Follow Up to Lead by Listening

I shared this post a few days ago because as I shared, it spoke to my heart when I read it. It spoke to me to such an extent that I have continued to think about it for several days. For me as a leader, one thing that I strove to do was care for the students and staff at my school. Teaching, heck, school in and of itself, is overwhelming in today’s world for EVERYONE involved. There are a lot of “tasks” to complete, but there is a very real fear associated with schools today. As a school leader, I worked to ensure that staff understood the meaning of empathy. Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others as if they were your own. Empathy is refraining from judgment and listening. Empathy is an active process that requires effort. 

• This poem is an example of empathy… taking a minute to think about someone before fussing at them. As educators, we have to learn to choose our battles because there are many! Is the pencil the battle you want to fight?

• Empathy is asking questions like…. What do you need to have a good day today? Which activity would you like to do first? I notice you are having a hard time. Is there something you need to talk about?

Empathy is something that we worked on using with each other as adults so that we could in turn model it for our students while explicitly teaching them about empathy.

When I reflect on my last year working as a principal and the reasons that ultimately led me to the decision to resign, it all relates to one thing…. a lack of empathy. 

• A principal emails central office staff expressing concern that a parent has come in extremely escalated and is now in the parking lot calling the police on her, what response would you expect? 
• A principal emails central office staff expressing concern about a specific student’s behavior. The principal shares examples of the numerous strategies that have been used to support the student and asks for guidance on next steps. What response would you expect?    
• A principal emails central office staff expressing staffing concerns for sped services and IEP implementation to be discussed at an upcoming meeting. The need for staffing and the reasons for the need are expressed. What response would you expect? 

In each of these situations, I expected at least an acknowledgment of the situation and/or concern. Maybe an I’m sorry that happened to you. Maybe some clarifying questions. What I got… no response. These 3 scenarios are examples of communication for which I got no response. If I did get a response, it was often a contradiction from previous information or a contradiction from one department to another. I was often told to talk to this person or that person leading me to reiterate the situation over and over and over…. only then to still get no answer. I have over 10 pages of examples like this where I expressed concern, asked questions… expressed a need for support. 

I understand that people are busy. Some people get lots of emails every day. Some people get a lot of phone calls every day. I was one of those people. However, I made every effort to respond to the needs expressed by my staff and the families of the school. I made that effort because it was important. They were important. I understood that if they were taking the time to email me or to call me, I needed to respect that. I worked to instill that same concept in the teachers and staff of my school. So while I worked at school to encourage empathy, to model empathy, to teach empathy to students, I received none.

I debated whether to post this follow-up, but after talking to a friend this weekend, I decided to move forward. Through our conversation, I realized this was a situation that was much bigger than just my experience. It is a situation that trickles down through our schools as well. My children have been out of school for a few years now, but the feelings I described in my post were the same feelings I had as a parent many times. It was the same feeling my friend was having as a parent. If I, as a teacher, and my friend, as a teacher, felt this way navigating “the system” to help our children, how do parents who are not educators feel? If this is how I was treated as a principal, then how many others have been treated in the same way?