Appreciation Matters. So Do Clear Expectations, Good Systems, and Doing Your Job.
Uncorking leadership, learning, and the conversations that move schools forward.
Last week, I told you to buy some cards.
I told you gratitude matters.
I told you people I’ve coached still have cards I wrote them nearly two decades ago.
I told you to notice people, name their contributions, and remind them:
I see you. You matter here.
I meant every word.
Now I need to add something.
You cannot thank your way out of bad management.
You cannot give someone a Starbucks gift card after changing their priorities for the fourth time this month and call it staff appreciation.
You cannot write “Thanks for all you do!” while consistently asking people to do things that should not be on their plates.
And you definitely cannot put donuts in the staff lounge after a completely avoidable organizational disaster and expect everyone to forget what happened.
Although they will eat the donuts.
We’re educators.
We have principles, but we also have donuts.
Appreciation Is Not an Operating System
There is a version of organizational culture that is basically:
We appreciate you SO MUCH!
Meanwhile…
Nobody knows who’s making the decision.
The meeting could have been an email.
The email could have been three sentences.
Three people are doing the same task.
A teacher has gotten conflicting directions from four leaders.
The deadline changed yesterday.
Nobody told operations.
And there are somehow seven Google Docs named:
FINAL_StrategicPlan_FINAL_v6_ACTUALFINAL_USETHISONE
But don’t worry.
There’s a taco truck coming Friday.
The tacos are not the problem.
Keep the tacos.
The problem is expecting appreciation to compensate for dysfunction.
People need to feel valued.
They also need to be well led. (Not just well fed).
Sometimes the Kindest Thing You Can Give Someone Is Clarity
We tend to put things like empathy, appreciation, and relationships in one leadership bucket.
And expectations, accountability, systems, and results in another.
I don’t think they belong in separate buckets.
In fact, I think clarity is a form of care.
Think about the cognitive energy people waste trying to figure out:
What exactly am I supposed to do?
Which priority is actually the priority?
Who owns this?
When is this due?
What does “good” look like?
Is this suggestion actually a suggestion, or is this one of those leadership “suggestions” where I discover next week that it was definitely not a suggestion?
Ambiguity has a cost.
Research on role ambiguity and role conflict has repeatedly linked unclear or conflicting expectations with negative employee outcomes, including stress, lower satisfaction, and reduced performance.
Which means sometimes the most supportive thing a leader can say isn’t:
“I appreciate you.”
It’s:
“Here are the three things that matter most. Ignore the rest for now.”
That can feel like a gift.
Stop Celebrating People for Surviving Problems We Created
This one may hurt a little.
Organizations sometimes accidentally celebrate heroics that were required because the organization failed to plan.
Someone stays until 9:00 p.m.
“Amazing commitment!”
Someone spends their weekend fixing the schedule.
“Above and beyond!”
A teacher creates an entirely new intervention resource because the materials weren’t ready.
“She’s incredible!”
Yes.
She probably is.
But why did she have to be?
There is a difference between recognizing extraordinary effort and normalizing organizational dysfunction.
Leaders should absolutely appreciate the person who saves the day.
Then we should ask:
Why did the day need saving?
Otherwise we create cultures where exhaustion becomes evidence of commitment.
That’s dangerous.
Because eventually your most dependable people become the people you burden most.
They solve problems.
So we give them more problems.
They say yes.
So we ask again.
They are competent.
So their reward for competence becomes…
more work.
Then one day they leave and everyone says:
“We had no idea they were burned out.”
They knew.
Psychological Safety Doesn’t Mean Everything Feels Good
Last week we talked about Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety.
This concept gets misunderstood all the time.
Psychological safety does not mean:
Nobody gets uncomfortable.
Nobody receives critical feedback.
Everybody agrees.
Expectations are flexible.
Accountability disappears.
The vibes are immaculate.
Psychological safety is about whether people can take interpersonal risks — ask questions, admit mistakes, raise concerns, disagree, seek help — without fearing humiliation or punishment for speaking up.
That means a psychologically safe team can actually have more difficult conversations, not fewer.
Imagine a teacher saying:
“I don’t think this intervention is working.”
A coach saying:
“I need help. My feedback isn’t changing practice.”
A principal saying:
“I think the regional strategy is creating competing priorities for my team.”
Or someone saying to me:
“Natalia, I understand why you want this. But I don’t think we’ve thought through what it will require from schools.”
Good.
Tell me.
Psychological safety doesn’t mean I’ll agree.
It means I want an organization where you can say it.
Then we can look at the evidence.
Debate.
Decide.
And once we decide, move together.
That’s not soft leadership.
That’s a high-functioning team.
Support Without Accountability Isn’t Support
Now let’s flip it.
Sometimes leaders are so focused on maintaining relationships that they avoid saying what needs to be said.
We call it empathy.
But occasionally…it’s avoidance wearing a really nice cardigan.
If someone is struggling and I refuse to clearly tell them they’re struggling, I have not protected them.
I’ve deprived them of information they need to improve.
If students aren’t getting what they need and I soften the message until nobody understands there is actually a problem, that’s not kindness.
Remember Blog #6?
Feedback is supposed to change what happens next.
So good management requires both:
You matter here.
and
This needs to improve.
