Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

The dark side-What might Yoda say? (#8)

Jealousy leads to resentment; resentment leads to hate.  Pride leads to anger; anger leads to hate.  Always to the same place the dark side leads.

People on the dark side are just full of anger and hate.

Why is everyone so damn angry?

I wish I had the answer to that question.  But it seems to me that each adult walks around his or her school angry. When I was a principal there were times that I would lay in bed awake at night thinking about that concept.  Yes, I was sure, everyone was just angry; angry about everything.

That would lead to me to my next question.  If I could see that my teachers were so angry, could my students see and feel this anger emanating from my teachers?  Of course, they could.  The better question might be, what could I do about it?

So, with all of this anger circulating in my building how could I even think about the importance of building positive relationships.  This anger was perhaps the biggest thing impacting the culture and climate of my school. 

So, let’s dig a bit deeper. Let’s start with this postulate from Yoda.  Pride leads to anger and anger leads to hate.  Anger and hate are inextricably linked.  It is therefore not a big leap for me to conclude that hate operates within some sort of trickle-down framework.  Administrators possess pent up anger for the teachers.  The teachers respond back up the chain being angry with the administrators.  The teachers are caught in the middle between the administrators and the students.  So, it becomes easy for them to turn their anger toward the students.  The students have no other choice than to be angry.  It is a vicious cycle  

Let’s stop here before we get too carried away with the concept of anger and hate.  I am not talking about an environment where there is “open warfare.”  I am talking about an underlying current of anger and mistrust.  You might not be able to see it, but you can certainly feel it.  For an outsider, you can feel it the minute that you enter the school.  Please excuse me if I am oversimplifying this, but all it comes down to is a matter of trust.

Trust

No one trusts.  Each person in the school is like that proverbial onion that our movie friend Shrek talks about.  Shrek knows that he is difficult to read and understand.  He describes himself (and I will paraphrase), that he is just like an onion with many layers. And a school is just like Shrek.  You have to peel away a great many layers to even begin to understand the built-up anger in each person.

So, let us try to understand this phenomenon.

It probably has taken generations of teachers and administrators to build this wall of distrust and to make it so difficult to penetrate.  Living in a distrustful environment and then dealing with all of the stressors that one must deal with in a school, causes the distrust to get reinforced. It gets cemented in place and it is merely passed on to the next generation of teachers and administrators. 

I can take this a step further.  Now, add to the mix a distrustful parent who feels that they have been wronged by the system in some way.  The distrust easily spreads into the home.  This is especially true in communities where children attend the same school that their parents attended.  It happens more frequently than you can ever imagine.  Children end up having the same teachers and principals as their parents.

Negative experiences are never forgotten and people look to blame.  Who better to blame for all of the heartache in one’s life, than the teachers and principals in the educational system?  I can attest to that because I lived it for so many years.  The parent would arrive to school with anger and hate in their heart because of an incident that occurred when they were in fact children.  That is hard to overcome.  Now, on top of everything else, the school has to prove that it has changed.  Everyone has changed.  Overcoming that preconceived notion is extremely difficult.  Within a school there are so many distinct individual orbits that they are bound to collide.  Managing these collisions becomes the job of the culture and climate of the school.  These collisions are rarely positive and most times are significant stress makers.

What impacts trust?  As school leaders we must understand that before we can move forward, we have to understand what exactly impacts trust.  Let’s take a look at these factors and try to understand them. What do they look like in your specific school?  I am sure that they are different in each school. These factors include but are not limited to:

• Respect-I learned about the issue of respect very early in my administrative career when as a new vice principal in an urban high school, where my largest job responsibility was student discipline and behavior management.  I learned this lesson from my students.  The world in a school revolves around the notion of respect.  In a school, respect makes the world go around.  Just like the larger concept of trust, respect works up and down and chain.  As the disciplinarian vice principal, if I did not respect the students, I would have failed miserably.  Please do not read into this that I mean to infer that you go easy on or coalesce to each student.  At the end of the day, I remain convinced that students seek order and merely want to be treated fairly and with respect.  Don’t we all?   Always remember that you are the adult in the student- teacher relationship.  I encourage all adults to act like it.  Students stopped respecting the job title long ago.  The same can be said of teachers.  Teachers stopped respecting the title of principal long ago.  Everyone, students and staff alike, respect the person, not the position.

 What can we do to keep people on the light side of the Force?

