The Catholic School Leaders Podcast

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Catholic School Leaders podcast, where we discuss leadership in Catholic education. I'm John Mahalio, your host of this podcast is dedicated to enhancing Catholic education and connecting Catholic school leaders worldwide. Well, a few months ago, I had the opportunity to interview John Marannucci for the podcast.

And we had a great conversation. about developing future leaders. It's episode 30. If you haven't had the chance to check it out, I really recommend it. It was a great conversation. What happens a lot of times with guests is when the recording of the podcast is over, we continue our conversation after we're done and for a few minutes.

And this time our conversation turned toward the difference between a leader and a manager. And after about 15 minutes, I said to John, I said, well, we should have been recording this for a podcast. And he agreed. And so. We found a time where we could get back together and continue that conversation. And so that's been recorded here today for you, uh, in this episode of podcast, it's a great conversation.

I think you're going to really [00:01:00] enjoy it, uh, and just help you as your development as a leader, or is somebody who's a, uh, aspiring leader to help you with that. So, uh, before we get started, let's just take a quick pause and start our episode with a prayer.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this opportunity to come together today, as your children, to talk about leadership in Catholic education. Please bless my guest today, John Marannucci, in his work, so that together we may give your name honor, praise, and glory.

We pray our work will bring your light, love, and mission to our listeners and to the world. We ask this through your Son, Jesus Christ, Amen. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please don't forget to like, subscribe, and share this content with other school leaders in your network.

Can't say thank you enough? Enjoy today's episode.

Well, today I'm happy to welcome back to the podcast John Maranucci, the principal of St. Francis College, located just south of Brisbane [00:02:00] in Australia.

St. Francis College is a contemporary Catholic school that embodies the Franciscan values of simplicity and harmony. John brings a wealth of experience to his role. He holds a Master's in Education in Educational Leadership from Australian Catholic University. a Bachelor of Business and Accountancy from Queensland University of Technology, and a Diploma of Teaching from Mount Gravatt College of Advanced Education, which is now Griffith University.

Outside of work, John enjoys reading, camping, and spending time with his wife and three children around the campfire. I'm excited to welcome him back today to share his insights on education, leadership, and life. John, welcome back. It's great to see you again.

Likewise, John, great talking across the waters and vision on Zoom.

Yeah, and so you are in a little different boat here than the people in the United States because in Australia, you're getting ready to wrap up your school year as we're recording [00:03:00] this, whereas here in the United States, they are just getting ready to probably get around the end of that first semester, so little bit more to go down there, and then it's the summer break for you over Christmas, right?

Right.

Absolutely. Certainly looking forward to the summer break as a time of R& R as a school leader, and certainly for our school kids as well. It's been a pretty heavy and hectic year. However, with only about a month to go with school stuff. We still have a lot of work to do around strategic planning and other things for next year.

So we seem to get it done every year, but you go at what cost?

Well, and a little bit of a break for you. So I know that your break really goes your summer down there is really that December, January time period. And I know a lot of new leaders are going to be starting their job then in Australia, but also maybe leaders who are in their first year here in the United States or wherever you might be listening to this [00:04:00] podcast.

Or maybe you are considering moving into a leadership role in the future. And so one of the things that we talked about, and this is the beauty, I think of things like LinkedIn you know, John and I had only ever met each other and we've still never met each other in person, but we've gotten to know each other over LinkedIn and different things that we put on there which is a great professional resource.

And one of the topics that you brought up on there was a little meme or a graphic or something. about leaders and managers. And so back and forth, people are commenting on it. And I said to you, this would make a great podcast topic, John. Let's do you want to run it back? And he said, absolutely, let's do it.

So we're going to dive into that a little bit today. How's that sound?

Sounds great, John. Hope I won't disappoint your listeners.

Never. Legend right here. So let's talk about that because I think one of the things that. People just make the assumption of is that well, there's no difference between a manager and a leader. [00:05:00] And I feel like running a Catholic school we figure out very quickly the big difference between those two.

So what would you say is the, is a big difference between in your mind a person who is a manager and a person who's a leader?

That's a simple question, but quite a complex one at the same time, John, because you know, we start off potentially when we're given roles in school leadership, where you start to manage things. But where you make a big impact is where you have the role of leader. I started working many years ago in education, left education, went into the world of business, retail, and I was actually a manager.

At that point because, and that was the actual title and that's all you were really doing. And even in schools for a long period of time, people were managers and then systems changed and they thought what's a better way and better ways to lead. And a manager is basically just controlling tasks.

[00:06:00] That's all you're doing. Pushing paper, you know, get this job done, et cetera. Whereas leading is more around. the whole people. And because you can't lead without having people following. So to no point being miles in front, you got to sometimes be in front, sometimes at the back, sometimes in the middle.

But leading is about working with people to get tasks done. And that's, I guess, one of the key differences. There's lots of other aspects around that as well, but it's working with the people to accomplish those tasks.

Yeah. And I think too, when you talk about managing and let me just say this to what we're going to talk about, there's no disrespect to a person who holds the title of a manager. As a person who is going to lead a Catholic school, I think what we're hoping to kind of get to is that there are tasks as a leader that are managerial, and there are managerial tasks that you have to have [00:07:00] as a leader there, you know, when you're when a leadership tasks you have to have as a manager.

When I think of a manager, I'm thinking of, you know, if I'm a manager of a restaurant, let's just say, I probably don't have any control over how much the hamburger costs, or the slice of pizza, or whatever or maybe the toy that goes in the Happy Meal, or whatever the case might be those are going to come from leadership up above, whereas my job is to make sure that the number of hamburgers that were sold matches the number of dollars that came in, I don't really have the control to make those big strategic decisions.

