Creating a Culture of Trust Among Stakeholders | Inside the Principal’s Office

hey it's charles williams from inside the principal's office a network dedicated to providing school leaders from around the world a safe space to connect learn and grow from one another now look as leaders we know the importance of trust but we also know how difficult it is to maintain and to establish that trust that is why we're dedicating our next episode to this exact topic so i hope that you'll join us on saturday march 6th at 10 a.m eastern standard time for this important conversation i look forward to seeing you there [Music] hi i'm michael mcwilliams of the new school rubric show inside the principal's office you know as principles we have a lot of things on our plates uh well when you think about it we have multiple plates that we have to make sure they're spinning every single day we take care of things like budget facilities appraisals hiring data and assessment parent involvement student discipline facilitating the learning of others while facilitating our own learning and while we do all those things it is our responsibility to help cultivate an atmosphere a culture of trust how do you cultivate trust while managing so many things that's the topic of this week's show i invite you to join us on march the 6th for inside the principal's office we will discuss creating a culture of trust among all of our stakeholders join me good morning good afternoon or evening wherever you may be in the world we are so excited to be back for episode two of inside the principal's office a new show sponsored by uh at school rubric on all their social media platforms we're so excited my name is michael mcwilliams and i am an elementary principal in denton texas and i'm excited to be here today i'm excited to have this time to dialogue with colleagues inside the principal's office is a safe place for school administrators this is our opportunity to have a dialogue and have crucial conversations that we need to have to move our school our schools forward and to move our kids forward from good to great and then from great to greater we do that by taking advantage of these opportunities to network this venue offers time for us to collaborate with other school leaders i'm so excited to be here our guests are so knowledgeable there are people on this uh broadcast today that are smarter than me in areas and i want to learn from them today i am so ecstatic to have this journey with uh my co-host and we're going to let charles introduce himself at this time good morning mac and welcome to the show everyone so excited to be here again i am really looking forward to what this show becomes and not just the show but as mac was explaining this network of school leaders because that is exactly as he mentioned how we learn and grow because we are often isolated in our offices in our schools we don't we don't get those connections like all of our teachers do so super excited to be able to help create this opportunity to connect with some amazing leaders like we have right down here right acail and emily so my name is charles williams i am a k-8 principal on the far west side of chicago um been in education for about 15 years and on top of being a principal i am the host of the counter narrative podcast which you can find right here on schoolrubric.com as well as obviously being the co-host of this amazing show so super excited to be here um and really excited to talk about this idea of trust right we talk a lot about the need to establish authentic relationships i i don't know about you guys but that seems to be in every single conversation relationships relationship right but we don't often talk about how do we do that and so i'm super happy that we're going to be taking the time today to talk about the relationships are built upon trust and how do we build the trust to make those relationships so super super looking forward to uh to the conversation today but this is not about me this is not all about mac this is about us coming together so i have to turn it over to asael and emily if you wouldn't mind introducing yourselves to our viewers um so emily i am going to start off with you and then acail feel free to jump in right after hello charles and mac thank you for the invitation today i'm emily mclarty and like mac i am a principal here in denton isd in denton texas i am the head of school at borman elementary pyp we're an international baccalaureate school and a primary years program i'm also mom um to hank and wife to patrick these are my people and um i'm so excited to talk about this um probably one of the most important topics in my life and that has built um what it means to be a a leader who is effective and also who really enjoys my work so thank you for the invitation today absolutely absolutely and i said i know we are building a relationship online so uh share with our audience the amazingness that is happening down in rio hondo and i want to point out we've got mac from texas we've got emily from texas we got acael from texas i'm the only chicago person here so i'm feeling a little left out but i still love all these guys never mind hey all you have to remember is don't mess with texas here that's right deep in the home uh good morning everyone obviously super excited to be here and representing we are rio hondo uh once again my name is assayedra and of course i am proud principal of rio hondo high school i've been in education for over 25 years i taught for 11 years during those 11 years i