October 15, 2023 • 52 mins
Have you ever considered fear to be a secret weapon in school leadership? As we peel back the layers of this rarely discussed topic, we uncover how fear, often viewed as a crippling force, can be harnessed and transformed into a powerful asset in achieving school excellence. I walk you through my unique journey of leading a struggling school to success, and the pivotal role that fear played in that process.
We delve into the importance of speaking up, taking initiative, and documenting decisions. The power of innovation, community feedback, and understanding of the gatekeepers in any situation are also explored. In the heart of our conversation, we affirm the invaluable role of support systems in managing and using fear effectively. Coaches, mentors, and leaders are indeed the anchors that help us sail through the stormy seas of fear.
In the grand finale, we unwrap fear from its intimidating package and present it as a motivator for taking calculated risks. I share personal anecdotes of overcoming my fears, which I hope will inspire you. The goal is not to eliminate fear, but to use it as a stepping stone towards school success. Remember, fear is not the enemy, but how we handle and use it, makes all the difference. So, put on your sneakers, and let's face our fears together on this episode of Sneaker Principal Podcast.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's going on, guys ?
This is UChainJoku SneakerPrincipal Podcast, and today
we're going to be talking aboutfear.
We're going to be unveilingfear and how it impedes
principles from achieving schoolexcellence.
Let's do this.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When they see me, they know that every day, when
I'm breathing, it's for us to gofarther.
Every time I speak, I want thetruth to come out.
Every time I speak, I want toshiver.
I don't want them to be like.
They know what I'm going to say, because it's polite.
They know what I'm going to sayand even if I get in trouble,
you know what I'm saying.
Ain't that what we're supposedto do?
I'm not saying I'm going torule the world or I'm going to
(00:37):
change the world, but Iguarantee that I will spark the
brain that will change the world, and that's our job is to spark
somebody else watching us.
We might not be the ones, butlet's not be selfish.
And because we're not going tochange the world, let's not talk
about how we should change it.
I don't know how to change it,but I know.
If I keep talking about howdirty it is out here, somebody's
going to clean it up, and nowhe's been promoted.
(01:05):
His job is principle.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Good morning, good morning, good morning, good day,
good afternoon, whatever timeit is, wherever you are.
Again, this is Uchey Jokey,sneaker Principle, and this is
the Sneaker Principle podcast,and today we're going to talk
about something that I talk to alot of people about, but what I
do is I these conversations arehappening in corners and, you
(01:33):
know, dark alleyways, becausethere's this word that is not
supposed to be part of thelanguage of school leadership,
but it's very important, soyou'll get into it.
But before I start, I'm goingto extend myself again.
If you are in need of coachingand you're like, listen, hey,
(01:57):
Uchey, I want to talk to youabout something real quick.
Whatever the case may be, goahead and send me, drop me a
message.
You can go to my website,tspmediapub.
That's TSPmediaPubcom.
Leave me a message there, orjust leave me a message, or DM
me wherever you're watching this, and let's talk, let's talk,
let's come up with something.
(02:17):
One of the things that I knowthat has really helped me, and
still has me to this day, iscoaching.
I have several coaches.
I just picked up another one,tom, if you're watching, who was
actually a senior principalwhen I first became a principal
and then he he left my districtas I was starting my career as a
(02:38):
principal and now, you know,all these years back here he is
now, you know, as one of mycoaches.
It's very important.
You know, coaching is very,very important.
Mentorship is very, veryimportant.
If you're a plate sports of anykind or you've been in any high
level space, whether it'sacademic, whether it's
professionally, there's alwayssomebody there who's showing you
(02:59):
the ropes, somebody there evenafter you know the ropes,
somebody there who's guiding you, somebody you can lean on and
say, hey, I'm stuck, or I'mthinking about this big thing
here, or whatever it may be.
So I just wanted to acceptmyself in that capacity.
But now let's get back to thisword, this thing that we don't
want to talk about.
Or if we do talk about it, wetalk about it with shame, and
(03:22):
that thing is called fear.
You know, I remember, when Iwas a kid, a church.
I was told and I'm pretty sureif you've ever been gone to
church or you're, especially inthat Pentecostal space, the
whole notion of fear is falseevidence appearing real and yes,
that's an awesome acronym falseevidence appearing real.
(03:44):
But however, fear is real.
Fear is real, no matter how youwant to break it down
psychologically, sociologically,or what kind of meaning or
actually what you want to put itfear is a real thing.
And fear is a real thingespecially for school leaders.
Because let's look at thetypical trajectory of a
(04:06):
principal or a system principal.
At one point in time you were ateacher, you were in a
classroom.
You might have been, you know,starting off kind of shaky, but
eventually you get to a pointwhere you're realizing you have
skill sets that put you in aposition to support other
teachers.
And then, all of a sudden,maybe your principal or your
(04:28):
administration says, hey, wewant to give you more leadership
responsibilities.
But you take on and you do yourthing right, and you start to
tell yourself you know what,maybe I think I can do this
myself, maybe, just maybe Icould also be I'm sorry, I'm
trying to adjust my mic I couldalso be a school leader one day,
(04:49):
maybe a system principal, maybethe principal.
So you go through all thatright, and the whole time I tell
you watching.
You're watching the leadershipof your leaders from the outside
in, you know, because you'renot privy to, by closed doors,
on all the decisions and all thethings that have to happen, all
(05:09):
the conversations with you knowthe hierarchy of the system.
I'm talking about potentiallythe superintendent's and the
central office.
You're not there for thereviews and the and sometimes
the tongue-lashing that yourleader might have to take.
