The Leadership Work Nobody Can Do for You
Uncorking leadership, learning, and the conversations that move schools forward.
Lauryn Hill asked a question in “Doo Wop (That Thing)” that has apparently been waiting since 1998 to become a leadership framework:
“How you gonna win when you ain’t right within?”
Ma’am. I was just trying to run a school.
But okay, you are on to something, so let’s talk about it.
After enough years in leadership, I’ve learned something uncomfortable:
Whatever is happening inside the leader eventually shows up somewhere in the organization they lead.
Your insecurity. Your need to be right. Your exhaustion. Your fear of failure. Your ego. (Read blog 11.5, I’m Afraid of Sharks. for some in-depth discussion here.) Your inability to let go. Your desire to be liked. Your desire to prove everybody wrong.
None of those things appear in the strategic plan. And yet somehow, they can achieve 100% implementation better than the things that DO show up in the strategic plan. Ridiculous.
You Don’t Stop Leading Because You’re Not Okay
That’s the problem.
You can be exhausted and still have six meetings. You can feel threatened and still conduct someone’s evaluation. You can be angry and still walk into a leadership team meeting. You can be insecure about the data and still have to discuss the data. You can be worried about what your boss thinks of you and then immediately coach someone who reports to you.
Leadership does not wait politely while you get yourself together.
The calendar says 8:00.
Here we go.
If we aren’t careful, we stop responding to what is actually happening and start responding to what it activates in us.
A principal challenges my idea. Are they raising a legitimate concern? Or does disagreement make me feel like I’ve lost authority?
A coach misses a deadline. Is there a performance problem? Or am I disproportionately angry because I already feel like I’m carrying too much?
A teacher asks why we’re doing something. Are they resistant or confused? Or am I interpreting questions as disloyalty because I’m tired of defending the decision?
Those distinctions matter, since leaders have positional power.
Our internal stuff doesn’t stay internal for very long.
Anxiety Cascades Too
We’ve spent several Edutipsy posts talking about cascades.
Strategic priorities cascade. Coaching cascades. Data cascades.
Unfortunately, so does anxiety.
A regional leader panics about the data. The principal experiences urgency. The coach experiences pressure. The teacher experiences scrutiny. The student experiences an adult who has suddenly decided every wrong answer is a five-alarm emergency.
Congratulations.
The cascade worked. Just not the one we planned.
Emotions are social information. Research on emotional contagion, including Sigal Barsade’s experimental work, has shown that emotions can spread among people in groups, influencing cooperation, conflict, and perceived performance. Schools are certainly not exempt.
People read leaders.
They read our faces. Our tone. How quickly we respond. Who gets grace. What happens when someone disagrees. Whether bad news makes us curious or dangerous.
And particularly whether our stated values remain our values when we’re under pressure. Research on “contagious” leaders suggests that a leader’s mood can shape the mood and coordination of the group.
Anyone can be collaborative when the dashboard is green.
The test comes when it turns red.
Your Ego Is Not the Enemy
I actually think ego gets treated a little unfairly in leadership conversations.
You need some.
Especially in education. (For more on this, read blog 11.5, I’m Afraid of Sharks.)
People will criticize your school who have never taught a lesson. People will tell you exactly how to run an organization they’ve never led. People will confidently explain children they’ve never met, communities they don’t know, and jobs they’ve never done.
Sometimes they will do this on the internet before breakfast.
You need enough confidence to withstand criticism. Enough conviction to make difficult decisions. Enough belief in yourself to walk into rooms where you may be underestimated and still speak. Enough ego to say: I know something about this work.
The problem isn’t having an ego.
The problem is when your ego becomes more important than the outcome.
When being right matters more than getting it right. When protecting your decision matters more than changing it. When defending yourself matters more than listening. When winning the meeting matters more than solving the problem.
That’s when ego stops protecting leadership and starts distorting it.
Regulation Is a Leadership Skill
This is why emotional regulation isn’t just personal wellness.
It’s leadership practice.
James Gross’s influential research on emotion regulation describes the ways people influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience or express them.
For leaders, the application is practical.
You don’t have to eliminate emotion.
Please don’t.
I have cried at work. I’ve been angry. I’ve been frustrated. I’ve been ridiculously excited about student data.
I’ve probably experienced all four before lunch.
The goal isn’t emotional neutrality.