taught in a tested area coached several sports you know from football basketball baseball golf i was a lead tutorial teacher and i would even help out in iss every once in a while so uh currently this is my third year here at rio hondo high school and we're about 30 miles away from the mexican border uh we are a rural community uh we only have one elementary in this town one middle school and one high school our student population here at the high school is about 530 students obviously our school in our town is very rich and in our support base we love our football friday night lights there's nothing else like it uh love our ffa our cheerleaders are banned every student extracurricular activity i mean we're just our our fan base and our parents are we go all out so very proud of that um obviously this year has been tough but i would not want to be anywhere else so very blessed very proud to be here at rio hondo high school excellent we're so glad that y'all are here and i just want to speak just a little bit more about what we are attempting to do with inside the principal's office i am a career principal i've been in it i've been in education for 25 years 21 years of that i've been an administrator two years as an assistant principal this is my 19th year i know i look young this is my 19th year as a principal and what has me so pumped and charged about uh inside this uh principal's office and school rubric is we really have an opportunity to build what i've not had uh these 21 years and that is a community of leaders um just a sense of community and i just want to let you know that the conversation that we have today is a dialogue uh but it it it expands and our desire is for it to expand beyond the boundaries and time limits that we have today we have a facebook group and if you are on facebook i want to encourage everyone to please be a part of our facebook group inside the principal's office go there now and join we post articles we want to have a dialogue throughout um throughout the week and in between broadcasts we do this twice a month but we really want to build a community and a place where we can support each other in this very important work that we're doing for children so do that we're going to jump into our uh conversation uh today and we have taylor armstrong he's the assistant technology director uh and he's from alabama and he is going to start probing us and he has the first inquiry for today hey i'm taylor armstrong assistant director of technology for ms davey hill city schools and i'm going to ask you what would you say has been or is the most critical element as a school leader in building trust with your stakeholders and more importantly how exactly do you know if you've achieved a certain level of trust what kind of indicators should a leader be looking for is it just a feeling or are there specific look for us or indicators let us know wow that's a that's that that's that's a lot uh i see i want to start our us out today what are your thoughts about that initial question this morning no that's a lad right there to uh to digest uh so thank you taylor uh the obvious answers are you know transparency honesty communication listening empathy you know having an open door policy uh even experience [Music] but before any of that can happen people need to know that you care about them plain and simple holders especially our students are not numbers they're not data they are people and we gotta treat them as such uh you know the human beings and and more than ever we all know that this year has been tough and on our students and and we as adults we need to create those connections [Music] you know very very important that we're reaching out to to our number one stakeholder and that is our students uh and the same thing with teachers they they want us they want you to know that you care about them uh you know you're blue in the face and say yes i have an open door policy but if teachers aren't going into your office or if you're dated then guess what you don't have an open door policy so you know we all need to keep that in mind uh and again there's a lot of look fors a lot of feelings but anyone anyone can walk into a campus or a classroom and you know the climate and the culture right away right there's no doubt about that as a principal or a teacher are you are your students wanting to get schedule changes these are some look for is that that you need to look at are are they requesting schedule changes to get out of a classroom are teachers wanting to leave your your campus not only mid-year but at the end of the year your turnover uh or most of your students not completing assignments even that's an indicator and and you as a teacher are you blaming the students or are you looking at yourself there are plenty of indicators out there but you the person the teacher the principal you must be willing to accept them and not only that but obviously take action and and yeah we can do all these surveys we can do a survey every week but if nothing is happening as a result of those surveys then why even bother uh remember this we're here to serve and treat people as such and protocols don't mean anything if there's no trust right you gave a you gave a lot uh for us to think about and a lot for us to to consider and most definitely uh trust is an action word uh you know and i like the way that you said that uh you know you take the surveys but you have people have to see that you are actually responding to the input that they give i uh have seen the action