That's where I kind of see the manager role differing from the leader is that leader you're looking at saying, let's evaluate what we're charging for a hamburger. Do we need to charge more? Do we need to charge less? You mentioned before there's strategic things you're going to be working on over the summer.

To me, it's a much deeper dive into really understanding the scope of how the organization works.

Oh, absolutely, John. As a manager, all you're doing is simple tasks, really, [00:08:00] whereas as a leader, you're dealing with complex tasks at a higher level. So, certainly, it's like, are you on the dance floor or on the balcony? And sometimes you sort of go between the two. Because to, to lead well, sometimes you have to manage some certain things, but you can't stay there permanently.

You've got to then go and lead. And sometimes people come to you, you know, or you're seeing things. And just recently, we had a major school event and some things came into my sight and I go, well, how do we work on this? And that's part of that leading. So you go, how do we take it out of? becoming just a mundane type of issue into elevating it and looking at it strategically.

So you can I guess, work at it in a much better and smoother way for the organization.

And I think as a leader, the opportunity is there. for [00:09:00] you to have a direct impact on continuous improvement. As a school leader, you know, one of the things that I always tell people is that the time to get better is when things are going really well. Like, you don't have to wait till things aren't going well to say we got to improve.

There's no rule that says you have to wait till things are going. You want to take what's going really well and say, okay, how do we make this even better? And I think as a leader, you have that opportunity right at the palm of your hands to go, how can we make this, what's happening here even better?

How do we take it from good to great as Jim Collins would say?

Well, that's what we try and do. Say for example, we have an opening school mass or liturgy or leaders commissioning ceremony. We have our celebration of excellence awards. We have a whole range of things. And after each event, we always pull it apart and do exactly that. We go, what worked well, what would be even better.

Even if it's been an absolute roaring success, we still look at it and go, [00:10:00] just because it worked well this time, doesn't mean it will work exactly the same next time. So that is just Part of, I guess, as Jim Collins quite correctly said, going from good to great. And that's what we want to do. And unfortunately, we sometimes operate on the mobile phone battery situation where, Oh, my battery's on 3%.

I'd better recharge rather than going, Well, I've got 80%, but let me recharge it. Because you just don't know what's ahead. So even if things are going well, That's really the time to do and invest because much easier to keep it going on that trajectory than when you go into the deep falling through the pit that you get on.

Now we've got to reverse and moving a ship takes a long time and a school or an organization is just like that. So a one degree shift may not seem a lot, but after a long period of time, you know, you'll be hundreds of kilometers [00:11:00] off course. So you've got to correct. At the beginning rather than, Oh God, Oh, we're off course now.

And that becomes much harder to shift back.

And I think as leaders within our schools, we really have that responsibility and it's more than just a job. It's a responsibility. As a leader to kind of say to ourselves, but also to our school community, our students, our faculty, our parents, our alumni, or, you know, anybody that's involved with our school, this is where we are right now.

This is where we've been. We know what our traditions are. We know what we're going to keep sacred, but this is where we're going over the next five years. And in order to be there in five years, this is where we need to be in three years, we need to be here in three years, we need to be here in one year.

This is the vision that we are taking to get to where it is we want to be. And there's a lot of people out there that when they get into that leadership role, that principal role it's scary to say to everybody, this is where we're going. This is what my vision for the school [00:12:00] is that first time. It's a scary piece because there's no check boxes for that.

There's no task boxes to go, okay, first you do this, then you do this, then you do this. I think that can be intimidating for first time leaders.

Probably intimidating for a lot of people anyway. There is no, I guess, set path for doing those sorts of things. But interestingly in the system that I would, we used to have. five year strategic plans and that whole framework. And then over a period of time, we went to annual plans. Whereas now our organization's gone through to back to a longer view to three year plans.

And I think you can't do annual plans without having a more strategic look as where you go, because otherwise you just say, Oh, we'll do this year. We'll do this year. And the lot may not be linking and may not get any traction of movement. Whereas you've got a longer view and then you can [00:13:00] break that up into smaller, sustainable chunks.

So that's what we're trying to work on at the moment.

Well, I think sometimes too you say, okay, hey, this is what our goal is for this year. What happens if it only takes you three months? Or what happens if you, you get to the point where you go, wow, we thought we were going to be able to do this one year. This is actually going to take us three or four.

Okay. You've got to adjust those things, but if you don't know where you are and you don't know where you're heading you know, you it's like they say you throw the dart and if you're aiming at nothing, you're going to hit it every time.

Absolutely, and data is so important, especially in education these days. Data is everything, and certainly the idea of having the annual plan, just because you have an annual plan doesn't mean it's stuff. for the 12 months, because as you constantly go through, like for us, for example, we review every term, like every three months, basically.

And then we just reassess and we [00:14:00] continue working on that if we haven't achieved. And sometimes we refine things, put new things in, but occasionally we do hit things early and you go, great, what are we going to now do? In that aspect, or do we just put all our energy into this other one to try and get that one accomplished a bit earlier as well.

So, it is I guess, keeping your eye on the ball, we've got all these, you know, like the juggler.

Yes.

got. Glass balls, we've got rubber balls, you know, we don't want any of them to fall, but if the ones that do fall, we're hoping they're the rubber ones, not the glass ones. So, but we're trying to keep everything afloat and the bottom line is everything we're doing.

is really for our kids and for the community. You know, whether we're doing things for staff or for students, the bottom line is the staff work with our students. If we're doing it for parent and parent engagement, parents work with our kids. [00:15:00] So ultimately, one way or the other, everything links back to our students.

think that keeping the students at the center of everything that we do is so critical and sometimes it's not the easiest thing to do because we say, well, this would be much easier for the teachers, but this is what's going to be better for our school as a whole. And as a leader, that's hard to sometimes have to take the.