• People need to feel valued-Everyone wants to feel that they matter.  This need drives many individuals.  I can recall that when I was the superintendent, I had one board member who was extremely intrusive. We used to have some “spirited” discussions.  It took me several years to figure him out.  He behaved in this manner because he needed to feel important.  I believe it is what drove him.  Once I got “it” I was able to deal with him in a less stressful manner.  His perceived power made him feel valued.  That is what he needed.  I had to provide that.

For a period of time, I worked with a superintendent who made a habit out of devaluing people. I liked the guy and thought he did a pretty good job.  However, he just did not get the people skill aspect of his position.  He would walk down the hallway and ignore people.  If they looked in his direction he would look away.  He would never acknowledge that person’s existence. I would always wonder how he could not just say hello?  It took me a while to undo this damage. I wonder if he worked for a boss that behaved in this way.

I learned what not to do from him when dealing with people.  I made sure to acknowledge people, even if they were not my fans of mine, no matter what the circumstance.  It gave me great pleasure to greet someone with a smile and a hello which would ultimately put that person on the spot to respond.  I could see it in their faces.  They did not want to say hello back to me.  However, this dance, opened up channels of communication.   I eventually won this small war.  Even if we were on different sides of an issue, I made it a point to be respectful and to value them. I had to make each individual feel as though they mattered.

• Marginalization-Maybe marginalization is similar, if not the same, as devaluing a person.  However, I felt it was important to give marginalization its own category because of the power and punch that it holds.  It is a cruel method of disrespect.  When you marginalize someone, you are doing it on purpose.  Marginalization is mean and usually vindictive in nature. Most definitions of marginalization point to the concept of pushing people into “the margins” of your organization.  Just think of this like pushing some of your written thoughts into the margin of the paper.  Margins on paper are basically useless.  And when you do this, you make the people with whom you work useless.  You steal their voice and identity.

The aforementioned superintendent was good at this. He would exclude people from meetings when he was angry at them for whatever reason.  He used this as a way to punish. He used it to embarrass them.  And for those people who cared, being marginalized was devastating.  

I can recall when I was interviewing some colleagues for this work, I asked one principal what was the worst thing a superintendent could do to him.  His answer was both quick and confident.  He spoke to me about when another superintendent purposely marginalized him.  She excluded him from the important activities that he needed to part of.  He was never asked for his input and was basically ignored.  Yet, he had a great deal to contribute.  I watched in awe how he was able to take this abuse and keep trying to perform to the top of his capabilities.  It said a great deal for him and very little for this superintendent.

When you practice marginalization, you are nothing more than a bully.  I question the character of a person that uses this practice.

• Lack of follow through-Nothing angers a person more than when the principal promises to do something and then forgets about it.  Whether he or she forgets purposely is not the question.  Once you say are going to do something, do it.  It is easy to yes people to death.  Some leaders have a keen expertise in this area.  It won’t take long for your teachers to realize that your word means nothing.  You become an empty suit.  The principal must attend to issues.  Do not ignore them.  They will not go away.  I have tried that when there was conflict among some of my staff.  I figured that they would work it out themselves.  After all, they were all adults.  What the hell was I thinking?  When you see a problem, step in and nip in the bud.  Problems will only fester and become worse.  I can guarantee you that if you do not address issues, the dark side will.  Please take my word for that!
• “Shotgunning”-Let me start out by defining what I mean by the term “shotgunning.”  This is a technique where, in this case, the principal stands in front of his or her faculty and admonishes the entire group for the transgressions of a few.  For example, you notice that several people are coming to work late.  So, you decide to address the faculty, and many times, by your own words, you will condemn the entire group.  You do this either intentionally or unintentionally.  It doesn’t matter.  The harm has been done.  Believe me when I tell you how this, what seems to be a simple misstep, can snowball and ultimately cause pay a significant price related to your credibility.  You will start to lose your staff.  Address the people that need addressing.  And I can almost predict that every new principal will make this mistake.  I know I did.  Review your meeting agendas carefully and make sure it doesn’t happen.  I got to a point that a little voice would chirp away in my head when I started going in this direction.  Nurture your inner voice to give you that same warning.

So, it all comes down to trust.  You must show each person respect and value them. Make sure that each person feels part of your team. Follow through on your promises and address each transgression individually.  I make it sound so easy.  Next week I will dig a bit deeper.