The Principal's Handbook

Setting Boundaries as a Principal
[00:00:00] In today's episode, I want to talk about setting personal boundaries as a principal. That's all coming up next right here on The Principal's Handbook. 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.
Well, welcome everyone. Today, we are going to be talking about setting personal boundaries as a principal. This topic is so crucial for principals when you are trying to have work life [00:01:00] balance and work life balance is not necessarily that 50, 50 balance in time, but it really is just having presence in everything that you're doing in work and at home and in your personal life.
And you cannot do that. If you don't have boundaries, and it can be really hard to set boundaries as a principle because You are in charge of that building. I get it. I have been there as a principal. It is not easy to put your phone away. It's not easy to get off email. , it's a difficult skill to have really good boundaries.
But having those boundaries is really gonna help you be happier and just more fulfilled. You have to have that time where you can be fully present at home with your family. Or even have time for yourself or have time with your friends, whatever you want to be doing. But principals need to have time with their own hobbies, their own self care.
And if everything that you're doing is work or you're always on call. You are going to get burnout. You're going to get overwhelmed [00:02:00] and you're not going to be able to sustain it. And the goal in being a principal is really that it's sustainable, right? You want to love your job. You want to be able to give everything you have at work and then come home and rest.
I do want to say there are moments as a principal where, boundaries go out the window, right? If a situation comes up, that is a true emergency boundaries go out the window. As a principal, we can't say, Hey, I have boundaries.
I can't help the student, who, has suicidal thoughts, or I'm not going to do anything about that right now. Obviously we all know as professionals, there are times where that goes out the window and we cannot neglect situations or we're going to lose our jobs, right? That we have to just say upfront, we have to be aware of that upfront.
But we can't use that either as a crutch for we can't have boundaries because we have to be available if something happens. We can have both. We can set boundaries, but we can know that if there's an emergency, we'll be available for that as well. Before we jump into the conversation, I just want to be clear about [00:03:00] that, that you do always have to be available for true emergencies.
There are situations where you have to take it home and you have to talk to people outside of work because of an emergency.
I can think of a couple of different situations, , that were true emergencies. One where I had a student who wanted to harm themselves. And you know, this unfortunately happens more and more. And after school we're talking to school counselors, the parents I've even been in situations where I was talking to the police because the police had gotten involved.
So that was a situation where it was an absolute emergency. And I had to handle another was, , two students actually got off the bus and didn't go back to their. Our apartment and , they were missing after school. And so the parent was panicking and obviously the police were involved and they couldn't find them. So I had to be in contact with the police until they found the little girls.
So just those types of situations that are true emergencies, you want to make sure you're available for. I want to talk about the definition of a boundary and what that means. The definition of a [00:04:00] boundary is a dividing line.
It's a limit or an end. And a personal boundary is the limits and rules that we set for ourselves within relationships.
So that's really what we're thinking about today. When we're talking about a boundary, we're talking about our personal boundary, we're thinking about what is that limit that we have for ourselves within relationships. So we're going to start with who we want to set boundaries with and the what.
I Want to say that everybody's boundaries are going to be different. I'm going to have some recommendations. But when I coach people and talk about boundaries, I can really dig in and ask a lot of questions when you want to set boundaries. It's easier in a one on one setting because I can really get into the why.
And so today I want you to think about your boundaries and think about the why. So why do you want to have that boundary? Why do you not want to have that boundary? And what does that look like for you? Because boundaries are a really personal thing. That's why they're called personal boundaries, right?
We want to set those limits and rules that work for us, but there's also some boundaries that are healthier for our own [00:05:00] wellbeing. And there are some boundaries that are more professional. So as we're talking about that today, just keep that in mind that it really is a personal decision,
you just want to be aware of any boundary you have. Why are you setting that boundary? What does that boundary mean for you? Or why aren't you setting that boundary?
So I want to start with the, who, as a principal. So as part of the, who you really want to think about setting boundaries with parents. With your staff and with your colleagues. That's the three groups I'm focusing on today.
Of course, when we think about our bosses, our superintendents, or whoever you report to in your school district, it's okay to communicate boundaries to an extent to that person, right? You have to be really careful talking to a person who is. Your supervisor about what your boundaries are.
And I think , you definitely can have a conversation with them. It is a little bit different kind of conversation. So I didn't really want to cover that on this specific episode. , but we are going to be talking about just parents, staff members, and colleagues today. [00:06:00] So I want to start with some boundaries that you might think about setting with parents.
One huge boundary I see is the decision of whether you want to be friends on social media. So if you're on social media, you have to decide, are you going to let parents friend you? And are you going to accept their friend requests? And I think this is a huge one because you have to be careful.
If you accept one, then you need to start accepting them all. And that includes the parents that you might've known before you were a principal, right? Because people are going to see, oh, That principal's friends with so and so, but they're not becoming my friend. If you're going to be friends with any parent, then you have to kind of be friends with all parents.
So you have to be really clear about that boundary and what that looks like and decide ahead of time, if that's something you want to do. And it really depends. Do you post on your social media a lot? If you don't even post on it, it probably doesn't matter. But if you're going to post pictures of yourself, , and your family, do you want parents to see that?