You're not understanding whythere's so many pivots.
(05:31):
You know one day you're doingone particular curriculum and
the next day that switches tosomething else and you're like
what's going on?
Man, the principal,administration, they just so
they don't communicate.
They're all over the place butyou don't realize that often
it's because they are.
They're really in a positionwhere they're negotiating
(05:53):
directives.
You know some directives thatare, you know, non-negotiable,
some directives that are kind oflike, implied as being
non-negotiable, and in thatspace you have to remember that
person, that principal, thatschool leader, who maybe even
superintendent, are people whoare put into a position in which
(06:17):
their role is not necessarilysecured in the sense of that.
You know, unlike a teacher whomight be, who I mean, teaching
unions probably tend to havepretty strong agreements on how
teachers are evaluated and movedout of the position.
And those rules, I mean,they're still pretty good for
(06:38):
administrators but they're alsokind of like, you know, much
easier to use to remove aprincipal or school leadership.
So what's up happening?
You have people who come intothe position and then they
realize, oh my God, there's somuch more than what the textbook
(06:59):
said with my professor, at youknow, at my Leisure Program said
there's so much more, so manymore nuances, right, and all of
a sudden you're like man I don'twant to mess this up because,
unlike a teacher, where theremight be tens and dozens, in
some cases hundreds of positionsstill open like right now in
New York City, thousands ofpositions still open you know
(07:20):
there's an opportunity for youto find another space, but as a
leader it's not the same.
You don't have tens andthousands.
I mean so tens and hundreds ofpositions.
So you could just say, okay, itdidn't work out here, since the
principal wanted to go overhere and then, where he's a
principal, I gotta go over here.
No, there's so much moremonitoring, there's so much more
(07:41):
eyeballs, so, and you're somuch more exposed.
So you find yourselfquestioning whether or not you
know, if this doesn't work out,I can go somewhere else.
And for a lot of people itliterally means going backwards,
and I've seen principals who'vegone from being a principal to
(08:01):
being back to being a teacher ina classroom within the same
district.
So yesterday you were runningschool, today you're teaching
third grade.
You know, I've seen principalswho you know and that's I mean
okay.
I've seen the leadership toback to the classrooms of
teacher.
I've seen principals back downto being assistant principals.
(08:22):
I've seen, you know, somepeople was to remove.
They just walk away.
You know they can't handle theshame or the burden of the
questions of what happened, orin my case, what happened was
very public.
So I always say that fear.
Fear becomes that kryptonitefor a lot of leaders because
(08:44):
they don't want to get introuble, they don't want to be
put in a position of beingremoved or being shamed.
So what does that mean?
What does that mean for leadingin spaces, leading schools,
supporting students, parents,the community?
You know it means that you havea lot of leaders who don't go a
(09:06):
hundred, like I'm wondering.
I'm talking about, I'm nottalking about going out and just
going to being like at leastI'm just going to do whatever I
want to.
I'm saying they don't go ahundred in the sense that you
don't ever see their fullpotential, their full, you know,
battery of of ability andintellectual weapons and
(09:29):
educational.
You know, expertise in theexperiences, all the things that
that are reality.
That's why they were put inthat position.
You see them taking baby steps,being cautious, and this is
what I want to talk to you abouttoday.
You know, and and there'snothing wrong with being
cautious, but when fear cripplesyou as a school leader, that's
(09:52):
a whole other thing.
So let's first talk aboutidentifying the roots of fear,
thank you.
I want to share with you a storyof me being in that position as
(10:14):
a new school leader and beingvery, very careful.
But first of all, okay, let metake one step back to when I
became the assistant principal.
So first, unfortunately, I wasvery lucky to have had a mentor
principal who I'm still reallygood friends with to this day.
His name is John, and John, youknow, I tell him every time,
(10:36):
like you know, you put me in aposition where you forced me to
think outside of the box.
You do so much of my play asyour dean, then as your
assistant principal, that Ididn't know that leadership
wasn't the typical leadershipwasn't what he did for me, and
what I mean by that is as a dean, you know.
(10:59):
He became a turn aroundexecutive, became an executive
principal, and he was given aschool that literally, they
pretty much said listen, youhave but a year or so to make
some significant changes, or theschool shutting down.
And this offer was made to him.
He was already in a verysuccessful, successful school
(11:22):
and then he asked me and anothergentleman to join him to go to
the school.
And I said, yes, this is a manwho gave me an opportunity to
really stretch myself.
So I said yes, we went to theschool and we were there, for we
were there together for abouttwo years.
Two years, yeah, two years, two, two, maybe three years.
I'm getting old.
(11:45):
And in that space I came in as adean.
My job was culture, right, butthen he said you have a special
education license, so you alsogo to be my special education
coordinator.
I was like, okay, he says andyou also taught science.
You know living, environmentand physics.
You know you also going to leadthe science team, yes, sir.
(12:06):
And then you know, he said youknow what pick the math team as
well.
Mind you, I was at this point intime when all this transpired.
I was in my fourth year as aneducator and I was now the dean
of a school that was on achopping block with eyeballs on
(12:27):
it.
Then I was, also for that sameschool, the special education
coordinator.
I was the math lead and thescience lead, and it was a very
young team of teachers and mixedwith some teachers who already
had gone through they've gonethrough the ringer, you know.
They were at a school who wasstruggling for a couple of years
.
(12:49):
And here I am in that positionand, yes, I was kind of like,
okay, how am I going to do this?
I wasn't scared, but I was likeI was a little bit overwhelmed.
