Subtracting the Noise as a Principal
[00:00:00]
Speaker: welcome to the podcast. Today we are talking about subtracting the noise in leadership. So that's the first principle of leadership by subtraction.
Leadership by subtraction is the philosophy that has completely changed the way I lead as a principal, and it's really what I've been thinking about and working on for a long [00:01:00] time. But,
, It's this idea in leadership that sometimes we do too much when we really need to be focusing on less
Speaker: because I think one of the biggest mistakes I see as principals, and I am so guilty of making , this mistake, is we believe that every interruption deserves our attention when it doesn't, and that's difficult for people as leaders. Especially, I'm a people-pleasing leader, so I've had to work on that over time.
But I wanted everybody to be happy, and so I felt like if there was a problem, that's my job, I have to fix it. And that's part of being educators, we wanna help people. We care deeply. As principals, we're problem solvers, and we're good at it, so we wanna solve problems. We wanna be available. But over time, what happens is the desire to help others slowly becomes a habit of reacting, and everything becomes urgent, and our whole day becomes reacting to everybody else's problems.
And we're not building their capacity, And [00:02:00] we are overwhelmed because we are getting emails, and every email can feel urgent. Every teacher request can feel urgent. Every district initiative can feel urgent. Every parent concern can feel urgent. And eventually, you lose that ability to distinguish what's urgent and what's not and what's actually important for you at that moment in your building.
And that's what I'm calling noise, what's noise? It's anything that's competing for your attention that's not moving your school's biggest priorities forward Noise can be meetings, right? Sometimes we have a lot of meetings that aren't necessary. Sometimes it's emails that aren't necessary.
Sometimes it's doing more and having another initiative that we don't need to have. Sometimes what I see with principals, it's your own perfectionism or your people pleasing or self-doubting. That can all be noise in your head that's distracting you. And if you deal with perfectionism, people pleasing, doubting yourself, go back, , and listen.
I did a summer series where I was talking [00:03:00] about different areas of leadership and how to work through those. So I do have some podcast episodes on some internal behaviors that might be helpful for you. , Because that noise, , it can be external things distracting you, but it can really be internal noise.
It can be yourself creating all of this noise, telling yourself a story. A lot of times we tell ourself a story about what we should be doing, we should handle this. We should handle that. And it's not always about what needs to be happening. When I think about this, at my first school, one thing that we would do, I'm terrible at carrying a radio,
they would hit the speaker on the announcer, do a beep, and it would come through the PA, and it would tell me that there's a problem in the office. So I would be walking around classrooms, walking around the building, and then I would hear that beep, and either my assistant or I would come to the office.
It could be for either of us. And what I quickly learned was that sometimes it was an emergency and sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes it was a parent who wanted to speak to me right now. [00:04:00] Sometimes it was a student who came from recess who got in trouble and they needed me to speak to them right now.
There were all kinds of reasons that it might happen. But to me, some of those things that I used to think were a priority right then were not, because that might be the only five minutes I get to get into classrooms that day, or that might be the only time that I get to connect with instruction and see what's happening.
And so you can probably relate to that, where you finally get time to get into classrooms and see what's happening and have some time for instructional leadership, and then you're called back to the office for something. And so really, , the deeper question becomes: What are the important things that you should be called out for?
, What are the things that are just noise and interruptions? To me, a parent coming, unless they're aggressive and I'm worried about, , the secretary's safety, the parent can wait. If they didn't have an appointment with me, they can either wait or they can come back another time after they've scheduled an appointment.
If it's a kid at recess who has [00:05:00] an issue, unless people are going to be hurt right away, it can probably wait. But we have built a system in schools where they feel like the principal automatically comes and just handles it, and that's not helpful for anybody. It's not helpful for teachers. It's not helpful for kids.
It's just not helpful. We need better systems that we can filter out the things that are just noise so the principal can actually lead and do the instructional leadership work that they need to be doing. So the first principle of leadership by subtraction is simple. It's subtract noise. So before saying yes to something, you have to ask yourself three questions.