The path of more resistance. You know what I'm saying? In terms of saying, listen, we're going to do this or we're going to come back in the evening to put this night on or whatever. But that's what you have to do because it's what's in the best interest of your school. I think that something I often see is especially from new leaders is kind of shifting out of that mode.

Whereas you know, the people who are used to just saying, listen, it's on my list today. These are what I'm going to get done today. And I'm not going to deviate from this. So when you're in a principal job I don't know about you, John, but sometimes I might have had 15 things on my list, And at the end of the day, because whatever popped in on [00:16:00] that particular day, you might have 14 things on your list by the end of the day.

And so you just never know what's coming in terms of the unexpected. You may have a discipline situation arise. You may have a parent that comes in, you may have an emergency that happens with your school building. And if you're a manager, you say, well, I still have to get these things done for the, before the day ends.

And as a leader, you say, okay, what can I shift till tomorrow? What, what has to absolutely happen today? Think, talk about that process in terms of making that shift for that first time manager who's going into that leadership role.

Certainly as a young school leader, as an assistant principal, I had my to do lists every day and most days you'd be able to go, yep, tick that, did that, and you felt great. And every now and again you have these stumbling blocks that you go through. You go, I did nothing today, yet I was busy all day.

And then you reflect and you go, well, wasn't that I didn't do anything? I just didn't do anything that was [00:17:00] on. my list. I did a lot that may have been on other people's list or their priorities. And that's where you start to make that switch. You go, well, I've got a list, but I've got to attend to other things.

And that's where you then start to change from manager to leader. As a leader, you may still have a list, but you're attending to the needs of the people in your flock or your care. And that's important because as you've said, you know, there could be behavior. Issues that you need to deal with. There are parents that don't have appointments that come knocking on your door, and sometimes it's easy to reschedule other things because you go, the parent is here, obviously with a concern, may not be a big issue to me, but it is a big issue to them.

So you got to address that because they're the people you're looking after.

And we all know that dreaded at the door and somebody says, do you have five minutes? Okay. And I don't know about you, John, but do you have five minutes [00:18:00] was never five minutes. Okay. And that's okay because that person had something that was so important to them that they needed to come and sit down with me.

Okay. And discuss something that was happening. You know, with their child or with their classroom or whatever. Something was bought. So it never bothered me to get that knock on the door because it showed trust and somebody thought enough of you as a leader that they were going to come in and have that conversation with you.

I think one of the things that, that I would recommend to new leaders. I think sometimes we often look at the beginning of the week and we say, Okay, I have to do this report for our diocese, or I have to get a newsletter out, or whatever it is. And I think one of the things that I always advise new leaders to do is block off your blocks of time to say, Okay, I know this report is due Friday.

So each week I'm going to block off two hours on this day and two hours on this day so that I can do the stuff that's going to happen paperwork wise. Now maybe it's after school, maybe it's before school, maybe it's in the middle of school, [00:19:00] whatever. But if you block off those blocks of time, much the same way as if you block off blocks of time and say, I'm going to visit classrooms for this hour.

Or I'm going to, you know, visit classrooms during, you know, Monday from 9 to 10 and Wednesday from 1 to 2 and Thursday from 10 to 11. You have those spots already in your calendar to make the important things a priority. Because if you don't do it, nobody else will.

Oh, it's spot on, John. It sounds crazy that you have to put in those things. But if you don't, then everything gets absorbed. So your calendar becomes an open slather to your executive assistant or whatever title we give them. So when you say, I need to catch up with such and such a person over this matter.

It'll just be slotted in and you go, Oh, I really wanted to go and talk to staff at lunchtime or so you've got to pencil those in and what is a priority [00:20:00] you need to address first. So put those things in and I've become much better at that over time. So I put those in and then my personal assistant goes through and scatters things around the essentials that I've got in there.

And certainly as a. a school leader, it's important we're in classrooms and would love to be out there even more. And when I do forget to put those things in, that time gets absorbed, unfortunately. But yes, five minutes is never five minutes, you know, and one minute is never one minute. But if we're clock watchers, then that's where a problem, because that's, part of being a manager.

You go, have you got five minutes? You go, yep. Well, I've got five minutes. And so basically it's like the chess game. I clock on and clock off for those five minutes. Whereas as a leader, you go, well, you probably know deep down five minutes is not going to be five minutes, but it's important enough to take your time.

And [00:21:00] as you've said, trust is an important aspect there. And as a school leader, That's what we work on. And we want to build trust, culture, a whole range of things.

And one of the things I think that can consume your time, if you're not careful, as a new leader, is emails and phone calls. Okay? I was just speaking with somebody earlier today and we were talking about some different topics. Okay. And he said, wasn't email supposed to make our lives easier?

You know, 25 years ago when email was really starting to become a thing, email was supposed to make our lives easier. Not and there's probably days that people just go, all I did today was answer emails about something, okay? One of the things I always even advise people of is, block off time during your day where you're going to answer emails.

From 830 to nine, I'm going to answer emails. And then from 12 to one, I'm going to, or 1230 to one, I'm going to answer emails. And then from 330 to 430, I'm going to answer you. Cause if you don't, you'll just be in front of that computer all day, tapping [00:22:00] back emails. Let the machine do the work for you in terms of, those emails aren't going anywhere but if you block off those couple of minutes during the course of the day, to say, that's the time I'm going to spend on my emails.

Now, if you see an email that needs a lot of extra attention somebody that needs you to give them a call or whatever the case may be, obviously that's going to take a priority but that's just working smarter right there and not working harder, and I think that's things that I see that leaders do.

is they try to help have these tools work for them rather than against them.

