Matthew Woods has served in various roles within K-12 education. His professional experience includes being a high school social studies teacher, middle and high school assistant principal, middle school principal, and director of student support services. In addition to his K-12 work, Matthew has also served as an adjunct professor and field instructor at the collegiate level for student-teachers. Aside from this work, Matthew hosts a K-12 podcast, Leading Out the Woods, and is the author of the children’s book series, I Wanna Be… , starring his one year old son imagining different occupations he would like to grow up to be. Matthew is currently working on his leadership book, The Sandbox Mentality: Empowering Leadership. For more information regarding Matthew’s professional and educational experience, please visit his LinkedIn page.

Key Takeaways:

• You need to take advantage of every opportunity you can to give back to the community that gave to you.
• Sometimes we have to just step back to realize how blessed we are.
• Critical thinking is essential if people are to continuously improve.
• Create spaces that are safe for people to think critically or practice skills.
• Effective leaders don't ask people what to do, but instead provide them strategies on how to do it.
• You have to be proactive instead of reactive.  If you are constantly reacting you are going to fail. Put out the match before it becomes a forest fire.
• Empowerment is about getting people comfortable to push the boundaries on their current situation.
• Sometimes when people tell you to take a step back they're saving you from falling down.
• The 4 principles of the sandbox mentality.
• Autonomy and empowerment must align with core beliefs.

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