of uh miss emily because we we're blessed to be colleagues in the same school district and i know that this is an area of passion for you um and i can't wait to hear uh what your expertise and what your experience how what what do you have to say about this question thank you mac um yes like you uh this is my 25th year in education wow and i became an assistant principal in 2005 and then a principal in 2009 and all that time really the the driving force behind my interactions with with kids with uh staff with families has been connection and and real um real connection genuine connection and at the very beginning of my career one of my favorite professors from graduate school from unt gave me um a book i talked to him about like i want to build trust i want people to know that they can count on me and and that's somewhat in the question um the gentleman said is it is it a feeling and we all do know that there's there's feeling attached you know you can tell when you're making a genuine connection with someone and when there's mutual trust but there's also some research attached to this too um that really gives especially uh new novice leaders some some foundational ground to stand on and then like for us that are more um uh you know tenured we'll say right right right there are some things we can can garner from this research that we can uh take a look at and make sure we're still we're still doing what we said we'd do and those um there's this book called trust matters by um megan moran and um it's a meta analysis of the the facets of trust and there are five uh foundational important factors that have to be present in order for there to be real trust in a in a building leader but also just collaboratively everyone and those are benevolence like russell said people have to believe that you really do care genuinely they have to trust that benevolence that you have toward them and most importantly for the children the second one is honest and we all know that a a trusting relationship is built on both parties being honest right uh the third one is openness and that's um for that that can mean lots of things for example openness to shared leadership openness to other people's ideas um openness to good questions the third one is reliability um when i say i'm gonna do something i need to do it when i need to keep commitments i need to um you know people need to be able to count on us as leaders and uh that's team leadership to building leadership to district leadership um the fifth one is competence people have to we have to be an example we have to be a model for the type of um the type of learning we want to provide the type of service we want to provide the type of relationships with families that we want to have we have to show experience in these areas through our competence so those are real research-based facets of trust and they're also just great human touchstones for us to make sure that we're um that we're really providing the the trusting relationship that our colleagues and kids deserve yeah and i think i hear that coming out in uh i mean relationships that we have to recognize that relationships and the connections that we make in our building that's the capital that we have i mean you move your you you do things for kids through people we're very people centered and we have to have uh quality relationships and connections to do what we need to do for kids um and so trust is so very important we've heard uh the texans talk charles uh let's talk about how does trust work in illinois how does chicago peeps how do my chicago pizza build trust you know i i'm glad you asked and from i'm going to make a mental note like not to go after your texas peak crew i'm like i'm looking at my little list i'm like well check check i want to check so one i i want to echo everything that was just said because it is absolutely true these things i don't think there is one critical component i don't think there's one element when we're talking about building trust because there are so many different factors and mac i love the fact that you said it's an action word right trust is built upon the things that we do right so the one thing that i'm going to throw in here um because i was trying to tease it out as i was listening to everything um is being invested right knowing that you are invested in your school when i came to my building i was i believe it was the third or fourth principle in the same amount of years right and so i saw um mr mccurdy my fifth grade teacher i saw him in here so good morning and amazing group of individuals i saw dr ford um i saw somebody with the last name mike williams so i think you got some support here mac but when i came into the building i knew right away they thought here's another guy he's going to be gone and i said immediately i'm not going anywhere right this is our building and i rolled up my sleeves and i jumped in and so as what we've talked about was that they need to see that you are committed to the work that you're doing and that you are going to walk your talk right that's something i talk about all the time because you can say whatever you want to say yes like i said my door is open or i believe in you and i support in you but if you're not doing things if you're not showing that to be true none of that matters and so i think over time i know that my my dean and i we actually we talk about this all the time now we used to butt heads because he didn't trust me he was ingrained in the school and he didn't trust that i had the best