How am I going to do this?
And my principal said to me Itrust you.
You know, listen, I'm going togive you every tool you need.
I need you to know what'shappening there so you can tell
me what's happening, so it couldbe on the same page, you know,
(13:10):
because I can't be everywhere.
So I was like, okay, that's mymandate, I'm going to lead these
teams, I'm going to make surethey were meeting all our
compliance, that we wereassessing and we knew where all
the kids were and we were doingwhat we need to do.
And that's how I function,that's how I rolled.
I rolled like that and the wayhe led me is how I led my teams
(13:31):
and that school is stillstanding to this day.
It's been well over a decade.
That school has already beenone of the better high schools
six to 12 schools in the Bronxand it's also an international
baccalaureate school now, and Iknow that the seeds were planted
when, you know, my principalsaid hey, I need your lead and
(13:51):
I'm going to give you the spaceto lead and be innovative and
really, you know, do what youthink you need to happen.
You know, just make sure you'repainting within the lines.
Sometimes I cut it off out ofthe lines, but don't ever any
surprises.
I told me exactly what I wasdoing and he gave me full
support and I rocked out.
I rocked out and that yearthere was article posted I think
(14:15):
it was like daily news that wewere the most improved school in
New York City based on parentssatisfaction surveys, and that
was incredible.
And then, to go to boot, ourscores were pretty dope as well.
So again, school does neverclose down and it's still there.
But now, when I became aprincipal, the first school that
(14:37):
I'm years later that I becameprincipal of was a school that
had its issues, had its issuesand I had a superintendent who
was pretty much like, okay,here's your school, here's the
map that I've created for you,and it was a good map.
It was a good map.
These are the things that Iwant you to do at this school to
(14:58):
turn the school around.
I looked at it and I was like,okay, this is cool, but it
didn't speak to the way I wastrained.
Look at the details of what washappening.
Studying the space this is whatJohn taught me.
And who are the players?
The teachers, the students, theparents, the community.
(15:21):
What was the community sayingabout the school?
All these little things.
We approach leadership from avery assessment driven mentality
.
You go into the hospital.
We're going to assess, you,evaluate, you, you're going to
see what.
Like you know, remember the TVshow House, the way the team
(15:41):
would walk in there with thepatient and be like that's no
ideas.
What do you think this is?
Oh, it might be this, it mightbe that, it might be this, until
you came down to two or threethings and, by process of
elimination, you came down tothe probability of this one
thing, and sometimes it wasn't.
But that's the level ofthinking we're doing in that
space.
My first year as a principal,was given a task that was like
(16:03):
here You're going to bake a cake, here's the recipe, don't
deviate from this recipe.
And I had a problem with that.
But I was a new principal and Iwant to lie to you, I was a
little shook, I was a littlenervous, I was a little bit like
you know, I don't know what Idon't know.
(16:24):
So I'm going to follow theinstructions given to me, and
what I did also was it made mevery nervous because, again, I
didn't want to screw up therecipe, I did not want to screw
up the task that I was beinggiven.
So that's how I moved.
(16:45):
Everything that I did wasbecause the superintendent said
so and, even though it might go,I knew this is not going to
work Like what I'm looking onpaper and I'm like this is not
what the school needs.
Because at the same time as I'mtrying to apply this recipe,
I'm studying, I'm assessing andevaluating and I'll be honest
with you, it crippled me.
(17:06):
It really did cripple me, andso at some point in time I had
to, kind of like you know, makea decision.
You know, am I willing to sithere and drive a bus that I know
that's going to break downpretty soon.
Or do I stop the bus?
You know, pull out the righttools, fix it, do what I need,
(17:31):
do what I know needs to happen,then we'll do what's for it.
So that's what I did.
I sat down with my AP.
You know, my core team had aconversation and I don't think
they even realized what mythinking was.
The thing is, I just needed toget them on the same page with
me.
I knew what the mission was.
The mission was to bake a cake.
You know the recipe, you knowthere's the outcome, but
(17:52):
sometimes you might have to makesome adjustments to that recipe
, and that's what I had to do.
I had to make some other things.
I built my team out, who I putin what position.
I had some strong people and mything was the blueprint was
given to me when I was led.
So all I did was to get thatsame blueprint and tweak it just
a little bit to fit my styleand identify the strong people
(18:15):
in my team, and I said listen, Ineed you to take over in
special education.
This is what you're going to dohere.
You can do this.
You're going to do that.
You're going to do it in aweekly basis, in some cases by
weekly, for you to share with mewhat's going on, you know.
Then we can make the rightadjustments and all that.
And the outcome, the outcome,you know what's great at the end
(18:37):
of the year, you know.
But I did take a tongue lashing.
I did take a tongue lashing.
That superintendent met with meand was happy about the results,
but did question me about why Ididn't follow her instructions.
And I argued the data.
And that's the thing too.
(19:01):
I was fearing that conversation, but also I realized because
this is also what I learned frommy training in turning schools
around the data, the data, thedata.
You can do, all the cosmeticthings you can put in all the
(19:22):
curriculum and programs.
That sounds great on paper, butif there's a number to support
the implementation and tosupport the value of that thing,
then what are we talking abouthere?
And yes, she was mad at me, butat the end of the day, you
couldn't deny the scores.
You couldn't deny the scores andit was great because I didn't
(19:45):
allow fear to stop me from doingwhat I had to do and even
though listen, it wasnerve-wracking but I was like,
no, if I let this be the way Imove forward, then I'm not going
to survive.
