you're doing is just managing and putting out buyers. So like I said in the burnout toolkit, I have these profiles broken down with a 14 day reset and scripts for each type of profile. . I wanna share three high [00:06:00] impact reset strategies that you can use right now if you're feeling any of these ways that I'm describing, , when it comes to burnout.

So the first one is to just create one simple boundary this week. So just think about what is one boundary that you need to set? And really it comes down to like, where are you feeling drained? Is it because you're checking your emails all night? Is it because you're working all the time? , Where do you need to set a boundary because there isn't one.

So you could set a boundary that you're only going to check email one time in the evenings, or maybe only once or twice on the weekend. , You're gonna have the weekend to yourself without doing any work. That could be a boundary. , You're gonna make sure that you're out the door by four 30, like whatever that is.

But you have to make it a realistic boundary. So, for example, if you're working 12 hours a day. You can't go from working 12 hours a day to working eight hours a day. That's just too big of a jump. So maybe you go from working 12 hours a day to 11 or I work with principals who are like, I [00:07:00] can't not check my email in the evenings.

So maybe you check it twice or maybe you check it one time. It just reduce whatever you're doing so that you have more of a boundary. It doesn't have to be like this hard boundary that you just set all of a sudden, because , that can be really hard to. Follow through and stick with. So just choose one boundary based on where you're at and just improve a little bit.

, Also have a boundary around doing work. At work. I always say be out with a purpose. Like I would find myself walking around the building, not necessarily with a purpose because I had guilt for being in my office. So that's just something to think about if you're out of your office.

Be out with a purpose. Know what your goal is, know what you're doing to build relationships, to get in classrooms, whatever that is, but then be in your office with a purpose. Shut the door if you need to have a half hour time block and get things done. So pick what you're struggling with and create one boundary around that this week.

The second thing is give yourself one protected block [00:08:00] of time. So that goes with what I was just saying. But have a time during the day where you're protecting work time that you can shut your walkie-talkie off, that you can have time for, no email, no interruptions, and you can just actually get some work done.

, Because again, I think this is really important. I'm not saying you should shut your office door and be in your office for seven hours out of the day, but I'm saying there's nothing wrong with picking a time of day where maybe it's quieter in the building. You shut your office door for that period of time and get a little bit of work done.

For me, it's mornings, mornings always seem like I'm the most productive and the building's quiet. So I try from nine to nine 30 to make it a time where I get stuff done in my office, , and protect that by telling everybody, , I'm not handling anything unless it's an emergency and I'm really needed.

And you have to talk through what an emergency looks like. But you need to be able to give yourself one protected block of time. Maybe it's around lunchtime, maybe even what, 15 minutes of quiet to [00:09:00] shut your door and just completely be by yourself. When I was a teacher, my principal for a half an hour would shut his door, eat lunch, call his wife.

He had that time for himself. Everybody knew it. They knew from one to one 30, it was after all the recess and lunchtimes to not bother him unless it was a true emergency. Which pretty much everything could wait until right after. Then he would come walk around the building and we could check in with him with anything we needed at that time.

And it worked because he really protected that time. So think about what that would look like to give yourself one protected block of time for either work or even just a time to reset. And then my third tip is to use the T cycle. So it's really important that you think about what thoughts you have that drive your emotions, which drive your actions.

So when you're feeling so overwhelmed, when you're feeling so burnt out, what is the thought that is creating that feeling of burnout and overwhelm? You have to think about what thoughts are driving [00:10:00] you.

Thoughts for me, when I was feeling burnt out was, I can't do this. There's too much on my plate. , I'm so tired. For me, in my personal life, I was getting married, so there was a lot going on too, and it just, I, it was this feeling of overwhelm and so really the thoughts just kept coming up. It's too much.

I can't do it all. I don't wanna be here. , And those thoughts were creating that negative action for me being at work. The feeling of me wanting to avoid work, so really get to the root of what that thought is, and then when I could get myself to a more, , neutral space. I was okay coming back to work.

