There is a very specific point in February, maybe it is this morning in your building, when a school district collectively forgets why it exists. From the halls of the little ones, the holiday decorations are long gone… for the quad rooms of the middle schoolers spring break is still a mirage shimmering somewhere beyond state testing season… Here in Illinois, despite a couple of days of fake Spring, the Midwest has settled into that gray, slushy, boot-soaking mood that feels less like weather and more like a personal attack. The students arrive each morning as if we personally scheduled winter, shocked, angry, vilifying the Superintendent for not calling a “snow day” for 1/2 inch of white powder (what are we snow in Georgia, shut the whole state down?) shocked, that school is still happening. Staff attendance becomes a competitive sport of “Who’s Out Today?” and the substitute folder starts looking like a historical archive. Even the copy machine seems more emotionally fragile. Workplace drama is escalating, parents are quick to Facebook rant about anything and everything, and if your winter athletics seasons aren’t performing well… what is there to look forward to? Somewhere between the third snow delay rumor and the fifth round of second grade indoor lunch, educators begin asking the annual philosophical question: “Did I choose this life… or did February choose me?” And yet, like the resilient professionals we are, we trudge in with our coffee, our sarcasm, and just enough optimism to make it to March, one dreary, character-building day at a time, even when most days feel like this:
I find moments like this as personal challenges to remind myself just how much gratitude and fortune I have to lead the district I am blessed to lead. Sure, every building has the same types of issues with different masks, band-aids, and bulletin board fodder, but the reason we do this, is not to worry about that…
Facebook parent group’s rants…
What the local newspaper drums up for clickbait…
What that other colleague of yours says about you in whispers, text messages, and conversations behind your back…
What the little circle of teachers who will never buy in says about your leadership…
What the aging disgruntled custodian thinks of anything, everything, and everyone who pisses him off in the building…
Far too many leaders spend too much time worrying about what everyone else is doing and not enough time focusing on their own district.
You know how you build an exceptional school system?
You focus on your own work.
You know how you elevate student achievement?
You focus on your own classrooms.
You know how you take immense pride in your facility?
You hold the highest standards and inspect what you expect.
You know how you create a thriving culture for staff?
You focus on your own people.
If we are going to lead a district, do you think we sit around worrying about what neighboring districts are doing? What critics are saying? What social media is buzzing about?
No.
We focus on what we are doing.
Are we serving students at the highest level?
Are we supporting our teachers with intention?
Are we communicating clearly with parents?
Are we building systems that create long-term success?
That is what matters.
Leadership in education is not about imitation. It is about innovation. It is not about reacting to noise. It is about executing with clarity.
When you spend your energy obsessing over outside opinions, you dilute your impact. When you chase every comment, every rumor, every criticism, you lose momentum. But when you focus relentlessly on your mission, on what is best for students, staff, and families, progress becomes inevitable. When you take bold chances because they are decisions of leadership that best serve your students, your staff, your parents, and your community, not the outside noise, that is how you shine your light.
Society thrives on commentary, but leadership must thrive on execution.
Too often, conversations center around:
What another district implemented.
What someone said at a board meeting.
What critics believe should happen.
But real leadership asks a different question:
What is best for our students?
That is the scoreboard.
And staring at the scoreboard does not change the score.
Doing the work changes the score.
I started writing this week’s newsletter during a very frustrating moment of anger in dealing with a strategic plan initiative. This project is novel, is something I believe in, something I am passionate about, and something I will not fail in. It has also, (to my knowledge) never been done by any other school district; it’s bold, it’s courageous, and some might even think… it’s stupid. But, there is outside noise, there is uninformed opinion, and there are whispers… Mind you, we live and work in a society that far too often lacks grace, but it also lacks boldness… When was the last time someone confronted your decision-making face-to-face? Conflict is not always bad. But, many people lack the grit or conviction to have difficult conversations, especially face-to-face. It is easier to whisper in back corners… it is more convenient to attack on Facebook, where everyone’s opinion matters, like the Dungeons & Dragons Slayer from South Park…
** When people attack our school or others on Facebook, my mind immediately goes to this guy for a mental visual…
I could go on and on and reference Teddy Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena, but you get the vibe…
Last week, we held an epic community event to fundraise for one of our greatest clubs in our district, the FFA. Our kids led a tremendous community event, Donkey Basketball.