So I just want to say this,like in sharing the story as a
(20:07):
leader you may face, you mightface no, you will face fear.
Fear is going to be in yourface.
I'm trying to find a way to.
Are you going to feel, feel,how are you going to put that?
But in the fear, it's going tobe based on the possibility of
failing judgments and whathappens if you make an unpopular
(20:34):
decision.
But, however, if you know whatyou're doing is the best
direction for your community,sometimes you just got to do it
and sometimes you might not knowif it's the best, but have the
data to support the decisionyou're about to make.
Have the data to say listen,there's a high probability that
(20:57):
this is going to work or this iswhere we need to go.
Yes, nothing is guaranteed.
Of course, nothing isguaranteed.
I made some decisions where itdid not go right at all.
But, however, how would I knowif I didn't try it?
And I've always mitigated mydecisions Again, like I said,
with data, like okay, what's theprobability of this working?
(21:17):
You know where have I seen thiswork before?
You know, in these other spaces?
Were they similar to mysituation, to my school?
You know, I talked to otherleaders.
I'll call.
I've called leaders from otherstates where I was reading an
article or something.
I was like this person's aprincipal, just like me, and
they're in Ohio.
Let me hit them up real quickand ask them some questions and
people will pick up.
People will pick up becausetheir leaders, just like you and
(21:40):
they've gone through they'vegone through a lot of similar
things, just like you and the sothere's a ripple effect of fear
and leadership that needs to beaddressed.
This ripple effect is I'm goingto make this very, very clear
(22:02):
when you're leading, alleyeballs are on you.
Everybody's watching you,everybody's listening to you.
You're literally hanging on thetip of your words, like
whatever you say, and the thingis that you don't have to be a,
you don't have to be aphenomenal leader.
You don't have to be, and youmay be just brand new traffic or
things out, but when you'releading people, people are
(22:25):
literally following yourdirectives and it also goes
beyond your words.
Do what you carry yourself,your level of confidence, what
you believe, what you espouse,like they're literally hanging
on every word in motion, how youcarry yourself, you know.
(22:46):
So if you are afraid, are youzipping fear or you're kind of
all over the place?
It permeates itself throughoutthe hometown community.
It really does.
When I visited many schools,I've known many school leaders,
the leaders who were just likelocked in on top of their game.
When you walk through theseschools, you can see it.
(23:07):
The school becomes a directreflection of them, no question
about it.
Then when you walk throughschool where there's a lot of
nervous energy and you know theprincipals over the place or the
APs are just all over the placeand they're barely hanging on.
That's what you see A schoolthat's barely hanging on.
(23:31):
You know it's very important tounderstand that fear-driven
decisions do cascade down.
It ends up affecting staffaround.
Student achievement is schoolculture.
It's something that you have tomake sure that you're aware of.
You know it's sad.
(23:53):
I've seen schools that werephenomenal and the leadership
change of leadership was becauseof my retired, you know.
Unfortunately it might havebeen a tragedy.
Maybe the leader might havepassed away.
The systems in that school wereamazing.
They were long-standing.
They bring a leader in who'snew to the space and all of a
(24:14):
sudden they're now coming inwith their fears and their
self-doubts and slowly, slowlybut surely, they start to
unravel.
Because they're not making thedecisions or they're allowing
fear to make them change thingsthat were working, but because
they're trying to impress theirown leadership.
And maybe that new leadershipmight say, or maybe their
(24:37):
leadership, the superintendentoffice might say hey, there's
this new program that is workingin Delaware and we want to
bring it over here.
And and over a sudden, you'relike I have something here
that's been here for a long time, it's been working amazingly
well.
But you know what though I'mnot going to argue it, that's my
, that's my boss.
And then they take out thethings working, put in a new
(24:59):
thing and the bus crashes andyou're wondering what happened,
like what happened?
And then they start thinking tothemselves well, maybe it was
me, I just didn't, I wasn't ableto implement it.
Well, I didn't implement itwith fidelity.
No, it should have been changedand you knew this.
And she says you should havesaid something, you should have
fought harder, but you didn'tfight because you're like,
you're not the one rocked theboat.
(25:20):
I don't want to be that person.
And that's when it's happening,that ripple effect your fears,
your anxiety, your, your issuesstarts to impact everybody else.
So this is something that youhave to really be aware of and
I'll tell you this Many leadersfind themselves in this position
(25:44):
because they don't speak up.
If they do speak up, they don'tspeak loud enough.
I'm not saying go yell at yourboss, no, I'm just saying speak
loud, be sure you're being heard, make sure what you're being,
what you're saying, is beingdocumented.
So that is very clear.
This is where this is wherewhat I thought you know and I
would love to negotiate with youas my leader, and best steps to
(26:07):
go, move forward, and if it'ssaid like, no, we're going to go
this way, then let it bedocumented that you know I
opposed, but I respectfully I'mpart of the team and I
respectfully said okay, I will,I will implement with fidelity.
But you guys speak up, and I'lltell you this every time I've
ever spoken up, the outcomeswill almost always positive,
(26:29):
positive in favor of what I wasspeaking up for.
I can only think about oneschool leader that I've had that
was my leader who shut downeverything I said.
Shut down everything I said andit was okay.
She was the principal, I wasthe assistant principal and, yes
, assistant principal.
Sometimes you have to speak upbecause your principal might not
be seeing the full picture, youknow, and if you're the
(26:51):
assistant, that means you guyshave.
You guys should have a muchcloser relationship because
you're working together.
You know, I was told.
I've always told my systemprinciples Is do I have a run?