Does this move our biggest priority in the building forward? Does this actually require me? And does this need to happen today? A lot of times, people want it to happen right now because it's an emergency for them, but it's not for you. So if the answer is no, if it isn't part of your biggest priority, if it doesn't require you, [00:06:00] if it doesn't need to happen today, then it's probably just noise.
So maybe the best leadership decision is subtract that. Take that away. Is there something that you can take away or take off of your plate? I think about this when it comes to behaviors a lot. And again, when I started, , in my last building, a lot of behaviors would just come to the office where they would just bring in, an incident that happened, and I would handle it.
And I just handled situation after situation. But what I learned over time is that some of those situations could either be handled outside by the recess monitors through just a conversation, or I could just go pull them out of class later and have a quick conversation with them. It didn't need to be brought into the office and a big deal.
I could just have a piece of paper of the kids I needed to talk to and go handle it, so it just depended, , and another thing that I had to really work on is, , protecting time around observations. I had this conversation with the [00:07:00] secretaries. I absolutely cannot be called out of an observation unless somebody is hurt, or there's, , a true safety concern.
Because teachers have worked so hard to prepare lessons for me to come evaluate, and then I don't wanna go sit in there, and they start the lesson, and I get called out for behavior, so it's really about figuring out what the noise is and protecting that time and protecting time for everybody else.
So for one day this week, I want you to think about all of the times that you get interrupted in your building. You could do this if you're actually in school with kids right now or if it's summer break for you. You could just reflect on what are those times that you're interrupted and why. So think about which interruptions did you have this school year that truly needed you, and which ones happened because there was an unclear system, because people weren't sure what an emergency was, and which ones could somebody else have handled
so that's a really good [00:08:00] reflection to just think about. So again, which interruptions this school year truly needed you, which ones happened because of unclear systems, and which one could somebody else have handled? Because what I want you to do with this, the goal , is to take that and then start creating boundaries around those interruptions.
So if there's interruptions that truly needed you, that's good. I think about my most recent building, and a lot of those interruptions truly needed me. I always think about, I was in a meeting with a attorney talking about a student , and our attendance liaison, and somebody came in and was like, "First grade teachers need you on the playground."
And I'm like, "Is it an emergency?" They're like, "Yes, the student is running, and they can't get him." , "Okay, that's an emergency." And I left the meeting, and I went and handled it. So I could think about a lot of interruptions that I had last year that were true emergencies, that I wanted those teachers to get me because they needed my support and somebody was, not being safe, and they really needed me.
But [00:09:00] sometimes that's not the case. So thinking about what those could be and then what systems need to be in place and who else could possibly handle those situations. Think about that. I think you'll be surprised at what situations arise that maybe somebody else could help with.
But as we end today, I want you to think, if this episode resonated with you, if you're thinking about all of the noise in your building, I want to invite you to something I'm really excited about. Over the past few years, I've been developing a leadership philosophy that's completely changed the way I lead my school.
It's called Leadership by Subtraction. So it's just built on one simple belief that the best principals aren't the ones who do the most, they're the ones who know what to subtract. They're the ones who can get rid of that noise and those distractions, and I actually have five other principles that we talk about in the program, , that principals can learn to subtract to have better leadership.
So if you're tired of trying to do everything, chasing every initiative, and ending your day wondering if you're focusing on the right things, if you're [00:10:00] doing the right things as a principal, , i'd love for you to join the Leadership by Subtraction program.
I'll put the link in the show notes. You're able to register for that now. We start August 3rd, and once registration closes, it closes. This is not something that you can join at any time. , This is a one-time offer for you to join at this point, because we are going to go right into this as a cohort of people.
It's a coaching program, and so I don't want people to be just joining, , at any point in the program. So if you're interested in joining, click that link, check that out, see if Leadership by Subtraction is for you. We'd love to have you in the program with us.
Just remember, as you go through the week, the best principals aren't the ones who do the most. They're the ones who know what to subtract. So I hope you join us next week on the podcast
[00:11:00]