interest of the school so you know i definitely had to demonstrate that as we were going uh you know moving forward and now it's completely different well at least i hope so donald don't say anything different and i'm joking i'm joking um so i very yeah i just think like we've said it it is a culmination of these things right it is something that we have to live every day um and so you know i wanted to bring up you know a document and so you know i would love to get your guys's feedback on this so as i mentioned i am part of cps um the chicago public schools anytime i say cps outside of chicago people you meet child protective services they look at me and i'm like red flags are going off this this this sector yeah absolutely they're like wait a second what did you do no no no chicago public schools so we have this amazing document that um was just timely in fact it was released um you know right as we were planning this session and so one of the things that i love the most because i really thought when i opened it up it was going to be one of those textbooks here's how you build trust here's the things you do this is how you do to others but it spends a lot of time and this is one of the things that i didn't hear and so i'd love to get some feedback from you guys is that we not once do we talk about making sure that we were taken care of that we took care of ourselves um because you know you hear this on the plane right you got to put your mask on before you take care of somebody else and so if we are not taking care of ourselves are we going to be in the place that we could build relationships with others so i loved this idea and then they also talked about five different components um on on how you could build the you know trust these interpersonal actions and so i want to just take a moment here and just open it up um you know mike mac you know could you kick us off what are some thoughts around this because i know we didn't touch on this so i'm just curious what you think i think one of the most important things on this slide that we're looking at now is the uh fact that a trusting relationship takes time and um especially when you're a new principal going to a building or even when you are a sitting principal that's been there a while but now you have a new group of teachers uh that are coming in uh trusting relationships really take time um and in the context of a relationship i think it is very important um when you think about time why does it take time i think that we need to understand that people are really looking at us and they are trying to identify patterns in us um and so one of the biggest things that i think about how you use your time is being very intentional with your words and being very intentional with your inner actions no one has a neutral interaction when they interact with you they're going to walk away they're going to say that it is either positive or it is negative they're not going to say oh well that was kind of neutral really have to make sure that we are spending i spend more like in my cash because once you spend it it's hard to you know you can't return it once i give lemons my money they have it they're not giving it back so once we get our words out we have to make sure that we say what we say we mean it and then that we do it people have to we have to see a pattern of he says what he means and he's always going to act on it he's always going to follow up on it if you say that you're going to support teachers you have to support them because over time it's that pattern of your connection and your supporting that is what's going to make that relationship quality and that's what's going to build that that trust him absolutely emily uh i'll say a quick take away from this before we move on to our second question go ahead thank you sal um so the that slide that you showed from cps um was really just packed full of good things to think about um and the two that just are are jumping out at me right now are um celebrating successes every room i walk into at school and hopefully in life i look for what's working what is that teacher doing or what about this environment that they've created together with their students is is working and a lot of times the teacher um wouldn't even be able to actually name that for themselves so because they're just doing it they're just doing it because they're amazing and they're dedicated and passionate and so being able to put names to put those words to people's accomplishments and help celebrate that with them personally but also school-wide uh keeps those kinds of positive things going and keeps the focus where it needs to be on what with which is what's working and then that second um one that jumped out at me was the um just the the encouragement of people and um gosh like sam said um earlier we've not only have we had an entire uh global situation for the last year but texas just in the past three weeks we've faced yet another most difficult time and so being there for each other and supporting each other is just it's absolutely critical absolutely so we've got time looking for those successes working together so i'll bring it home before we jump into question number two so for me it's a lot about uh it's it's self-care like you really as the leader like i want to be here every day i don't want to miss a day and students and i want teachers and i want parents that when they pass by the by the high school that they see i want to be the first one on campus and and i just want to be consistent