It's not me hearing you here.
No, it's me here at the centerand you next to me.
If I have multiple systemprinciples, then we are all
(27:12):
standing.
I'm just I'm the one in thecenter because when people focus
in and lock in, they see me,but your shoulder shoulder with
me, because you're an extensionof me.
That's what I believe.
Now I'm trying to think about ifI should share another scenario
, another scenario where fearplayed a role in my decision
(27:38):
making process and in theensuing results.
And I want to give you anegative one, not a negative one
, one where I didn't go with mygut.
I don't know, there's probablyone.
It's just that I've just beenvery lucky to be not lucky
(28:01):
Fortunate.
You know, good fortune has beenon my side that that I just
speak up.
I speak up no-transcript.
I mean, the only thing I thinkabout maybe is when I was
outside of education, when I wasin corporate sales.
I used to work for Kingco, so Iwas an account manager for them
(28:22):
, and I could think about timeswhere they were like, hey, this
is your sales pitch and this iswhat we need you to say and
everything else.
And I've never been good withsales pitches, but I did that
for over a year where I went bythe script.
I said you got to follow thescript and my sales was just
like mediocre at best, becauseI'd be like hello, this is
(28:45):
Uchean Joku.
I'm calling from Kingco'sIncorporated.
I am a territory salesrepresentative and I'd like to
find out for you if you have anyupcoming projects.
Whatever we can support you.
I was more like listen, I don'tbe on the phone.
So my process which again I wastold didn't work, because if I
(29:05):
was hitting the phone I would beat 100, 200 calls a day.
The chances of me gettingbusiness was much higher than me
pounding the streets and maybein a day only hitting four, five
or six businesses.
But, however, this was mysystem.
I would look at sales recordslike who bought what, when,
(29:28):
where, how much they buy, andbecause I wanted to create my
own spreadsheet of companiesthat should target based on the
month and then also and alsobased on their, their purchasing
history.
But I was going to just callyou.
You know I also looked throughand see who are the gatekeepers,
(29:50):
secretaries and who who do thatspeak to.
We took meticulous notes.
The good sales people did, andI did.
I would try to find out who wasspoken to, who is the person
who handled that particularorder as far as calling us for
the order or, you know, managingthe work that we're doing for
them.
And I went through all that.
I had all that stuff and if Iand if I didn't know, maybe that
(30:13):
was the phone call hey, this isa chain joker call from King
goes.
I was territory sales rep Lastyear.
We did a couple of jobs for you.
It was amazing.
I just want to update myrecords.
It's so, so still at thecompany, but that was.
That's what I make sure thatyou know.
If I'm not around and they callfor the same job again, that
you know my team knew no, soit's be expecting, and this is
the kind of stuff I would dowho's the secretary?
(30:34):
Who do you talk to?
And then I pound the pavement.
So I was up in Rochester, newYork, um years ago and I was the
work of King goes in the salesand I got two jobs back to back
months Because my, my salesgoals were always like hey, if
(30:55):
you get 40, 50,000 dollars forthe for the month and in small
to medium, medium to in small tomedium um business orders.
That was amazing.
If you broke, if you win over ahundred thousand, that was like
like oh my God, what.
That was just like.
Oh my God, right.
So what I was doing was I had alittle you know um penny cash
(31:17):
situation so I can buy, likecoffee and whatever, whatever
for, for for um our clients.
So I would go buy flowers or buya little gift basket, depending
on who I was going to go see,oh, or it might be a gift card
for some coffee, whatever.
(31:38):
And I would go to the officeand say, hey, I'm here to see
Lynn and Lynn would.
It would be like the secretaryat Bosch alarm or something like
that, and they'll say who I'm,like I'm called blah, blah, blah
.
You know, I just want to stopby and drop this off for her.
No, as a thank you for theorder from last year, bro.
So I'd walk in and they wouldnot be expecting it and I would
do mid morning.
(31:58):
But I tell me you're gettinghungry, you want to get lunch or
you've been annoyed by by yourteam, and that gift card, those
flowers, that gift basket thatmaybe cost me like $5 from from
Wegmans, you know, or $10 fromWegmans, they'll be so happy.
And I wasn't there to get to getto get a job.
(32:20):
I was there to to just bringsome sunsight into their lives
and get them talking.
And I found myself now closingconsistently 60, 70, 100,
150,000 jobs without having tocall a hundred companies.
I would have two or threecompanies that do that for me,
(32:41):
based on, you know, maybe atotal of 20 visits to different
companies, versus sitting in theoffice and making phone calls,
Because my thing was always howmany other people are sitting in
the office making phone callswith these same companies?
Because, I'm sorry, you all hadthose calls that come to your
house or to yourself or wherever, and they're like you know, hey
, I'm coming from.
What do you do?
(33:02):
You hang up, click, because youknow you don't.
I don't want to take a salescall, but what I did was I
wasn't going to do sales calls.
I was going to stop by and justsay, hey, I'm just here to
bring the sunshine to your dayand thank you again for what you
did for the order from, fromfrom last month or from last
year.
I just want to.
I was just in neighborhoods,wanting to make sure that if
(33:22):
there's anything coming up outthat you, that you remember I'm
here for you.
Here's my business card.
Again, that stuff worked.
But yeah, I'll tell you this,though it was working.
But before it worked there wasdouble start coming in.
I took a lot of stuff.
You know, the, the, the, theregional sales manager was like
what is going on here?
(33:42):
We're looking at your salesforce and you have built any
calls in there.
What's going on?
And blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like you know, thisis what I'm doing.
