Grief doesn’t just change us personally, it shapes our leadership too. In this episode, Liz reflects on the challenges of leading through loss and the small, practical ways we can keep showing up with honesty and heart.

Today's episode provides a step by step plan to help you deal with any stress you face in healthy ways and respond well.  Get equipped with the tools to thrive during whatever season you find yourself in throughout the year.  

https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/PAUSE  

When you’re thrown into a stressful situation and you haven’t laid this groundwork—if you are not thinking about how you want to show up so that you can act according to your purpose—you might be reacting instead of responding, and then later feeling disappointed with the outcome.  

 Once you have a clear purpose or leadership mission you can ask yourself questions in tough situations where you need to show positive leadership, but might not have a solution: How can I stay on mission? How can I act away that is congruent to my mission?

 Once I started reframing stressful situations as opportunities to do my best as a leader, supporting my teachers, not only did I provide better leadership and support, but I also left those situations more resilient and less beaten down and stressed.  Ready to define your mission and step into your leadership potential?  Download your step-by-step guide and template for writing your mission statement here.  

Your vision is your desired future state—your ultimate destination as a leader. It is what you want to achieve, create, or become in the long term. It is also your source of inspiration and motivation in the present. I recently discovered that without a clear vison, I was unable to find the motivation to do work that was important to me.  

 In Season 2 Episode 2 of Imagine Believe Achieve, I get personal as I dig into the process of creating a personal leadership vision.  I share my experiences of not having a vision and what happened after I wrote one.  Learn how to craft your own vision for your school leadership and get clear on how you want to show up for you staff.  I’ll take you through a step-by-step process and provide thought prompts, examples.  

Inspiration for this episode – Edie Wadsworth Coaching

Link to Vison Statement Template and Examples

To lead your school well for a long time you need to craft a VISION for your leadership.  This involves figuring out:  

1. What you have to offer your school regarding your strengths, tendencies, and personality traits

2. What you want your day to day experience to be like in your school.  Once you have a crystal clear vision of how you want to show up as a leader, you can work on making it a reality.  But you have to have that vision first.

In today’s episode Liz provides examples of what that was like in her experience as a school leader and actionable steps you can take to get started crafting your own personal vision for school leadership. 

In this week’s episode, Liz tackles the topic of mental exhaustion.  She will share a 3-step plan for what to do when you start noticing the signs of mental exhaustion.

 STEP 1:  Recognize it and name it.  

 STEP 2:  Stop:  Be still and quiet.  

 STEP 3:  Choose an activity that allows you to withdraw and restore.

Building a personal productivity system can make the overwhelming job of being a principal much more manageable and decrease your stress.  Today Liz discusses concepts from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, the art of stress-free productivity.

 Key ideas:

Join Liz as she discusses a 3-Step Process for getting organized and shares her weekly routine for prioritizing and reviewing the previous week and week ahead. Her Weekly review is based on David Allen’s review and Michael Hyatt’s Weekly Review from the Full Focus Planner.

Michael Hyatt's Podcast

In this mini episode, Liz discusses 3 practices that support the leadership is learning mindset. 

Practice #1 Start by paying attention to yourself. 

Practice #2 Develop your systems for organizing and remembering

Practice 3: Develop Your Systems for Effective and Efficient Communication.

Leadership is Learning is a mindset CRITICAL to adopt for your success and mental well-being.  In this episode, we will explore what Leadership is Learning really means for you and what it looks like by applying the Leadership is Learning mindset to three main areas. 

1.  We start with the relatable Learner of Learning mindset. Having this mindset means that you are a learner of student learning and instruction. This is an attitude that most school leaders can relate to and one that is easy to tap into as instructional leaders. When you have the mindset that you, especially, are a learner of learning, you model the open, growth mindset you want your teachers to have.  This openness will help your teachers be more willing to take risks and try new practices than they would for a leader who “already knows everything or has all the answers.”

2. Being a Learner of People is about learning how to lead your staff in human resource management—like holding people accountable, having difficult

3. The number one way you can prepare yourself to take on principalship and continuously grow as a leader is to be a Learner of Yourself. By learning about your go-to reactions, thoughts, feelings, and going further—your strengths and weaknesses in these areas—you  can make conscious efforts to improve your leadership skills and build stronger relationships with your staff. Being a learner of yourself starts with paying attention to yourself and your thoughts, emotions, and reactions. This self-awareness can be cultivated through practices such as journaling or regular reflection. 

Liz continues the Leading WELL series by introducing five principles of Effective and Efficient Communication:

Principle 3: Facebook’s for Tooting not Telling

Principle 5: Cut the Credibility Killers