every single day uh i do have this phrase that that i always use and it's it's send it uh and it reminds me that we're here to serve you know so every time i answer the phone it's like send it and basically i'm here to i'm here to work with you i'm here to support you whatever problem you have i might not have the answer to everything but i'm going to try to work with you and i'm going to try to solve your your your problem or your concern but very very important that we keep that in mind we're here to serve people and if we're not taking care of ourselves then then who are we going to help kind of like the first uh uh template you put out uh you know as far as the you know put on your face mask your your oxygen mask before you can even try to help anyone uh you know whether it be my regimen starts at 4 00 a.m i try to you know get in three miles or push-ups or sit-ups whatever the case might be i get up and and that's my my everyday you know morning routine because i want to have a healthy body uh on my way to work i always listen to an audiobook and i just want to get my my my brain going my my flow going everything my body's flowing my blood and and i just want to be you know when i step onto this campus i want to i want to be ready so because like that slide three miles every morning four o'clock yes sir uh so that's that's what i try to do and and uh very very important that that we keep in mind you know that we're here to serve i mean please don't forget that absolutely and i think we have a new hashtag right hashtag uh send it so uh yeah we're gonna contribute we're getting hashtags out of this we got purple time for mac send it from mind your purple yes you go so i'm going to give everybody a moment because we just gave you a lot of information so as you are synthesizing that digesting it jotting down your notes if you're one of those people that create those cool like illustrated notes i'm not good at that so send me yours please oh as you're doing that i want to remind everyone who's watching right now to please make sure that you subscribe and follow us at schoolrubric.com um and make sure if you're not part i know mac mentioned it earlier but if you're not part of our facebook group or twitter please make sure that you do because we have a short amount of time that we have in this conversation here this morning but we want to keep this conversation going um because it is so full there's no way we can capture this in less than an hour so please make sure that you join those groups so that way you could keep the conversation going and to be a part of it this is not about the four of us talking we want to hear your voices we love the comments popping up so please keep that going so with all of that being said hopefully that gave you some time to digest because now it is time for question number two coming to us from a holly shelton an assistant principal from guess where texas another one all right let's see question number two hi i'm holly shelton assistant principal in lewisville texas part of creating a culture of trust means sometimes we are opening ourselves up and allowing us to be vulnerable can each of you share an example of a vulnerable moment as school leader and how it ultimately led to a greater trust within your community all right all right so um you know that's a great question i'll be honest i'm glad that i am starting this off which means i could be the last one here because this was a challenging one and i had a conversation with my staff members with my wife i was like this is a challenging one so i am going to go last emily why don't you kick it off for us great thank you um it's such a good question and um really caused me to think a lot too charles um and what it what i've thought a lot about since since hearing that question a couple of days ago thank you for sharing it with me a little early is that um i really want to know the people that i work alongside at every as i said earlier the the basis of enjoyment in this work for me is really connection and so um if if i'm expecting that um to have that real connection with someone i need to be able to to be myself with them too and for that to be a mutual um you know give and take and i really want to know and understand the people that i work alongside i really want to know and understand the kids that we serve and so they really need to know and understand us too and one of the things that um i've um i've shared is um just my own um my own struggles with with some uh learning and life difficulties as a child as an as an adult i don't over share i don't ever want to burden people with my um my own anxieties or worries but i do want to be real with people and um and allow them to know that they can trust me that that they can be real with me too i'm not going to um i'm not going to divulge a confidence ever i'm not going to um i always share with teachers that that my my biggest pet peeve and and something that that will really be difficult for me to to uh we'll have to rebuild a relationship after something like this is if um if people talk negatively about others with me um that just isn't um that isn't something i engage in and it isn't something that um in any way is positive toward culture so um and it's not real it's not genuine so um those sharing those like staff as as you as we get to know each other i want you to know this about me i want you to know that um you can count on me to to be real with you at all times the other little thing i wanted to share with you guys is this