Oh, that's right, John, Yeah. One of the things, you know, around emails, you can be tired in front of the computer all day. And we in a way condition people as well, because People know, oh, I've just sent an email and you've responded in five minutes. And if it's a vital email, well, fair enough.

But otherwise, some of those emails doesn't require that attention. And therefore, you could be doing other things. So [00:23:00] scheduling blocks of time. And as you were talking earlier about a need to schedule like a two hour block to work on something. One of the differences between leaders and managers is that whole operational versus strategic.

And what you're doing then is just operational material, whereas a leader is working strategically and go, how can I best use my time? So for a number of people that I know. Some of the strategic work that happens is either before school or after school, because that is quiet time, very little interruption, and you can give it focused attention.

And especially if you're an early morning riser, then you've still got plenty of energy in the morning to do that. Whereas, you know, I start doing a task and there's a lot of research around. When you become off task for something, so there's the little ping, there's an email, oh, I've got to go and check that email.

And then the time it takes back to refocus. And what [00:24:00] was it that I was working? What was my train of thought? I've just lost it. And yeah, so that's why. And I know a number of people go, Oh, no notifications, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I don't operate quite like that, but it is important. I guess the email has made us available almost 24 seven and there's ups and downs to that.

Yes. That 24 seven does make it good for you to check. Important things, but doesn't mean you need to respond. And certainly in Australia the last probably six months or so, well certainly this year, part of our enterprise bargaining has been talking about the right to disconnect. So staff and schools putting policies around when is an appropriate sort of time to be sending or receiving emails.

And yeah. You might notice on the bottom of my emails, I have a little disclaimer around my work hours might be [00:25:00] different, etc, but and I know a number of other people might also have things like I'm sending or working out of. usual work hours. And I guess it's working what suits you. But the important thing is, when is that message expected to be read?

So, and we have some protocols around that at our school. But we go, just because it suits me to send an email at six o'clock in the morning, I'm not expecting staff to read it. However, I do expect it to be actioned between the hours of say, eight and five or something like that.

Or a 24 hour block of time, or whatever the case might be. And I think that's the thing is just being reasonable with people. And I think blocking off your time to say, Okay, listen I'm gonna, I'm gonna block this off, do this a bit. People get to know that, but then it's also, what are you doing with the rest of that time?

And when you're making those leadership priorities a priority and people are seeing that, they're going to be more [00:26:00] understanding when you say, hey, I didn't get to your email yet, but I'm gonna get to it. I think there's a lot more understanding with people.

Well, that's true. And I guess emails these days are so easy because you can put in auto generated responses and you know, whatever message you have there, if it's delicately worded, people will understand that as long as you do get back to them within whatever

There's the key. There's the key. Don't just blow them off, you know what I mean? And as we talk about this, you know, when I think about leadership versus managers, if I said to somebody that, listen, you're a leader, but you have no managerial skills, I'm gonna guess that there may be a bit of chaos.

Because there are pieces of a leadership role that you better have structures in place to handle situations. And likewise, if you have a manager who has no leadership [00:27:00] capabilities, then I'm going to guess that your vision is going to be very short sighted and more probably chaotic in both instances with those two things.

So if you're somebody that, that has, that isn't a leadership role, it's still important to have those managerial processes in your toolbox right there. You don't just get to to get out of those just because you say, well, I'm a leader now, so I don't need to worry about those kinds of things.

No, that's so true, John. And I think A lot of people, as I was saying earlier, probably start off in that sort of managerial task and then move into that leadership. So, if you're a great leader, you will have managerial processes in your toolkit. Because if you don't, then you probably don't elevate to being a good leader.

I know that, you know, that PETA principle, you reach your level of incompetence. So, if you're a great manager and people put you in a leader role, eventually, you're going to, you can't [00:28:00] keep faking it, and you're going to be detected, and that job's not suited for you. And so therefore, you're not going to feel comfortable, you're going to be under the pump, feel stressed and pressured.

And then either you leave or, you know, there's other processes in place. So, you've got to find your little niche and where you're comfortable. And some people are comfortable in that managerial role. And we need those people. But by and large, we're certainly working more towards that leadership. And we need more people and everyone has an opportunity to lead, you know, you don't need to be a school principal to be a school or to be a leader as such, because we need teacher leaders as well.

And everyone has the power to, I guess, influence change. And I guess we're talking about principal and principal leadership, but everyone. At every stage in a school has that potential and ability to lead change and to be [00:29:00] influencers.

And you don't need a title to be a leader within your school community. You know, I remember several years ago, you know, you think about it. There's people out there that you know, think about high schoolers where you say, okay, I'm going to have a party this weekend. I'm going to make invitations and I'm going to order the food and I'm going to, And nobody comes.

And then you have another person who goes, Hey everybody, party at John's house this weekend. And 400 people show up. Okay.

You're not giving them my address,

I'm giving it, we're all coming to your house, John. Get the barbie ready. You know what I'm saying? Let's let's grill it up here. So you get a barbecue.

So I think that you have people that have that leadership voice that just needs to be used for the right purposes and given that opportunity to take that role.

Oh, so true. We've got so many people that are teacher leaders, and yet we don't take full advantage of that. You go, because I'm the school leader, so everything's got to channel through me. And I'm the know all in the [00:30:00] school. And if you operate like that, well, the school will slowly decline because everyone will want to go because they don't have an opportunity to let their light shine or to have their voice.

