Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Message from the Lead Dog Principal -Summer rant #4

What about those that just don’t care?

I have used my blog over the past several weeks to rant and rave a bit.  It has felt good getting these things off of my chest.  I will continue to rant some today but with this rant I am not only angry but sad because I see many people who at one time cared so deeply about his or her work and now just do not seem to care.  What happened?  How did he or she lose his or her way?

It is hard to come to work full of enthusiasm and energy when the minute you arrive at the door, you are met with people that are just going through the motions.  They just don’t care.  They are in it for the paycheck and that is it.  They will put the minimal effort in to be evaluated as satisfactory so they become difficult to fire but they are an impediment to greatness.

Perhaps it just goes back to my theories about the contract of mediocrity and the overall game of school.  Am I to believe that people are happy enough to be merely satisfactory?   I hope not.

However, I think it goes much deeper than that.  Something or someone has disempowered them.  He or she has been robbed of all of that spirit that he or she once possessed.  It could have happened in a quick instant or it could have been a long-term journey. Whatever the reason may be, he or she has just lost it.

Perhaps like me and my “friend” Fannie Lou Hamer, they are just sick and tired of being sick and tired. I think it is much more than that.  I think in many cases, especially in schools, leadership has just drained them.  I know because I was once a “drainer.”

Principals and other administrators have just beaten the “hustle” out of them.  It is almost like watching that veteran baseball player fail to run out a ground ball as opposed to that rookie that hustles at the crack of the bat.  I will not accept the theory that we all just get old and slow down.  I won’t buy it because I have seen many veterans run out every hit like it was their first at bat.

Yes, we ask more and expect more.  We ask people to do this giving them few additional resources to do all that we ask.  And on top of that we fail to show any amount of gratitude.

So today, I ask each school principal to commit to being a bit more thankful to his or her team of teachers.  Go and tell them this and more importantly show them.  Your deeds will go much further than any words.

Also, I ask each teacher to recommit to all of those promises that you made in your initial interview.  I bet that you promised the principal that you would run through any wall for the school.  Have you done that?  Do you still do it?

Of course, I get it.  There will always be a sort of ebb and flow of your energy. There will be good days and not so good days.

Yes, both sides need to grow and reconnect.  Are we capable of this change?  I think that we are very capable of what I propose.  But will we do it?  Believe me, I have my doubts.  Only time will tell.  Please do not make a liar out of me.