idea of pre-forgiveness this has been really foundational to um to me and to the staff that i've led um from the beginning and the idea is this if we're gonna be an organization if we're gonna be a school that um takes risks on behalf of kids if we're gonna be a school that is innovative and um really uh looks for new ways to engage and to support kids and families then we're going to have to you know do so we're going to have to try some things that haven't been tried before an inherent in that sort of way of operating is mistake-making and so when mistakes happen inevitably um we need to have the understanding from the very beginning that we are forgiven i am forgiven by you and you are pre-forgiven by me uh as long as we talk openly about the mistake and we all learn from it together as a as a group and then we'll go one from there and we'll be even better as a result of it and what a great mindset taken with a classroom that that childhood is for mistake making that's what it's that's what it's meant for that's a beautiful thing about childhood emily we do that at savannah as well we practice pre-forgiveness and i tell you that i tell teachers that those new teachers those baby teachers when they come in and it's like in the room when i leave with that it's kind of like and when you're i'm gonna make mistakes too we're not going to bat 100. it's just kind of like uh because we just think that we have to be superheroes that there's uh invisible capes flowing in the wind behind us but that is that is so huge and it makes such a big difference absolutely and emily you know i wanted to share something that you mentioned about people talking about other people not only does it break the trust but i saw something once that said i'm not so upset about somebody talking about me i'm more concerned about why do they feel comfortable coming to you when you're talking about me right so as leaders we have to think about that right we permit we well we promote what we permit and so people know that they could come and gossip to us we have to think about what does that say about us as a leader just about the other relationships in the school so i i love the fact that you brought that up so asel i'm going to hop it over to you what is one way that being vulnerable has helped you to build trust so one example i have is uh and uh you know i i like being vulnerable but it's it's something that we need to uh it needs to happen and and uh you know as far as this coming for this previous or the school year that we're on right now was very difficult at the beginning of the school year uh there was a lot of fear a lot of anxiety amongst our staff and and uh you know just the the fear of it and coming back and uh you know the whole pandemic has been uh you know it's just been something that we haven't dealt with and uh you know ourselves as leaders we've never dealt with something like this uh so i i you know during one of our staff meetings i i shared a personal story or i shared something private with with my staff and uh here we go uh that early on during you know because it's about a year ago uh that we went off and i guess in april my mother got noticed that uh she she was diagnosed with cancer uh so my dad had passed away from cancer back in 2008 so they scheduled their surgery for june obviously we couldn't be there uh my my sister went and dropped her off at the hospital and they checked her in and my mom had to stay there by herself so very very difficult um so yeah so you know i wanted to show teachers that everyone is being affected by this pandemic and and it's just not teacher or anyone but you know just everyone in general you know students um so that really helped and not that i was trying to build trust i was just trying to you know just share with them okay we're all going through something and and i don't like to share those things because i want for them to see me as the rock you know i want for them to see me as hey this is mr r but you know it's it was something that i had to do just to share with him and it kind of broke the anxiety and the stress that teachers were giving i mean yeah it was still there and i can tell you right now august was very stressful you know uh september october and but having those conversations you know just coming from me helped me and and and you know now where we're at i think we're way way in a better place i think teachers they they they trust the protocols that we've set in place and and we're not perfect but we're you know we're making the strides that we need to make uh but you know just the whole situation of the opening up it was very very tough on on on myself so you know just being vulnerable really really helped in in in easing the stress and anxiety yeah i have a very similar situation uh and on my campus i think the turning point with my leadership actually was born out of that personal experience because i was a leader that compartmentalized like i could have world war me going on on the inside and in the midst of world war me you would never know anything was going on because i would compartmentalize and i wanted to be that strong leader um but i had an incident where uh or you know my mother died a few years back and i buried her on a monday i had jury duty on a tuesday and i found myself driving back to work on a wednesday you know just gonna be this this strong leader that everybody wants but i had an anxiety attack and i've never had an anxiety attack i had a major anxiety attack on the way to the high school to do