And we talk about student agency and student voice. Well, the same thing applies to teacher and teacher initiatives. And it's very important for teachers to be able to demonstrate that. So part of being a good leader is seeking out those people and putting them in the limelight and letting their light shine and giving them their, you know, 15 minutes of fame in front of staff, in front of students and the recognition.

And then they can put that on their CVs as well to further their careers. Because part of being a leader. It's not about you taking the limelight. It's sharing that and putting others in that space with you. So it's no point to party alone in that sort of, you know, you want to celebrate with others.

And [00:31:00] so how do you bring others onto that party scene, you know, and you journey together.

(Midroll)

We'll get back to our conversation in just a moment, but first I want to take a break to talk about elementary advancement solutions. If you're a Catholic school leader looking to boost your enrollment, enhance your advancement efforts, or build a stronger foundation in your school's future, Elementary Advancement Solutions is here to help.

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(Episode Resumes)

And I think, too, that one of the things so many people they hold [00:32:00] on to the manager role like a security blanket, like a teddy bear, like a whatever you want to call it something that helps them feel safe. And when we talk about moving away from that manager role into that leadership role it can be scary.

It can be you know, scary to step outside of it and to say, okay. Now I've got to put myself out there. Now I've got to put out what I think is best for our school out there. What do you see as the biggest challenge, or in your mind, what's the biggest challenge for a shift from somebody who is in a manager role to a leadership role, or

that whole strategic thinking, vision, working annual plans, those areas, because most people can shift quite easily from being a manager to a leader in most different components or aspects of a leadership framework. But probably the hardest one for the majority of people is to go from being.[00:33:00]

that operational where I can carry out the plan to actually devising the plan. And I think that for a lot of people is difficult having strategic mindset.

and I think to the one thing that I would want to articulate to somebody out there who is you maybe if you're listening to this, you've been in leadership for 30 years and you've maybe you've been in leadership for 30 minutes. Okay. Nobody expects you to be perfect. You're and I'm just gonna give you a spoiler alert right now.

You're not going to be perfect in your role. You are going to make a mistake. You are going to you know, there's things out there. We are doing the best we can as leaders to create a vision for our school. And, you know, we're gonna think that we need to go left, but guess what we should have gone.

Right? And when you realize that you should have gone. Right. Okay, now we need to. to change that course of action. Now, we can't just be changing the steering of the steering wheel every 15 feet because then we're going to give everybody car sick. But, you know, I think [00:34:00] that's the thing is that as leaders we're using, you talked about data before, we're using the best information we have at the time to make the decisions that we feel are strategic for our school.

But nobody's asking us to be perfect. We're just asking our leaders to do the best they can with the information that they have.

Oh, for sure. I mean, then when I look back on some of the decisions that I made at that time, that was the best decision or the best course of action. However, with new information, as we move forward, other things happen, you go, well, Perhaps I would do that slightly different now in reflection. And one of the things about leaders is that they are reflective people and you need to be reflective, you know, whereas I'm not sure how much reflection goes into that.

You might do some sort of. very shallow reflection, whereas as a leader, you do a deep dive into reflection [00:35:00] on a whole range of different aspects. And that's one of the good things about a time of rest is you can take a decent amount of time at your leisure. to reflect on things and how you move forward into the next school year.

Because we do have our term breaks a couple of weeks, but it takes almost that long to just get into the mode of relaxation by, because you're working at such a fever pace. 10 week blocks. When I was out of teaching and into the world of business, I didn't seem to need the breaks that I have now.

And I came back and I go, I need a break. And that's because we operate at such a high level all the time that you're almost switched on like 24 seven. And so therefore we need to recharge the battery more frequently. And that's an important aspect, but having a break. is wonderful, but you [00:36:00] still need to do tasks in that break and a break is a good time to fully recharge, but also to reset priorities moving forward.

And I think that our leaders skill sets that I see a lot of leaders, good leaders, have, is their ability to know when their battery You mentioned before the, when your battery is at 3%, okay? Not ever Letting it get to 3%. We all know certain times, hey, things just happen and I'm sure during COVID, a lot of our batteries were flashing that we need to put the battery in the charger there, but to me, I think that what I see characteristics of good leaders having is they're reflective.

And like you just mentioned, they do a deep dive on things to me asking, you know, what worked, what didn't work, what do we need to keep doing? What do we need to do less of? What do we need to do more of? Those are questions that we need to constantly be asking ourselves. about everything that's happening in our school and kind of keeping score of things.

I think that they're lifelong [00:37:00] learners. I think that you know, these are people that never make the assumption that I know everything there is to know and I don't need any more growth. And then I think the last thing is, and just like you and I are doing here this, because we're recording this morning or this afternoon, depending on where each one of us is.

But there's connected, there's connections with others and they recognize that this field of leadership is beyond just their four walls of their office, and they seek others out who are going to make them better.

Well, I guess if you're the smartest person in the room is that whole little saying goes, well, you're in the wrong room.

You're in the wrong room.

and maybe sometimes you do need to be the smartest person in the room. However, if you are constantly the smartest person in the room. There's an issue and it's important, as I said, to grow others and part of that growing is having a great team around you and recruiting well and knowing where your shortfalls are [00:38:00] and when you're recruiting, perhaps trying to recruit a strength in that and that makes you stronger.

makes the whole team stronger. Unfortunately, a lot of people are very sort of, intimidated by people who might be better than them in a particular area, and so therefore they don't recruit that way, and all they have are mini me versions. Well, if we've got mini me versions, what's the point? A whole lot of people are redundant, because if they're mini mes, then I've already got that in me.

So, the whole idea of team is that everyone is better, and if everyone is better, then everyone brings something else to the table. I know that at our leadership meetings, I often, well every time, we have a collaborative inquiry question that we throw, and yes, there are times when Most of us might agree, but there are times where everyone else brings a different aspect to the table.

