Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Tip Sheet #27

A sense of urgency

I was pleasantly surprised last week when I was with some younger colleagues when the conversation turned to a favorite topic of mine.  Namely, a sense of urgency.  Both of my friends were lamenting about what they felt was missing in the make-up of many of their colleagues.  Although I was empathetic to their plight, I was somewhat pleased that perhaps the message that I spoke about when I was their supervisor sunk in.  Yes, I believe strongly that most people in education, which includes teachers, administrators and parents, lack this sense of urgency.  And this missing quality is a huge impediment to school improvement.

For me, it always seems that people believe that we can always “take care of things” tomorrow. And sadly, tomorrow never comes.  People will complete a 30-year career talking about the same things that they spoke about when they started. They accomplished very little.  Did they personally do anything out of the ordinary to help solve any issue?  That is a good question.

I think what is missing is a sense of purpose.  I encourage all current or aspiring principals to think about that and figure out a way to communicate this to their team.  It then becomes your job to focus your staff and provide that extra motivational spark to make it happen.  We have waited for the fourth quarter to turn it on and that is way too late to make a difference.  Most times these fourth quarter comebacks do not work.

A sense of urgency is about action, not words.  It is easy to talk about things, yet many times quite difficult to do them.  This is what will require that laser like focus that I have written about in the past. When some stranger walks into your school or room, they should feel this energy.  I have been in these exact places.  The minute you enter a space, there is a seriousness about what is happening there. Not only can you feel it, but you can see it in the faces of the people that are present.  They are engaged in planned, purposeful activities.  No one is allowed to loaf and not pull their weight in this environment.  The culture pulls everyone along.

A good example of this sense of urgency can be seen when firefighters arrive on the scene to fight a fire.  No one is playing around.  No one is loafing.  No one is taking a break.  They operate each minute of the day with a mindset of urgency.

Just think if every teacher, principal and parent felt the same way about the education of their child.  When a school is able to capture this urgency, I remain convinced that real achievement can occur.  Over the past decades, we have wasted too much time.  Let’s get going!