some walk throughs i ended up giving my clipboard to someone and saying i just can't do this not knowing what was going on on the inside of me is let me just get back to the building i got back to the building it got worse and in that moment i realized that um you know that i was broken and that there was something inside of me that needed to be healed and fixed before i could serve others and i made the choice i'm going to step away because i can't give you my best i'm going to step away for four weeks and then i'm going to come back and when i came back there was a change because i was no longer that strong through everything with world war me going on the inside people on my staff saw that he's a real person and that he's doing this work he's he's been doing this work while he's wounded he's wounded but working and so now you become a model that he's hurting and he's coming in every day he has a challenge that we all know that we are aware of and he's engaged in this meeting and so then you become a model that you know you're vulnerable and you allow them to see that leaders go through the same things and have the same needs that the staff members have and so now it's this model of it is manageable and you know now i talk very freely and that was really the beginning of me just you know i just share everything now used to it was just uh it's business it's business let's go but there's power when people know that you're a person too you have challenges too and you get your work done uh and then there's just a whole another level of support absolutely and so as i know you know as we're moving along here i know that we have one of my favorite sections coming up the ideas that stick and so i'm not going to jump into my tale of vulnerability thank you amy say something real quick uh she's i guess i've been posting out of her forehead i just i was listening to you guys share and thinking this question do you guys feel like um the the difficulties of this past year have allowed something in you to open up a little bit in terms of just compassion and and not being quite as the entire community emily parents the biggest difference is in parents i've seen parents give so much grace and commend teachers you know you know things that parents they would call about they give grace well i realize that it's a pandemic blah blah it being it's transformed really the entire community and i think the worst time has become the best of times because we're making a critical turn absolutely absolutely and so you know i think what i was going to say was i think what we are all talking about which i think mac is going to be one of our new uh our new sessions down the road is this idea of toxic positivity yeah especially as leaders we feel that we need to be the strong astute right just standing up there and that isn't who we need to be and so as we open up as we become real emily as we become you know vulnerable but i think the key here and for any listeners watching this do so genuinely so with the intention of just building connections because if you're saying hey i'm going to share this because i'm trying to build trust people are going to see through that it's going to be your part you're going to create a bigger mess than you've originally had so just be genuine and if it comes up if it's there then then absolutely so great ideas here i loved everything that you guys said um you know like i said i i kept trying to figure out the ideas of where i'm vulnerable and this is an area i'll be honest i still struggle with i don't let people in i have that world war me happening and it's like no it's like why are you always smiling because because otherwise i'm gonna start crying no i'm joking right you're right so we absolutely have to start allowing ourselves to become vulnerable and so i love to have that conversation moving forward but let's move on to our ideas that stick because i know as we're getting to the end of this we want to have some takeaways so mac why don't you take it away with our uh our ideas that stick okay ideas that stick this is really one of my favorite parts uh because it's we want a call to action and we want some fruit from our conversations today um we want fruit from our conversations today we want you to do some things throughout the week um charles i want you to uh tell us what what is your takeaway what is it that you can commit to doing now i'm on spring break this week i won't rub it in uh but emily and i we're on spring break uh but what will you do while you're working and i'm sleeping yeah you know what so we don't we don't have spring break for like another four weeks so i'm a little jealous oh at least at least our weather should be nice by then so yeah um so you know my my biggest takeaway from all of this and you know i we touched a little bit on this but it's about owning our mistakes right it's we're going to make them as leaders and as kind of what we're talking about here we we can't pretend like we're not going to make them we can't pretend as if we don't make them but i think the biggest thing is don't blame others i think a lot of times we're afraid and so we'll pass the buck and throw somebody under the bus and that is the worst thing you could do as a leader if you make a mistake hey i made a mistake just yesterday during our staff meeting i mentioned about how we're losing an hour this weekend and people freaked out they're like no no no that's that's next week oh yeah you're right i messed up right but it's like that i could have i could