And at the [00:39:00] same time, that's broadening our thinking, our strategic thinking, and it's also looking at alignment as well on certain topics that need alignment. So, we need to be tight as a leadership team on certain aspects, but we also need to be loose around things so that people can grow.

And open to hearing other people's opinions. So that the best idea wins out, not necessarily the idea of the leader, because there were certain meetings where I would be in with, you know, our leadership team. And I would feel one way. And everybody knows this is the way to go. Now, at that point as the leader, it's my decision.

Am I going to go on this one on my own? Or do I want to say, okay, listen, I really might want to look at what my team is telling me here because there might be a blind spot here that I'm not seeing.

And as a leader, part of the job is to come up with ideas and innovation and so on. And then that's the [00:40:00] aspect of having team, you put it to the team. So the leadership aspect is seeing, Oh, there's a need in this space. You fill that space, but doesn't mean that because you're filling that space, that's the final idea.

That's the initial draft of the idea, may end up being the final. However, the team has input, and with the input and brainstorming, that's where you refine it, hone it down, and you get hopefully a better perspective. And I know I've done quite a number of different things with our team. That my starting point was totally different to the end point, but it got us on that journey.

And without me initiating, that's part of that leadership, those things wouldn't have happened. And we see the benefits of those final results with staff, or we see it with the students, or we see it via the parents. And that's the whole idea. It's like, you see a need. You fill that void. [00:41:00] However, what you fill it with doesn't always have to be your product.

It's a team product.

And I think for, and I see this in new and veteran leaders. I think sometimes we have an idea or we see a void and we are so excited about getting it fixed or getting a solution that sometimes we get it rushed, but don't get it right. And sometimes the solution to the problem might take 6 months or 12 months to be done right.

Now, there's other things that we gotta say. Listen, this is an emergency. We have to get this fixed right now. And you have, but if everything's an emergency, then nothing's an emergency, right? So I think that's what you have to be as a leader is to identify what's something that is urgent that we got to deal with right now.

And what's maybe that false sense of urgency that. Let's map this out and really think this one through so that we only have to do it [00:42:00] once and we're not spending three months from now fixing the fix that we just did.

That's absolutely spot on. You know, that whole Eisenhower matrix of those four urgent and important or not urgent, not important, etc. And the same thing applies to a whole range of aspects. So if you're talking about. Putting a fix in place and then having to fix the fix and the fix and that keeps going and that applies to Even with resources within the school So when we're looking at student amenities and so on we've evolved some of our plans that way we were looking at beautifying An area that was a nice or so became a student area where they could sit, have lunch, some of those aspects around.

And what we started is the original plan with the landscape designer. And even when he was doing, I then said to him, wouldn't it be good if we could or wouldn't this be even [00:43:00] better if we incorporate? And he goes, well, that's a great idea. I didn't think of that. Yes, it adds dollars, but we're going we're doing this job now.

Let's do it the best we can and, you know, sometimes those plans have to be altered midway, just like our annual plans because we've achieved it or we're not achieving it. So what other resources do we need to put in there? So we tackle it. an aspect. And we go, let's do that the best we can at this point, because there's nothing worse than spending parents money on aspects of the school for students.

And then in a year's time, we go, well, we got that wrong because we need to pull that down. because we've got to have a new building put there. So it's about having master plan and good vision around where we're going to do things and the student use. And are we going to knock that down in time to come?

Well, maybe in 30 years, but 30 years is a [00:44:00] substantial period of time, not three months.

exactly. And let me just say this because you mentioned the Eisenhower Matrix. If you are not familiar with that when you are done with this podcast, do a Google of that. Because that was something I used to have on my desk or something in my plan or whatever the case might be. If you are spending all your time in stuff that is urgent and not an emergency or, you know, not urgent, not an emergency, not then you're missing something.

And so I really recommend to anybody out there who's in a leadership role to take a look at that because you want to spend your time in quadrant two as much as possible. And I always say to people, you know, it's like if you're driving down the highway, you're I may need to get out of this lane to pass the car in front of me or to get over because there's a road hazard ahead.

But my goal is to get back into that Quadrant 2 lane as quickly as possible. Because that's just going to help us be prepared to be strategic in what it is that we're doing. Which is just going to make us better [00:45:00] leaders and our school a better community for our teachers and for our students.

Oh, absolutely. I know at one point when I was a deputy my principal, I don't have sufficient time to work in that strategic space. And I was thinking, well, how come, you know, how come? Because as deputy, you tend to do a lot of the operational material to free up your principal to do that. And so having done various roles, you can see how, Eisenhower matrix sort of varies a little for different roles, but it's important to always be.

in that space as much as you can, regardless of roles.

And there's a lot of information out there. I'll say maybe I can find some that are a resource to link it or maybe that's a future podcast or something to that effect for sure. If, you and I, we've been talking here today. We've both been in this role for a few years. We know that people [00:46:00] that want to step into leadership need to embrace that role as a leader.

But I think sometimes we see people that enter into this leadership position, and they still want to stay in manager mode because it's safe. What's your advice for that person out there that is maybe clinging on to something? And maybe It's fear. I don't want to do this because I'm afraid of what that'll look like.

Or maybe I was in a school when this happened and so I'm not doing that. Even though I know it's the best thing for me to do I've watched it go not so good and so I don't want to step into that role. What advice would you offer that person to kind of say, Listen, we got to step out of the role of manager and into that role of leader.

Probably working alongside that person would be one of the best ways to go. And investigating the reasons why they feel that way. Maybe giving them small tasks to begin with [00:47:00] and then working to bigger and bigger tasks so that they build their confidence because it's probably a confidence thing.