Also a boundary is whether you call parents on your personal cell phone. Now I [00:07:00] know bigger districts, there are some districts that give principal cell phones. I've never worked in that. type of district over COVID. We did have access to a different phone number through an app that went on my cell phone.
There are Google numbers that you can get in different ways that you can use your personal cell phone. I will say I never called a parent on my cell phone. Just out of convenience. But if I was at home and I needed to call a parent and it was an emergency, I didn't block the call. I just called on my cell phone.
And every time I did that, it was respected. I never had parents call me another time using my cell phone number because they were so appreciative of the fact that I called during that emergency situation. Just something to think about is whether you want to call on your personal cell phone or if you want to have a backup Number or a different way that you can call parents.
Also, how do you want parents to meet with you? , are you okay with parents just showing up and saying hey I want to meet with you right now, or do you want to have a clear boundary about that? Do you want to address every concern that [00:08:00] comes your way right away? We know as principals that other people's emergencies aren't necessarily an emergency and so Sometimes parents come to you and they think it's a huge emergency.
And so do you want to address concerns right away? What do you want that to look like? What do you want to do when a parent's completely disrespectful to you? Think about that ahead of time. Like what boundary do you want to have for yourself? Do you want to ask them to leave and come back at another time?
Do you want to get another adult? Do you want to just sit and deal with the situation? Like, how do you want to handle that? My, my advice is to always ask a parent to leave and come back at another time, but having these thoughts and having these boundaries ahead of time can really help you when you get in these situations.
Because sometimes when you get in these situations, it gets so heated that you feel like you have to handle it right then. And then also thinking about how do you want to communicate with parents via email? Do you want to set a boundary that you are done emailing at five o'clock or that you are, we'll get back to people within 24 hours.
What [00:09:00] do you want that boundary to look like? And your district might have some protocols and some policies on this or procedures on how they want you to do that. But if they don't, I think it's a great way for you to come up with your own boundaries. How do you want to handle a parent who might constantly come to you and complain about stuff?
Maybe you have a parent who has access to you because they're in the building all the time. How do you want to handle if they're complaining or escalating situations? So part of these boundaries with parents are going to be procedures that you put into place and part of them are going to be personal boundaries because every situation is different, right?
You might have certain events happen that you don't need to have a whole procedure in place, but you need to have your own personal boundaries around it. So really thinking about how you want to deal with situations. So we're going to talk about how you can set boundaries with parents and what boundaries you want to set up ahead of time.
You also might want to think about how, , how you want parents to address you.
Do you want parents to call you by your first name? Do you want parents to call you Mr. or Mrs. It's whatever. [00:10:00] What do you want parents to call you? How do you want to be addressed by parents? Then think about your staff. When you're thinking about personal boundaries with your staff, this is really important for you to communicate them right at the beginning of the year.
And if you haven't done that, even going back and communicating them, being clear about what those boundaries are. But you want to have a time that you're not available tell your staff, I'm not available after 6 PM, unless it's an emergency or I'm not available after five, please don't call me or text me for small things after five or six, whatever you want that boundary to be set that with your staff so that they know, but make sure they know what those emergencies are.
You don't want staff to get in a situation where, a student wants to harm themselves and they didn't tell you because. They're like, Oh, I'm trying to stick to your boundaries. you want to be really clear about what is an emergency, what that looks like, and when to call. But other than that, you really want that boundary set same with, your staff on social media.
Do you want to be friends on social media with your staff? I caution you on this. I was friends with some of [00:11:00] my staff on social media. If they friended me, but I always like to caution them, if I see something on social media that you're doing that you shouldn't have on your social media, I'm going to have to address it.
So remember that. I am your boss. So if you want to friend your boss on social media, make sure you're not doing something that I'm going to have a conversation with you about, otherwise I'm not going to friend you. So that's one way to look at it, but you want to be careful about that.
Maybe you say no staff or parents, however you want to do that. , you also want to have boundaries around when they can come talk to you. Open door policies are great, but I also think it's great to have a boundary that if your door is shut, like you're working and you're getting things done and they shouldn't be coming to your door and knocking on it, so have those boundaries in place ahead of time so that you can communicate it clearly so that they know.
So you're able to get things done. Also think about what, how you want staff to address you. So for me, my staff always called me by my first name, but I worked for a principal who was very formal and we never called him by his [00:12:00] first name. And I remember a new teacher called him by his first name. And yeah, he didn't like that.
He was very particular that he wanted to be addressed, by Mr. So, and that was just his particular boundary and it, honestly, it made sense for him, he was so professional with us. It just was his boundary. And so you might not be like that, but if you are just make sure that you're, that you communicate that staff know that that's how you like to be talked to.
And it's so important with staff that you communicate boundaries with them, but then you also model boundaries. Because I've had so many conversations with my staff when I was a principal about Having boundaries with parents. And so you have to be the one modeling boundaries for them. If you're texting them at seven o'clock at night, it's hard to tell them to set boundaries.