have come up with any story ah you know i was looking at my calendar i messed up it's okay because as leaders we are people and we mess up so that's mine own your mistakes take care of them and move on that's excellent i made a big mistake this week i was doing uh announcements on thursday and i said hey it's wednesday blah blah blah yeah we make mistakes we make mistakes emily what's your big takeaway and what do you want us to consider as we move into our week well um gosh i am most of the things that the ideas that have stuck with me today have come from you gentlemen so thank you very much but um that idea of pre-forgiveness it's just been so transformational to my work and my enjoyment of my work and then those five facets of trust um benevolence honesty openness reliability and confidence it's it's been so great hearing i think acail has given me like new life goals maybe like i want to somehow transform myself into the person that wakes up at four in the morning and runs and then goes and bees awesome all day um but this this has been so good thanks guys ankle weights ankle weights i'm not gonna get up at four but maybe i can put on ankle weights when i'm walking in the building maybe that'll work i don't know we'll think about it i see him what are your takeaways what do you want us to take away other than waking up early to work out big time uh my takeaway is uh you know stakeholders are not numbers they're not data they're people yeah we're here to serve and uh just like students and teachers remember we're here to coach them not manage them right okay and then let's keep that in mind every you know whether it be in the classroom wherever you know we're here to coat we're here to serve uh you know just some quick things that you can do go to go to their games very very simple and earn the kids respect they want to see you there you know celebrate students at every moment celebrate teachers at every moment you know just bring that positivity bring that energy here to serve it's our job schools were not made for for adults who have jobs but rather for kids and and that's my takeaway great my idea uh my idea of that stick is this is we have to to build relationships got to be very intentional with our words be intentional with our words say what you mean mean what you say and do it people are looking for those patterns so when we make a commitment we have to be committed to the commitment and if we over commit just circle back around be a real person own it kind of connect with charles own it and say i thought that that was going to happen but i couldn't get the po approved or we were outside of our timeline so be intentional with your words commit to your commitments because people have to believe what you're going to what what you tell them absolutely mike i tell people all the time my staff blame it on my mind not on my heart because i i forget we have so many things going on do not feel ashamed to say hey hey did you remember i said because that helps me i'm not going to be upset so absolutely so as we are wrapping up here first of all i want to say thank you to all of our viewers and our guests here um please make sure that you continue joining us for all of the wonderful things that are coming yes we have office hours on march 9th um so please make sure that you join uh spencer and naomi um they are going to be hosting and they are huge in stem so if you have anything any curiosities about stem please make sure that you join spencer and naomi as they do their thing on march 9th don't forget that on march 11th we have rockier class kahoot it is an online competition in french english math and spanish um and there's our prizes for students all across the world so if you're looking for an opportunity to connect please make sure that you check this out march 11th and then of course of course join us on march 20th as we discuss hiring up because as we know we are looking for teachers as we are interviewing teachers um this is probably one of the most challenging aspects of our jobs so make sure that you join us and teachers i was mentioning make sure that you join because we would like to hear from you as well about what draws you to a school but not just drawing but what keeps you there so we would love to hear from you as well so please make sure that you join us on march 20th and again thank you to all of our viewers i saw my own mentoring coach dr hammond popping in so thank you for being here uh remember remember to like subscribe follow us everywhere and we will all see you very soon take care thank you thank you emily and mack it is always a wonder um go join our facebook group let's continue this dialogue you guys have a wonderful saturday thank you for being here we'll see you next time thank you for watching school rubric on youtube make sure that you like follow and subscribe in order to stay looped in on all of our diverse collection of shows interviews panels tutorials and more from educators around the globe and visit us at schoolrubric.com for even more great content such as our online articles interact magazine featured podcasts and more thank you you

Channel: SchoolRubric

Views: 261

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Creating a Culture of Trust Among Stakeholders, SchoolRubric, Inside the Principal’s Office, Asael Ruvalcaba, Emily McLarty, Michael McWilliams, Charles Williams, Plato Learning Academy, school community

Id: j2CAmjppEy8

Length: 51min 11sec (3071 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 06 2021