I just had to tell myself I don't have to do everything or I can delegate, , telling myself simple things, like everything will be fine if I don't get it all done. Just those little things to take some of the pressure off. Shifting my thoughts really helped with my emotions, and then of course, with my actions as well.

So think about the thoughts that are causing that feeling of burnout for you and how do you need to [00:11:00] shift them. So those are my three tips. I just wanna review, create one boundary this week. Start small. Start where you're at. Two, give yourself one protected block of time during the school day. And three, use the T cycle to think about what thoughts you need to change and flip so that you're able to feel more positive and not have those feelings of burnout.

It all comes from your thoughts. All right, so the next thing I just wanna briefly talk about is rebuilding energy. So one thing that I notice with burnout is it feels like you just have a lack of energy. Like you're very lethargic, you don't care. And so it's really important that you do things that energize yourself.

And so I always talk to principals like especially assistant principals whose main job is discipline. And I don't know many administrators who go into administration thinking. I really just wanna discipline students all day, right? That's not typically the thing that you wanna do. And so I always say it's important that you find things that energize you in your job, and you find those things that are the [00:12:00] why of why you became a principal in the first place.

For a lot of principals who are dealing with discipline all day, I say, why did you become a principal? And usually it's something related to instruction or supporting teachers. So then I really encourage them. To get in as many classrooms as they can throughout the day. So they're seeing instruction, they're having instructional conversations, they're actually getting to support teachers, ?

If you don't get the chance to do that, you forget why you became a principal anyways. So you wanna energize yourself that way where you find excitement in the job again. , And you also wanna energize yourself in making sure that you're taking care of yourself. Because when I talk about the feelings of burnout and some principles are.

Working all the time, and they do work literally all the time. I talk to a lot of principals like this, how are you giving yourself energy? Are you sleeping enough? Are you working out? And I'm not saying hardcore workout, maybe it's going for a walk. , Do you have time for yourself? Go get a massage.

I know that sounds like [00:13:00] cheesy self-care, but it's so important. All of these things are so important that you have something for yourself to energize yourself and to look forward to. I coach people in other careers as well, and I'm always like, you have to have something that you look forward to in life, whether it's in your job or outside of your job, but having these things to look forward to just gives you that energy.

It makes you more excited to be doing what you're doing because you have something that you're preparing for or looking forward to. So that's just something I want you to think about too. How are you finding energy not only from a physical standpoint, but from a mental standpoint as well, and creating energy in your job and enjoying your job again. So just remember that burnout doesn't mean you're not good at your job. That's a common thing I hear from principals is because I'm burnt out, I'm not good at my job, and that's just not true. It doesn't mean you're weak or there's something wrong with you.

It means your brain is overwhelmed. It means you don't have boundaries in place. It means there's systems that are working [00:14:00] against you. And all of it can be rebuilt, but I always say burnout doesn't go away on its own. It takes a lot of time and effort and intention, intentionality of knowing exactly what the problem is, what the root causes, what those thoughts are that are causing burnout.

, Those profiles I talked about, like where are you really lacking boundaries or what are the things that are really causing you burnout? So that assessment in the burnout toolkit could be really helpful. But I want you to just think about where's this burnout coming from and really taking time to get to the root of it.

And if you're a principal who's listening to this and you're like, I'm not burnout yet, that's amazing. But these tips are also really important for you to think about so that you don't get to a place of burnout. It is good to be proactive and know these tips ahead of time so you don't burn yourself out.

So if you want the scripts, the templates, the 14 day reset plan in the 30 day sustainability guide, grab the Principals burnout [00:15:00] toolkit@thefourprincipal.com. I'll put a link in the show notes as well. But again, I just hope that you take some time to be proactive or to just help yourself recover from burnout so that you can find the parts of your job that you enjoy.

I hope you have a great week and you try some of these strategies.