I'm sorry, I will, I will jumpon those calls.
Sometimes I had to lie to them,I'll jump on those calls.
But I wasn't going to jump onthose calls.
But I had something I was doingthat jump on those calls was
going to take, take away from me.
(34:03):
I'll tell you this.
When they got that first$100,000 plus sales hit from my
branch, from the work that I did, everybody left me alone.
They left me alone and it wasfunny because my peers were like
I mean, how are you doing this?
(34:23):
How many calls are you making?
And I'm like I'm making maybetwo or three, maybe four or five
calls a day.
And it was a follow up calls tothe people I was visiting and
then I'll hit the road.
Sometimes I'll be on thosecalls, for I've been on calls
where I just called to say hey,it was good seeing you yesterday
(34:44):
, and that call turned into a 15, 20, 30 minute call about
football or about gardening orwhatever the case may be.
Oh my God, I didn't realize Ikept you on the phone for this
long.
I have a question.
We have this little job.
We have this order here.
Let me call, let me call Frank,and next thing, you know, I'm
going to phone Frank and Frankis like.
You know, I do have this orderand this job and it's just
(35:07):
annoying.
I need 300 copies of thisparticular binder and back then
this is before Google Docs andall that stuff Everything was
all manual, those copies, colorcolors and everything else, and
they were not cheap and that'show.
That's how I did it.
You know, I refuse to allow asystem to pressure me into doing
(35:30):
something that I didn't thinkwas going to work.
But I also knew that once Ibucked the system, I better be
able to prove or have evidenceof what I was doing successful.
And yes, there was momentswhere it was kind of dark and I
was like, oh my God, this isgoing to.
You know, if this doesn't work,I might lose my job.
But I I would say 99.99% of thetime I was came up, came up on
(35:54):
top, and even those times whenmaybe the results would probably
have been the same, I hadevidence to show, like, okay,
this is what I did.
I documented what I did and whyI did it and hear the results
and most of the time you know myleadership would like whoa we
love this.
And a lot of times they justleft me alone.
Keep doing what you're doing.
But also understand that if itstopped working, the expectation
(36:18):
was I was going to go back todoing what they wanted me to do.
So now, strategies to overcomefear.
You just don't wake up and say,okay, I'm not afraid anymore.
No, it doesn't work like that.
Listen, every decision I make,there's always still fear there.
There's still some level offear like what if that doesn't
(36:38):
work?
A lot of you know that I tookover ISPS 224.
Now living we call MS224,exploration and discovery, in
the South Bronx, district 7.
And yes, fear is there on adaily basis.
It's there.
There's nothing I do about it.
That's part of the human, youknow human experience.
(36:59):
I overcome fear.
Fear does not overcome me.
I acknowledge the fear.
I'm open about it.
You know, with I have my coreteam at the school money ship
team and we talk about this.
I say, hey, this is the thingthat we got to watch out for.
(37:19):
This Like this is going to be aproblem if we don't resolve
this.
You know, this is what I'm,this is, and I and I paint a
picture for them.
If we don't do what we need todo, this is the outcomes of what
we're facing.
So what I do is, rather thanhaving the fear live inside of
me and I'm having this internalconversations and dialogues, I,
I involve my team Because andthey know, I need to hear from
you what are you thinking?
(37:41):
You know, there is so much,there's so much in my school
right now that, honestly, isstrange, because I have to let
go, because I had, because I, Igave permission to strong key
members to take over certainaspects of the school.
So, and and and I tell like,for example, I'm a big culture
(38:02):
guy how we move in the hallwaysto transitions and everything
else.
My Dean took it over.
You know, and anyone who's beenin that position you know is
that it requires constantmonitoring, constant monitoring
and and, and I'll be honest, onFriday I had a staff member who
was calm like you know, I'm nothappy with the way things were
(38:23):
moving and came to me I saiddon't I like you listen, listen,
I hear you, but you got to gotalk to the Dean because that's
that's the space that he's takenover.
And I know it's easy to come tome as a principal and say, hey,
we have fixedness, but you'regoing to go to the Dean.
And everything in my core wantedto be like, okay, here's a
solution, like no, I'm creatingsystems here.
(38:45):
And if I allow my fear to takeover, I mean now me jumping to
the mix and fix the thing.
That.
What am I?
What am I teaching my Dean, whowill one day be an amazing
principal, what am I showingthem by allowing my fears to
jump, jump into the mix?
So I said to her do you talk tohim?
And I will also.
I will also hear from him,because when we have a meeting,
(39:09):
I need to know what's going onand whatever the case may be,
and that and that's the thingyou know, and and the same thing
with my, even my supervisors.
I talk to them, I speak.
Okay, this is my concern, andthat's one of the hardest things
.
When you talk to yoursuperintendent, deputy
superintendent, district peoplebecause one of the issues was
fear too, the fear of beingjudged.
(39:30):
You don't want to, you feellike you don't want to say
anything, then I make them thinkthat you're not ready, you're
not capable, absolutely not.
Because, listen, if I was thatdamn good that anything I
touched to turn the gold whilemy principal has to be president
(39:51):
, I should be king of the world.
If I'm, if I'm just like KingMidas, I'm just that dope.
But we're all human, we allhave our faults and and and.
Allowing your fears and thethings you're concerning to not
be articulated and expressed toyour team, so do we, so it could
be all hands on deck it'sactually doing you more harm
than good.
Actually, it's doing you nogood, it's doing you all harm.