It's like a, You know, people go, Oh, you know, I can't speak in front of public, but you're a teacher or you're in education. You talk in front of kids all the time. So you'll be right. And yet there are so many teachers that are afraid of public speaking, but as you do more of it, then you build that confidence and ability.

And then people go, Hey, this is great. You do this well. And that's potentially what this person may need to, but if you're always working in your comfort zone, there's no stretch. And we ask kids to constantly be stretched. And if we're running a school or we're a leader of some capacity, we have to model.

These things for our kids. It's no point in saying to kids, you need to be a lifelong learner, but that's okay. I don't need to be because I'm 20 years older or have many years old, [00:48:00] you know. We're always on that journey of lifelong learning and part of that is that lifelong learning. We don't stop learning till the moment we're six foot under or however we decide to go.

But the important thing is, We have to model for our kids as well. So, as a school leader, you need to model for the other leaders in your team and work alongside them to bring them and stretch and grow. And the same thing for those people with the kids that they work with. I

I think for those people who are entering into a principal role maybe it's for the first time, maybe it's not. But, you know, we go through that process. We go through the interviews, we share with this small group of people what our vision for the school is and what we'd like to do with school.

Okay. But when you get in front of that faculty for the first time as a leader, when you get in front of those students, that whole student body for the first time as a leader these are people who are looking to you to help them find the [00:49:00] way that we are going to be going as a school community.

And so, it's I think a natural tendency to kind of want to play it safe. But, you know, and there is a piece of things as a leader that we have to think through our decisions and be very strategic in them. But the people that are looking to you are looking for you to show them where we're going in the future.

Because nobody just wants to stay the same. We don't want to just, there's no growth happening to us. But I want to know, how is this school going to be a better place in five years because of the vision that you're laying out for us? That's what people want to hear from our leaders, in my opinion.

would hope that every leader has the viewpoint that they leave their place a much better way than when they found it and entered it. Not only financially, physically, but just a whole community and culture. to change, and that takes time and regardless of whether we're talking primary school, secondary schools, or P to [00:50:00] 12 schools, or K to 12 those sorts of things take a time to change.

And one of the important things around that change element is. doing the research as well. Like you were saying, some people want to play it safe, but some communities may want you to be quite quick with that change. And so doing the research and, you know, many times people go to an interview and then they get told, Oh, It's about fit or you're not the right fit.

And as a, perhaps a, an early candidate or a manager or leader in those spaces, you go, what do you mean it's about fit? You know, I think I'm a great fit, but then perhaps as other things unfold, you go, well, maybe, you know, that was a good choice. The spirit moves in mysterious ways and you know, you weren't meant to be there.

For whatever reason. And then there's another place where they, you're the good fit. You're the [00:51:00] candidate and you potentially see that. And some communities are ready for change and embrace change willingly. So you, it's no point being cautious when they're ready and willing. So, and staff often do research into their new leader or their new principal well before that principal steps in.

So they go, ah, John you're the new principal at school, well, they're quick. And especially these days with Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, whatever social media platform, just find, oh, we've got connections at that school, getting the low down, what sort of leader are you a pastoral, are you a curriculum?

Are you more all rounded? So they've already got that before you step in there. They've done more research about you than potentially you may have done about the school and the school

exactly.

, and that's one of the things I know when I first started here at this school I decided to have conversations with every particular staff member [00:52:00] and some of the teams said to me, that's a big job.

We'll help you. We can, I got. I appreciate it, but I want to do this, because then you're getting all the voices from everyone and I know that at times people who make appointments with you in those first few weeks. Sometimes they've got good things to say to you about direction, but maybe they're coming to see you because they've got certain carts to push and maybe that's not the way.

But that's why it's important to get all voices from the community or, you know, your staff so that you can go. I get this as a common message, you know, is this something I need to progress or is this just some people's little hobby horse or soapbox that they're wanting to stand on? But getting that I think is a good way to go forward.

Well, and I tried to make it a point whenever I would take over a school to say, Listen, I'm gonna block off, you know, and usually it's over the summer when [00:53:00] you're taking over a school. I'm gonna block off three weeks, four weeks, whatever the case might be. Tuesdays, Thursdays. For half hour blocks of time that anybody can sign up to come and just talk to me about whatever it just let me just get to know you and maybe sometimes I would have questions for him and other times it was not, but you know, just what are you passionate about?

What gets you excited? Why do you love the school? What's and just being available so that everybody can have that time with you one on one. And I think you hit the nail on the head. You start to hear it. Consistencies. You start to hear repeating topics and it really allows you as a leader to shape, okay, well I've heard 15 of the 45 people I sat down with pot talked about this subject as something.

So that better be something that we better move up the pecking order in terms of how we're going to address it or we better find out more information as to why this is so bad. And just by being accessible and available. You're getting so much [00:54:00] information about your new community that's going to help you move them forward into the future.

Well, I guess it depends how invested you are in the community, you know, if you're in there for a quick like three minutes, you know, this is a stepping stone to my next job, you don't really probably don't care about those things. You just go, it's just superficial. I'm here for a quick good time. See you later.

It's just a little resume step for me, whereas where you do make a big impact is where you are heavily invested in community, and just because you're heavily invested doesn't mean you have to be there 20 years, but you have that commitment to the community that you're there to make a difference for them.

You know, because that's how we all got started in teaching. We got started because we wanted to make a difference for kids. And you might make an impact with, say, if you're a primary school teacher, just [00:55:00] that one class that you have. Now, secondary school teachers, because we may teach two We still teach students, but subject areas is our content.