As part of our annual tradition, the FFA Officer Team, of which my own daughter is an Officer, comes up with FFA community events to support their many endeavors. In our high school, FFA has been called a cult, but I see so much greatness in their world; I feel that this club, which is an annual state-champion worthy charter is the equivalent of any sport. They do so many great things, but people can be fickle, they judge before they have knowledge, they assume before they have any information, and they fill in blanks with jackassery when it fits their narrative. As the district leader, sadly I have to assume the worst in many realms and saw the warnings months ahead of the event, even told my own kid, “This idea is not good…” and I asked our advisors all of the questions…
What about PETA? Can donkeys carry grown men, does it hurt them? Well they used to pull boats up and down the canals of our town…
What about damage to our facility? Who is cleaning up the donkey’s business…? Our kids will have shovels, brooms, and they own and raise their own animals, they clean pens and barns daily; they got this…
Do they still even do this kind of thing anymore? Didn’t donkey basketball end in like the 1990’s? No, turns out people all over in small towns like this kind of thing and the donkey basketball owner travels all over the Midwest from schools, to churches, to village halls, to community centers, etc.
Are these donkey’s mistreated, I mean are we going to get the anti-circus, anti-zoo crazy cat lady protests outside? Is it animal cruelty I asked the owner of the donkeys? He said the donkeys eat like Kings and are cleaned more than he even showers… ok then…
Would people actually buy tickets to this event? What if nobody buys tickets to this thing and our FFA loses money? Oh, Dr. Stecken, they’ll come trust us… and boy did they… in droves, 1000+
Ultimately, I was wrong on every single item. As the leader, I owned it, and took, with a hearty laugh and fool’s smile, all of the criticism from my FFA folks and even people in the stands; we laughed about how wrong I was that evening, over and over… but, we had over 1000 people crammed into our old gym for an epic community event… They LOVED it! Boy, was I ever wrong!
Until the next morning… the Facebook warriors were out in force, yet (at least to my knowledge) not a single naysayer was from our community. They were all from the expanses of the Facebook-verse. Remember, here’s what I think (MY HATRED OF FACEBOOK- click here to read more...)
Who knew that donkey basketball would become a leading story for Facebook local media, AM radio stations, newspapers that few listen to or read anymore, for clickbait?
Me.
That’s what our world has become… from the 1980’s and 1990’s evening news, if it bleeds it leads… just now it’s on Facebook.
The moral of the story, if you chase flame wars on Facebook instead of focusing on who matters in front of your face, your why that you choose to do this job, and how you continue to self-talk about your own leadership decisions, you’ll end up so tense, anxious, with doubt and lack of confidence, full of rage. Your inner demons of self-doubt can consume you… you’ll feel like you are stuck in the Pixies song… “Where is my mind?” Where is my mind, over and over again…
Where should it be, where is my mind? What’s your why, where is my mind?
Keep teaching.
Keep improving.
Keep innovating.
Keep building systems that work.
Keep refining, living, and developing your mission.
Keep making decisions rooted in student success, not outside noise.
The noise will always exist. Opinions will always circulate. But dominance in leadership, true impact, comes from disciplined focus.
Concern yourself with the voices that matter:
Your students.
Your staff.
Your families.
Your donkey loving community members.
Not the background noise. Not the outsiders.
Progressive leadership means doing things differently when different is what’s required. It means thinking outside the box. It means setting bold goals and executing them with discipline. It means choosing long-term excellence over short-term approval or silent faux approval from your haters.
You cannot reach the next level of leadership if you are constantly reacting to everything that enters your ear or worried about the list of haters who might be currently hating.
You must learn to filter.
You must learn to focus.
You must learn to lead with conviction.
Because when a district is grounded in purpose, aligned in goals, and relentless in execution, it doesn’t need to chase validation, especially from those haters.
It becomes the standard.
And that happens when we stop worrying about what everyone else is doing…
…and commit fully to doing our own work exceptionally well, even when others think it might be crazy.