Five for Friday January 30-February 2, 2023
This week was all about leadership as a concept. What is leadership? Beyond what leadership is, we looked out how leaders gain power, and the ability they have to build – or destroy. In today’s episode I will deviate significantly from the short messages of the week and expand on these important themes.
This week’s big idea: Real leadership is about people
Five for Friday Show Notes
Teaser:
This week was all about leadership as a concept. What is leadership? Beyond what leadership is, we looked out how leaders gain power, and the ability they have to build – or destroy. In today’s episode I will deviate significantly from the short messages of the week and expand on these important themes.
This week’s big idea: Real leadership is about people
Hello colleagues and welcome to The Assistant Principal Podcast, I’m your host Dr. Frederick Buskey.
I’ve been growing leaders and future leaders for over 30 years. Through my own experiences, and through working with hundreds of other leaders, I’ve learned that school leadership is a journey that occurs in three phases:
Urgent leaders spend their time completing tasks, but…
Intentional leaders invest their time building systems. However…
Strategic leaders create time by growing people.
In 2018 I founded Strategic Leadership Consulting to help make this journey more enjoyable for leaders like you. Through my daily email, monthly micro-journal, online community, my upcoming book, and, of course, this podcast, I keep you company on this journey and provide you with actionable ideas and tools to live and lead better today and tomorrow.
Today’s episode of Five for Friday recaps the strategic leadership emails for the week of January 30-February 2, 2023. Can you believe we are through January already? I’m just now getting used to saying 2023.
Monday:
“Being in the left lane of a superhighway with a string of cars behind you does not make you a leader. It may just mean you’re slow and too stupid to get out of the way.”
-Dr. Jacque Jacobs, Mentor, Professor Emeritus, and so much more
So if having people behind doesn’t define leadership, what does?
Some quotes from scholars (none of these appeared in the weekly emails):
- “Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” – Joanne Ciulla, philosopher and director of The Institute for Ethical Leadership
- “Leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.” – John Maxwell
- If you want to govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them.” – Attributed to Lao Tzu
- “Intentional use of power to influence a person or people to achieve a specific outcome.” – Frederick Buskey
From here Wednesday and Thursday talked about power, specifically three forms:
- Legitimate
- Expert
- Referent
Hierarchical v. non-hierarchical
Main point: cultivating your expert and referent power helps you be able to mentor others
I wrapped up the week trying to drive this point home by asking you to think about the mentor’s you have had in your life, and then work to emulate some of what made them have such a profound influence. One of the missed opportunities in my career was realizing too late the influence I had on my colleagues. It has only been in the past five years that I have consciously begun mentoring people, but in reflecting I realize I have been unconsciously doing it for almost 20 years. If I had been more intentional, I could have had a bigger impact. So that is my invitation to you. Think about the power you hold. Legitimate power yes, but much more importantly think about the expert and referent power you hold. Embrace it. Use it. Be intentional about mentoring others and helping them grow.
Before we close: Dr. Ryan Donlan was our guest this past Tuesday and we discussed coaching up down and around as an assistant principal. It is a great show for anyone wanting to be more intentional about mentoring – and leading – others.
And… in Friday’s email I invited people to share with me the stories about their mentors. If you have someone who has had a profound positive impact on you, consider doing this:
Record a 1-3 minute tribute and email it to me at frederick@frederickbuskey.com. I will do my best to work your tribute into an upcoming show so you can publicly acknowledge someone important. Share a quick story or a list of qualities, or just say thank you. I’ll do my best to get your tribute on the show.
That is this week’s Five for Friday rendition of The Assistant Principal Podcast.
If you enjoyed today’s show, please forward it. I’ll give a shoutout to my new LinkedIn friend, a school head in Kuala Lumpur who found the podcast because someone shared it with him and said, you should listen.” If you are finding value in the show, please forward the show link to a colleague and say “you have got to listen to this.”
Thank you for including me on your leadership journey. Remember that you can walk more with me by subscribing to my daily leadership email and Quadrant2, my monthly micro-journal. And if that isn’t enough, we can walk further together in APEx, my virtual paid community for assistant principals. APEx helps you network with other APs and participate group coaching with me! You can learn more about APEx and my other offerings at my website, frederickbuskey.com.
I look forward to seeing you again next Tuesday when k-8 principal Eleanor MaCauley takes us deep inside how the flywheel works in her school.
I’m Frederick Buskey and thank you again for joining me on this episode of the Assistant Principal Podcast. Remember to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode. Cheers!
Frederick’s Links:
Website: https://www.frederickbuskey.com/
Daily Email subscribe: https://adept-experimenter-3588.ck.page/ff61713840
