Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Game time adjustments #15

Are you what your record says you are?

Fact:   Yes, but with one exception.

Bill Parcells once said, “you are what your record says you are.”  I could not agree more. 

All leaders tend to “spin doctor” results.  I thought that I could hang with the best of the spin doctors when my annual state assessment scores came in.  They never were what I had hoped or planned for.  Now is not the time for me to get into the reasons why. In my heart, I always felt that we tended to be a great deal better than our record, as far as test results indicated. We were doing a lot of things quite well.  It seemed as though we just could not push those scores into the winning category.  Yet, our performance record could not lie.

But were students actually learning?  How were my students performing?  Were we narrowing any learning gaps?  Were we providing the right opportunities for our students?  What other metrics could be used to indicate our success?  These were all great questions that my team would talk about, argue about and yes, plan about yearly after the test scores were released.  We never gave up.  We always believed that we could do better.

(I knew we were sending more kids off to college and I knew we were providing more opportunities to our underrepresented students, namely through Advanced Placement opportunities made available to all students.)

We all could talk a good game.  But at the end of the day, our record did not necessarily support our rhetoric.  I always took some solace in the belief that we operated a very safe and orderly school where our students for the most part enjoyed.

However, I think that it is important that we own our record.  It is what it is.  Yet, I think that there is one profound exception to the “you are what your record says you are” maxim.  I believe that when you are trying to change the culture of your school or organization you get a temporary pass on that rule.  If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you already know my beliefs about culture. Everything begins or ends with the culture and climate of your school or organization.  The culture needs to be right to allow you to change that record.  I think as leaders, we sometimes forget that fact.  No positive change will occur if your culture is not right.  So, I will give new principals and new superintendents a brief pass on that rule.  Before you can ever hope to get your record right, you have to get the culture and climate right. Because if you do not, you will just be another caretaker in that revolving door of leaders.  For this, I am sure.