The goal is developing enough awareness to ask:
What am I feeling? Why am I feeling it? And is that feeling about to make this decision for me?
Sometimes you need five minutes before sending the email. Sometimes you need to ask one more question. Sometimes you need someone who knows you well enough to say: “That’s not the issue you’re actually mad about.”
Those people are worth their weight in Cabernet.
Every Leader Needs Someone Who Isn’t Impressed by Them
Leadership can become dangerous when everyone around you needs something from you.
People laugh at your jokes. Your ideas get nods. Your calendar is full of people asking for decisions.
Eventually, you can accidentally begin believing your own press release.
You need people who can say:
You’re wrong. You’re overreacting. You’re avoiding this. You’re taking this personally. You haven’t listened enough yet. You’re doing that thing again.
Especially the last one.
We all have a thing.
Mine does not need to be discussed publicly at this time.
The higher you move in leadership, the more intentionally you may need to create access to honest feedback. Research on power suggests that holding it can reduce our tendency to take other people’s perspectives, which is one reason positional authority can slowly remove the friction that once helped you calibrate yourself.
And a leader without calibration can become very confident and very wrong. A dangerous combination.
Being Right Within Doesn’t Mean Being Perfect
I don’t want this post to become another impossible expectation for leaders.
Heal yourself completely before you lead anyone.
Great.
See everyone in 2047.
We’re human.
We lead while grieving. We lead while tired. We lead while questioning ourselves. We lead through health problems, family problems, organizational problems, and days when somebody sends an email at 4:57 p.m. that should have remained a draft.
Being “right within” doesn’t mean arriving at work fully healed, perfectly regulated, endlessly patient, and spiritually moisturized.
It means knowing yourself well enough that other people don’t constantly have to pay for what you haven’t examined.
That’s different.
Final Sip
Leadership is outward work built on inward work.
We spend enormous amounts of time developing strategy. Developing others. Developing systems. Developing plans.
But eventually every leadership tool passes through the leader using it.
Your feedback passes through you. Your evaluation passes through you. Your urgency. Your expectations. Your power passes through you.
So does your fear. So does your ego. So does your joy.
Which means one of the most important systems you will ever monitor is yourself.
Before your next difficult conversation, try four questions:
- What am I feeling?
- What story am I telling myself about this situation?
- What evidence do I actually have?
- What does this person need from me right now to move the work forward?
Then go lead.
Because Lauryn asked the question.
Unfortunately, leadership requires us to answer it.
How you gonna win when you ain’t right within?
Probably inconsistently.
So do the inside work, too.
Sip Wisdom: Recommended Reading
Gross, James J.: “The Emerging Field of Emotion Regulation: An Integrative Review.” Review of General Psychology (1998). A foundational piece for understanding how people influence their own emotional experiences and expression. For school leaders, the implication is practical: regulation is not about suppressing feeling, it is about noticing it early enough that it does not quietly make the decision for you.
Goleman, Daniel; Boyatzis, Richard; & McKee, Annie: Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (2002). Their work popularized the connection between emotional intelligence, leadership behavior, and the emotional climate leaders help create. The takeaway for education leaders: the mood of a school is never neutral, and the leader is one of its most powerful signals.
Barsade, Sigal G.: “The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion and Its Influence on Group Behavior.” Administrative Science Quarterly (2002). Experimental research showing that emotions can spread within groups and influence cooperation, conflict, and perceived performance. It is a useful reminder that anxiety passed down a cascade is still a cascade.
Sy, Thomas; Côté, Stéphane; & Saavedra, Richard: “The Contagious Leader: Impact of the Leader’s Mood on the Mood of Group Members, Group Affective Tone, and Group Processes.” Journal of Applied Psychology (2005). Evidence that a leader’s mood can shape how the group feels and works together. People are reading you, whether or not you meant to send a message.
Hatfield, Elaine; Cacioppo, John T.; & Rapson, Richard L.: “Emotional Contagion.” Current Directions in Psychological Science (1993). The classic starting point on how emotions transfer between people, often without anyone noticing.
Galinsky, Adam D.; Magee, Joe C.; Inesi, M. Ena; & Gruenfeld, Deborah H.: “Power and Perspectives Not Taken.” Psychological Science (2006). Research suggesting that power can reduce perspective-taking. For leaders, it is a strong case for deliberately building access to people who will tell you the truth.