Those statements are not opposites.
In strong organizations, they coexist.
In fact:
You matter here, which is why I’m willing to help you get better.
That’s a much stronger definition of care.
Fix the System Before You Order the Cupcakes
Recognition matters.
Celebrations matter.
Joy matters.
I believe that deeply.
Joy is strategy.
But joy cannot become camouflage.
Before your next staff-appreciation initiative, try a slightly less exciting exercise.
Ask people:
What makes your job unnecessarily hard?
Then listen.
Maybe it’s a report nobody reads.
Maybe it’s three meetings covering the same content.
Maybe teachers enter the same data into two different systems.
Maybe people don’t know who owns decisions.
Maybe priorities change faster than teams can implement them.
Maybe a leader is routinely failing to communicate something downstream.
Maybe everyone knows about a broken process except the person with the authority to fix it.
Then fix one.
You know what employees find extremely motivating?
When something annoying stops being annoying.
No swag required.
The Best Appreciation Might Be Removing Something
Leaders are trained to add.
New initiative.
New tool.
New meeting.
New tracker.
New protocol.
New communication.
New professional development.
We rarely celebrate the leadership skill of subtraction.
But researchers and organizational thinkers have increasingly explored our tendency to solve problems by adding rather than removing.
Leidy Klotz calls this subtraction neglect: when trying to improve something, people systematically overlook opportunities to subtract.
Schools may be particularly vulnerable.
Because almost every idea sounds reasonable individually.
“Could teachers also track…”
Sure.
“Could coaches just add…”
Probably.
“Could principals send us…”
Technically.
“Could we have a quick weekly meeting…”
And suddenly everyone is drowning in individually reasonable things.
Sometimes good management sounds like:
Stop doing that.
The report isn’t useful anymore.
Delete it.
Those two meetings can become one.
Combine them.
We’re not implementing four instructional priorities.
Pick two.
Teachers don’t need to enter that data twice.
Fix the system.
There is enormous dignity in making people’s work more doable.
Ask a Better Appreciation Question
So yes.
Ask:
Who haven’t I thanked lately?
Write the card.
But also ask:
What burden am I allowing this person to carry that I have the authority to remove?
That’s a leadership question.
Think about your strongest people.
The ones you trust.
The ones you call when something goes sideways.
The ones who always figure it out.
When was the last time you looked at their workload instead of their capacity?
Don’t just appreciate that they can carry a lot.
Make sure you’re not the reason they’re carrying too much.
Final Sip
Write the thank-you card.
Mean every word.
Bring the coffee.
Celebrate the win.
Order the tacos.
For goodness’ sake, keep the tacos.
But don’t confuse any of those things with leadership.
People deserve appreciation.
They also deserve:
Clear priorities.
Useful feedback.
Reasonable systems.
Leaders who make decisions.
Accountability that is fair and predictable.
The ability to speak honestly.
Workloads that acknowledge they are human beings.
And when something in the organization makes their job unnecessarily difficult?
They deserve leaders willing to fix it.
So maybe this week’s Edutipsy challenge requires two cards.
On the first, write:
Who needs to hear “thank you” from me?
On the second:
What am I asking people to tolerate that I actually have the power to change?
Write the thank-you note.
Then fix something.
Great culture isn’t built by choosing between caring about people and caring about outcomes. It’s built by understanding that you cannot sustainably have one without the other.
Gratitude fills the cup.
Good management stops knocking it over.
Sip Wisdom: Recommended Reading
Amy C. Edmondson — The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (2018)
A useful continuation from Blog #7. Psychological safety is sometimes misinterpreted as comfort or lowered accountability. Edmondson’s work is much more demanding: high-performing learning environments need people who can speak candidly, acknowledge mistakes, ask for help, and challenge ideas while remaining accountable for performance.
Edmondson, Amy C. — “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams.” Administrative Science Quarterly (1999).
The foundational research behind much of the modern conversation about psychological safety. For school leaders, the implication is important: if we want teachers and leaders to learn, we need environments where people can surface problems rather than hide them.
Klotz, Leidy — Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less (2021).
Klotz’s work on “subtraction neglect” offers a useful challenge to education leaders. When trying to improve organizations, humans naturally tend to add solutions. Better leadership sometimes means removing the meeting, tracker, initiative, step, or requirement that no longer contributes enough value to justify its cost.
Rizzo, House & Lirtzman — “Role Conflict and Ambiguity in Complex Organizations.” Administrative Science Quarterly (1970).
A classic piece of organizational research on role conflict and role ambiguity. Decades of subsequent research have continued to examine the consequences of employees receiving unclear, competing, or incompatible expectations. It’s a reminder that leadership clarity isn’t merely about efficiency; the conditions we create affect people’s ability to perform.
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo — Leverage Leadership 3.0 (2026).
This connects #8 back to the rest of the series. Strong management isn’t more activity. It’s creating the rhythms, priorities, feedback loops, and accountability that allow adults to focus their effort on the actions most likely to improve student outcomes.
One More Sip
For another research rabbit hole, explore perceived organizational support, particularly the work of Robert Eisenberger and colleagues.
Feeling valued by an organization matters.
But here’s the leadership challenge:
Don’t only tell people they’re valued.
Build an organization that makes it easier for them to believe you.