(40:14):
So that's something that youhave to really, you know, keep
in mind, you know, and, andagain, it's important that you,
that you talk, you talk, youknow and and I said this earlier
about mentorship and coachingAt any given time, at any given
(40:39):
time I want to say I have atleast five coaches.
Some are formalized and some arenot formal, some are just like
people have known for years thatcan call on my role.
That's right now.
I have former deputychancellors, I have chancellors,
I have superintendents, I haveprinciples like high-performance
principles, from around thecountry, some, some
(41:01):
international people that I,when I call, they pick up the
phone and say, hey, what's goingon?
And I don't just call you about.
Hey, you see the football game,how's the weather out there?
I'll call him, but I, hey,how's the family?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
You know okay.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I'm calling because I need a thought partner in this
thing and I am so grateful tohave that.
You know, I'm so grateful tohave that because, again, fear
thrives on, on the self-talk,what you're saying to yourself,
(41:38):
what's happening in your head,because then you start to build
all kinds of negative scenariosin your head.
But when I talk to people,guess what happens?
When I talk to those trustedcolleagues, coaches, mentors, I
hear myself speak, I hear themsaying to me all of a sudden the
fear is out the window.
It becomes more of a strategysession.
(41:58):
We're sitting here now tryingto to figure out and calculate
the risks and figure out whatare the next steps, and I'm
sorry, that's why I mean you putyou into a winning position.
When you do that, you know yougot listen, I'm going to say it
(42:18):
again you got to involve yourstaff, your core leadership team
, your you know console withyour mentors, you know, have
dialogues with your, with yourown leadership.
You know your principal, your,your, your direct supervisors,
whether superintendent Wsuperintendent, maybe it's your
principal if you're AP, it mightbe your AP if you're a team
(42:39):
leader.
You got to have theseconversations because once you
start having those conversations, trust me.
The fear goes away and then, ontime, the fear becomes less and
less potent, it becomes lessloud in your head because you
know, hey huh, problem, let mego talk to somebody, you know,
rather than problem.
Oh my God, what am I going todo?
What am I going to do?
(43:00):
This has nothing to do with IListen.
The school is a team.
I look, I'm going to be, I'mgoing to be that corny.
There is no I in team, you know.
So you have to engage people,you know.
And so transforming fear intoleadership, into a leadership
(43:24):
asset and I know this soundsweird, right?
Everything I've been sayingseems like we need to put fear
in its proper place, put it in abox and lock it away.
But fear is, can be, aleadership asset.
I'm going to use combat as anexample.
Do you think if you were out incombat like, let's say, you
(43:46):
were in a war, you know you'rein a scenario where you had to
survive and you were a soldierdo you think that fear would not
exist at all?
Do you think that generalPatton had no fear?
Genghis Khan had no fear?
I'm trying to think Shakazulu,I'm thinking Khorlam Powell, I'm
(44:11):
thinking about, like Hannibalof Cartage had no fear.
Of course you have fear because, again, you know you're going
to a space where you might notcome back from.
The question now is this do yousay I'm not going there because
I'm afraid that I might not comeback, or do you say how do I
(44:37):
leverage my expertise, myknowledge, to make sure that the
scales are tipped in my favor?
So, for me, fear the thingsthat I fear, the things that I
face head on, that I have to sitdown and figure out what's
going on.
This must sound corny.
Like I hate heights, I hateheights.
(44:58):
Like I hate heights.
But you know what I hate more?
I hate the things that I hatethe feeling of that feeling,
that fear.
I hate that even more, but itcripples me.
So my thing is this how do Imake sure I reduce the potency
(45:23):
of that thing that makes mescared?
So what heights?
When I was younger, I wouldjust say listen, I'm going to go
to the roller coaster, I'mgoing to walk, I'm going to go
at the whole entire time in time, I'm going to keep my eyes open
and I'm just going to be likeyou know in other times, you
know, I'm going to put my handsup in the air and see what
happens.
I was still afraid, but thefear had less and less of a hold
(45:48):
on me.
The ultimate thing I ever did.
No, actually, before I tell youthe story, I'm going to the
Grand Canyon and we got anyonewho's been to the Grand Canyon,
I think it's like the west ornorth face, whatever that thing
is and you have the glass bridgeor the.
It's like a plexiglass.
It's not a bridge, it's calleda skywalk and it just saw maybe
(46:11):
about 20 or 30 yards, if that,maybe less than that, and it's
just literally a plexiglass.
So it's over edge of the GrandCanyon.
So we step on this thing.
You look down on the floor, youcan see straight through to the
bottom of the canyon Terrifying.
But you're thinking, if thisthing cracks, we done.
(46:32):
But I had to do it.
I had to do it.
I was like yo, but look in, thepictures made me nauseous.
So I was like I got to do it.
But it's again.
I want to be able to controlthat thing.
You know, the ultimate, theultimate thing that I did with
my fear of heights I wentskydiving, you know, and I've
(46:53):
done like I've done.
Replying out of helicopters doeslike that for a job, but
jumping out of a plane, just tojump out of the plane, like
literally jumping out of a plane, I think it was like 16, 1600,
see some somewhere between 12 to1600 feet, 1600 feet in the air
and you're falling and you'relike if this passion don't don't
(47:15):
pop off.
Thank you mom, thank you dad,thank you brother and sisters.
I know that's a little bit of apain, but when I landed my
heart was still racing but I hada big smile on my face.
I know I conquered that.
It doesn't mean the fear is notthere, you know.
I just want to look back at thepictures.
(47:35):
I was like what were youthinking?
But a part of me also said, huh, false evidence appearing real.