If you're emailing them all evening, it's hard to tell them to set boundaries and stop emailing after 4 PM. So if you feel that you should have boundaries, which you definitely should. Then [00:13:00] you also need to model that for your staff. So it's when you're thinking about staff boundaries, think about what you want to model for them.
So I tried not to contact my staff after school. I tried not to email staff. I would always schedule, send emails, and same with parents, right? Because I was just trying to show them that I'm not working at night. Even if I had to catch up at night. I didn't want people to know that because I didn't want that door to be open that people could just, Oh, she always works at seven o'clock at night.
I'm going to call her. I'm going to email her because I didn't, I just was catching up one evening and I didn't want to let that boundary down, let that guard down. So really think about how you're going to model those boundaries for staff. And then when you think about your colleagues, everybody is different with their colleagues, right?
Some people grow close relationships with their colleagues and their colleagues become really good friends with them. Some people don't want that. Some people want to have this professional relationship at work. And then I go home and I'm at home and I don't want to. Socialize with colleagues, whatever you choose to do is really your choice.
But you [00:14:00] just need to communicate that. Just be open about that. Communicate it. I know, some people that have colleagues that do group texts after school and they're constantly texting each other, and maybe you're someone who doesn't want to do that. And so you communicate unless this is an emergency, I'm not going to be around my phone.
So I'm not going to be participating in the group texts. , don't participate if you're trying to set those boundaries. I know people who have professional boundaries where they really don't share a lot about their personal life. They, if they're out for the day, they don't like to share why they were out. They like to keep that personal. So if that's you and you don't want to share that you were homesick with your child or you took two personal days to go on a little trip.
That's fine. Just make sure that you set those boundaries. So whatever you want that to look like, just be clear about what those boundaries are. So those are just some basic examples of setting boundaries. And , I really focused on this in my last couple of years of being a principal the boundaries that I really focused on setting for myself was that I took email off my phone. I wouldn't [00:15:00] email after really after 4 30 p. m. Unless it was an emergency and again, I usually schedule some emails if I was working early or late I schedule sent my email so that people didn't know when I was working so that I was respecting boundaries of teachers I didn't call my teachers after school and we had a lot of conversations where teachers would say, Hey, I wanted to call and tell you this, but I was respecting her boundaries because we talk about that so much as a staff and we've created this culture where we set boundaries and we have a personal life.
And, I appreciated that just because. We could talk about it the next day. And also, I felt like I was modeling it for my staff and then they can model it for parents, because I think what has happened over time with COVID, is that we want everything instant. If somebody texts us, we want to respond right away.
And I'm guilty of this, right? Somebody texts me. I want to respond right away. But people don't need a response right away. People do not need a response, but we're in this society, this culture, [00:16:00] where we think that everything has to be done right now. We think if somebody sends us an email, we have to email right now.
Most school districts have policies that , you'll email within 24 hours. And I always send a guide to parents. And, I will actually link that in the show notes. I set a guide setting boundaries with parents for staff. And really the purpose of this is If a staff member didn't get back to a parent and then they were sick, the parents not going to get an immediate reply.
And I think we just have to help people understand that everything is not going to happen immediately. We are in this instant society. I had staff members who would be, messaging parents when they're teaching. And, I said to them, as a parent, would you want your child's teacher messaging them when they would be learning?
But we're so used to , instant gratification, instant response. So you just really have to be careful. You have to, as the leader of the building model, these boundaries [00:17:00] model setting boundaries model, what this could look like and have these conversations with your staff, because boundaries are so important in everything that we do, it really helps with overwhelm and stress and the burnout that we face.
And a lot of teachers are leaving the. , profession because of burnout and principles too, right? And we have to protect ourselves and we have to protect our staffs. And one of the number one ways to do that is by setting boundaries. So those are my tips for you. Those are my examples for you. And I can't encourage you enough to be the person in the building, be the leader.
Who teaches staff how to set those boundaries, makes it clear to staff that, their working hours are when they're working. I always used to tell my staff, we're going to work really hard when we're here, and then we're going to go home and we're going to enjoy our families. And so that's. The mindset you need to have as well, if you really want to have work life balance and if you really want to help your staff do it as well.
So [00:18:00] I hope that you found this helpful. If you struggle with setting boundaries, a couple of things in the show notes, I'm going to have a guide for setting boundaries that you can get. I'm going to have the boundary setting sheet that I have for families that you can get. And I also am going to put a link.
If you're interested in one on one coaching, we can even do a free consultation where we just have a conversation about what boundaries are you struggling with and see how I can help you because , setting boundaries can truly change your life. It can change how you feel about work and it can change how you feel about your personal life, because you'll actually be able to be present.
So if you're interested in that, find that in the show notes, if you're listening to this episode on Apple, please scroll down in your app and leave a review reviews are how people find the show or tell a friend about the show, share this, if you know somebody who's struggling to set you As a principal, share this episode with them.
Also keep in mind that you as a principal have the power to shape your life according [00:19:00] to the mindset you choose. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you back here next time.
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