"I've failed."

A friend emailed me after reading last week’s newsletter. For new subscribers who may have missed it, a quick recap: In last Wednesday’s edition of “Principal Problems,” I wrote about the need to let students find their way to work and career. I recommended we not confuse student agency with putting a kid in a box they either don’t want to be in, or, worse, can’t escape. To illustrate the point, I wrote about the myriad jobs I’d had in my life and how each one is a wild contrast with the results of an aptitude test I took in third grade. It was recommended that I be a librarian. Eee gads!

In his email, my friend said his elementary-aged aptitude test recommended he should be a ski instructor. He did not become a ski instructor. Instead, he ended up teaching eighth grade, then spent many years as a secondary principal. After that, he was hired to take over a troubled and wobbly department for a large urban district that had significant student and community needs. He set about the work of dismantling fragile systems and rebuilding new systems.

The people within that system were mad. Mad, mad, mad.

“I’ve enjoyed every job I’ve had,” he wrote, “Including my current one. However, this is the most I’ve failed in a long time. It’s good for me, but very hard.” He seemed tired.

This is a brilliant man, with a high IQ and an even higher EQ and the work ethic to match both. He is good with people. He is studious. He is focused and kind and thoughtful.

Failing? Hardly.

What is failure, anyway? Why do leaders in school systems so often feel they are failing? I can guarantee there are many other industries wherein leaders aren’t so prone to feelings of failure, to this relentless self-scrutiny, to being deeply programmed to say, “I can always get better!” with a shrill, apologetic auto-response. Indeed, in most industries, doing well is rewarded with promotions, bonuses, accolades. In education, a leader’s excellence is rewarded, perhaps, if they are lucky, with a day or two where someone doesn’t glare at them. You all know what I mean. It’s the sweet relief of a moment— and sometimes that’s all it is— when someone actually says, “Thank you.” That’s how we reward our leaders in education.

Which means we have to find the rewards within. Which means we can’t be so flippin’ hard on ourselves.

Listen, principals. If you make changes to a bad system, and then people are mad. But here's the critical point: they are mad because the system—the one that was also making them unhappy—is being changed. Isn't that actually success?

My friend David James of NSK12 Solutions works with school districts all over the country. He says there are two consistent mindsets he hears from teachers, leaders, parents, and students:

I don’t like change. Please make things better. I don’t need to point out the impossibility of these two statements living together. We cannot make things better unless we face discomfort, both from ourselves and from others.

I, too, have felt like a failure when everyone is mad at me. I get it. I’m not talking like someone who doesn’t understand that pit-in-the-stomach feeling.

But making changes that create discomfort isn’t failure. Often, it’s the very mark of success.

Of course, we don’t want to make changes just… because. In my consulting work, when supporting groups of principals, I always say, “Don’t just throw a grenade because you have one.” Disruption can feel a lot like improvement. That doesn’t necessarily mean it is. That’s why, before making changes, before disrupting systems, we have to be reasonably sure it’s for the best. For my friend, it was evident that changes needed to be made; the department was frayed and fragile. (Not to mention he’d been expressly hired to make changes. There’s that, too.)

If I had a wand with pixie dust, I would scatter it over all my principal friends and remind them that there is not a direct line connecting discomfort and failure. Same with success. It’s a messy, complicated, switchback line between discomfort and outcome. If you get the outcome you were seeking, that’s success, regardless of the way it felt to get there.

Let’s stay curious—

Jen

As always, this newsletter is written by a human— me— with no help from AI.