We teach more students, and so you're probably making more of an impact that way. Well, we go into leadership to influence staff, to influence kids, so your classroom becomes even bigger and making a bigger impact. And everything we do in leadership, Is widely, I guess, dissected, but we've got to work at that high level so that we can have decisions being made that are always in the best interest of staff and students.

And I think, too, for our leaders who are out there you know, maybe you're listening to this right now and You're having a rough start of your year, or maybe things are going great for you. And, you know, what I always tell people is when things are not going real well, they're probably not as bad as you think they are.

And when things are going well, they're probably not as good as you think they are. And so, right. [00:56:00] And so just remember something as a lifelong learner, as somebody who is going to continue to grow in your profession and leadership. Tomorrow, you're going to know more than you did today, and today, you know more than you knew yesterday.

Okay, so just continuing to grow and continuing, you are, as you move forward in your role as a leader, as a principal, you are going to know more in the future than you never, you're every day moving forward, you're going to know more than you did today. And so that's something that I think is room for optimism right there.

Because you're just going to continue to grow in your role as a leader of your school,

That is so true. Everyone thinks they know how to run a school and you know, the decisions that school leadership teams make or the principal make, that was a pretty rotten decision. Because they don't have. The full breadth of knowledge and at times, I guess, we're our own worst enemies because we don't give all the bad [00:57:00] news to the staff.

We protect them from those sorts of, so at the same time, they don't know those things and perhaps don't understand why that decision came about. But if you're building. Good relationships and trust with people. People will know that is a good decision because they trust in you to do what's best for them.

And so it is about bringing those people on that journey and those people could be students, staff, teachers. leadership team, parents and other stakeholders that are outside the school that are partnerships with the school. So it's very important to, to work on those relationships and trust because we keep putting, it's like the bank account, you put money in there, but at some point we need to withdraw.

And when we withdraw, we've got to make sure that we have enough. Invested in there. And so trust is built every day, but can be gone in a [00:58:00] split second. So we're constantly working at building relationships and trust. And the decisions we make, people will go. Yep, that John's made a good decision based on that, because we know he's got our backs.

100%. And I think that's where the consistency, the communication are so important with our communities. Because if we're able to be consistent in what it is that we're doing, We're consistently forming that bond of trust and we're communicating clearly the decisions that we're making and the reasons behind them.

And you and I both know that not every time we can say, this is why we made this decision. You know, especially when it comes to decisions of maybe discipline or human resources kind of things or things like that. There is that component of, listen, I just need you to trust me on this one, that this is the best interest for our school.

But I think the more and more you do that and the more transparent you can be, the more trust people are going to have in you, which is just going to move you from a [00:59:00] manager to a leader in a more rapid fashion, I guess, so to speak.

Well, I guess that's true, John. You know, the important thing is you never stop learning, and I guess what I know today as a leader, If I knew that when I first started, you know, you go, how good would that be? And I guess we're all on that journey constantly learning. And even though I may only have a limited time left in my working career.

I still go, I'm still reading, I'm still listening to podcasts, still doing all these things because I want to be better, to give better, and when you know more, you can do more.

And I think that would be the advice I would have for somebody looking to kind of move into that leadership role and away from that manager role. My, my advice, and John, I'll ask you what your kind of parting advice would be to these folks. To me, it would be continue to reflect on [01:00:00] just everything that's going on.

And don't overly reflect to the point where you know, tie yourself up in knots and you can't move forward with things. But it's good to be reflective, it's good to journal, it's good to just give perspective to things. You just mentioned it too, being a reader I think is so important. Being a lifelong learner, whether it be reading, whether it be through professional learning communities, whatever the case might be.

And as I mentioned before, just connecting with other people. Connecting with others who are in your field, because there's always somebody out there who knows more that I can learn from. And so don't ever, you just hit the nail before, John. You don't want to be the smartest person in the room all the time.

And so to me Find those people who are doing things very well and learn from them. And take what they're doing and say, How can I apply that to what it is I'm doing? And you just, there's a difference between taking what they're doing and applying it versus Just trying to copy everything they do. You have to make it your own, okay?

But I think if we can continue to learn from others, that's just going to make us better as [01:01:00] leaders.

John, 100 percent agree with you, and using one of your little phrases, spoiler alert the spoiler alert with all of this is, You can be a reader, but you have to enact it. It's no point reading it and go, yep, I've read it. So now, yeah, I know it. Knowing it is one thing, but implementing and doing is a totally different thing.

So even going to professional developments and things like that, it's one thing to sit there passively, but it's another aspect to, to actively work on it. So that is an aspect, yes, read, but implement. what needs to be implemented from your

100%. And just take that first step. Just take the first step is the biggest thing. John, I can't thank you enough. I wish you a very good end of the school year here as you guys are getting ready to wrap up. Get some rest and get some relaxation over the course of the summer and I'm [01:02:00] sure that you and I will be connected again real soon.

Thank you, John. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking and catching up with you and I certainly enjoy our time together. And yes, I will be looking forward to a rest. And I know that as we come to the end of the year, even as recent as yesterday, One of our school leaders told me some of the things that, because we had a year six into seven transition and saying how wonderful our kids are improving in their literacy and compared to students from other schools that are coming in.

And you just hear that and you go, that's great data for us. So all of these things, are wonderful and I certainly will take great delight as we wrap up the year and reflect on our year and how successful we've been. So thank you, John, and thank you for your time.

Absolutely, John. Always good to see you. I hope by the time this episode publishes you are listening to it on a beach somewhere.

Well, I don't know if I'll listen to it on the beach, but [01:03:00] certainly during my holidays.

There you go, most certainly. John, thanks so much. Great to see you again.

Thanks, John. Catch you next time.

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