Last Thursday, as I was reviewing my calendar, my heart sank. My palms started to sweat, my heart raced, and I felt very much exactly the same way I felt as a child whenever I had been caught doing something I should not have. After a bit of panic, I realized that my eyes had …
Tag: leadership
Autonomy
I recently watched a Ted Talk by author Daniel Pink in which he discussed intrinsic motivation. During the talk, Pink identified several factors that nurture or diminish intrinsic motivation. However the one that stood out the most was “autonomy.” According to Pink, “to be fully motivated, you must be able to control what you do, …
We’re back to buffalo
We’re taught that lying is bad from an early age. Yet as adults, it seems that not everyone fully adheres to the principle of honesty and integrity. The least offensive lie is one that is made in error. A mistake. Leaving out important facts is often used to commit a lie of omission. Refusing …
Sometimes winning isn’t
Let’s face it. We all like to win. And we hate to lose. That is because from an early age, we are conditioned to believe winning is good and losing is bad. As a verb, “lose” means to be deprived of something. As an adjective, “losing” refers to suffering or defeat. Of course, we cannot …
What is your “it?”
I was recently talking with some colleagues about climate and culture, and how to build or maintain it when so many people are working remotely. Climate refers to how people feel about their job or their work, their sense of purpose in an organization, and their happiness or satisfaction. Between climate and culture, climate is …
Admit mistakes before someone exaggerates the story.
I’ve learned a ton about leadership by making mistakes. One in particular was around twenty years ago. I was very early into my career as a school administrator and the district was working to pass a high stakes referendum. As a member of the administrative team, one of the volunteer/community service roles I had was …
Continue reading Admit mistakes before someone exaggerates the story.
What is leadership?
We all have people in our lives--past and present--who we considered “leaders.” And if you’re like me, you have likely spent years striving to be like those people you have admired. But what IS leadership? And how do we know it when we see it? Better yet, what is GOOD leadership, and how can we …
Remote Work Environments & Self-Care
This is the fourth in a series of posts written collaboratively by Dr. Michele Andorfer and Mike Haynes. In previous posts, we explored ways to ensure productivity doesn't suffer because of a remote work environment. We also shared strategies that we learned from others regarding ways to build and nurture relationships when working remotely. In …
Plan A
At the beginning of the pandemic in the US, I wrote a post suggesting that we seize the opportunity of what appeared to be additional time that educators had, given schools were closing and students were staying home. Shortly thereafter, however, it became clear extra time was not necessarily available, as most educators, administrators and …
Become a Virtual Rockstar
People who lead understand that effective meetings don’t just happen by chance. Good leaders orchestrate the components of every meeting, including establishing a clear purpose, identifying items that should and should not be included on the agenda, determining who should participate, and utilizing strategies to engage all participants. Meetings that are not planned carefully are …