So it's very, it's veryimportant that you you take your
fears and and use them as a wayto strengthen yourself.
And that's what I've done.
(47:56):
And, like, jumping out of aplane wasn't, it was not just
for the novelty of it.
It gave me a leadership edgebecause it made me not
necessarily fearless but morebold and sometimes leadership.
You have to be bold.
You know the ability to say hey, boss, I need to talk to you
about this.
Can I show you some data.
(48:16):
This is what I want to do, andI don't think this decision
might work well for my school ormy team or my classroom, while
others would just say hey teamthis is the director, the
director that's coming down andthere's nothing we can do about
it.
So we just got to do our best,like no, no, no.
(48:36):
And again, don't get me wrong,I don't.
I'm not sitting here saying yougot to fight on everything that
happens because you, that makesyou afraid.
No, you got to assess what'sgoing on.
Why are you fearing this thing?
What is the?
What is what is reallyhappening?
Because social coaches, yourmentors, whoever then, when you
realize what the thing that youneed to fight for is, then
(48:56):
that's what you go after, and itmight not turn out in your
favor, but being bold man,that's the outcome of
transforming fear into aleadership asset.
I'm going to say one more timebeing bold is the outcome of
transforming, transforming fearinto a leadership asset.
Genghis Khan you know,alexander the Great Shakazulu
(49:23):
you're talking about ColinPowell like our great military
leaders, they were bold.
They were not fearless, theywere bold.
The bold, their, their, theirbeing bold was based on data,
information, strategy tactics toensure that they earned a
(49:45):
favorable outcome.
Um man, so, in conclusion, thisis much longer than I expected.
I thought it was going to be a20 minute episode.
It's pushing more like around50, but I'm pretty sure whoever
sits to watch this whole entireepisode, listen to this whole
entire episode, is going to getsomething out of it.
Um, because, again, this issomething that I know for a fact
(50:07):
.
Too many of us are sufferingthrough, you know, fear and
crippling us, and it makes itbreaks my heart when I come
across a principal who tells meman, if I could, if I could have
done this differently, I wouldhave done it.
If I could do this all overagain, I would have done it
differently.
You know, and um, and andthat's one of the things that I
think we got to do a better jobat, you know, coaching on fear,
(50:30):
making sure that our leaders arenot necessarily fearless but
they're bold and they're andthey're being given the space to
speak their minds and allow,allow leadership.
Shut down, shut down leadersand a lot of systems shut down
leaders and so leaders keepquiet.
We wonder why things are stillmessed up because they're seeing
(50:50):
things in the frontline, butthat that, um, they're not being
given permission to speak on.
So, if we're going to, if wewant our schools to achieve
excellence and be functionalhighest level, fear has to be
controlled, and that thing too.
We cannot perpetuate fear.
We cannot perpetuate fear.
(51:11):
We have to allow fear to bewhat it is, because it's going
to exist.
We want leaders who are goingto be bold and speak their minds
.
We also need leadership who aregoing to listen to the leaders
and make sure that we come to to, to that space, to internet,
the best possible solutions forour school communities.
So, um again, thank you so muchfor your time.
(51:32):
This, this, I didn't thismoment in time and listening to
this, um, I'm going to putmyself out there again.
If you are interested in justhaving a conversation and you're
like, listen, I need, I need towork something out here and I
don't have the, the coaches orthe, the mentors, and I reach
out, reach out, and if I don'thave the answer, I'm pretty sure
I know somebody who does.
(51:53):
Um, all right, this is Uche andJoku Sneaker Principal.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeof the sneaker principal
podcast, in which we talkedabout unveiling fear.
Um, specifically how fearimpedes principles from
achieving school success.
Ah, y'all be well.
What's going on, guys ?
This is UChainJoku SneakerPrincipal Podcast, and today
we're going to be talking aboutfear.
We're going to be unveilingfear and how it impedes
principles from achieving schoolexcellence.
Let's do this.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
When they see me, they know that every day, when
I'm breathing, it's for us to gofarther.
Every time I speak, I want thetruth to come out.
Every time I speak, I want toshiver.
I don't want them to be like.
They know what I'm going to say, because it's polite.
They know what I'm going to sayand even if I get in trouble,
you know what I'm saying.
Ain't that what we're supposedto do?
I'm not saying I'm going torule the world or I'm going to
(00:37):
change the world, but Iguarantee that I will spark the
brain that will change the world, and that's our job is to spark
somebody else watching us.
We might not be the ones, butlet's not be selfish.
And because we're not going tochange the world, let's not talk
about how we should change it.
I don't know how to change it,but I know.
If I keep talking about howdirty it is out here, somebody's
going to clean it up, and nowhe's been promoted.
(01:05):
His job is principle.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Good morning, good morning, good morning, good day,
good afternoon, whatever timeit is, wherever you are.
Again, this is Uchey Jokey,sneaker Principle, and this is
the Sneaker Principle podcast,and today we're going to talk
about something that I talk to alot of people about, but what I
do is I these conversations arehappening in corners and, you
(01:33):
know, dark alleyways, becausethere's this word that is not
supposed to be part of thelanguage of school leadership,
but it's very important, soyou'll get into it.
But before I start, I'm goingto extend myself again.
If you are in need of coachingand you're like, listen, hey,
(01:57):
Uchey, I want to talk to youabout something real quick.
Whatever the case may be, goahead and send me, drop me a
message.
You can go to my website,tspmediapub.
That's TSPmediaPubcom.
Leave me a message there, orjust leave me a message, or DM
me wherever you're watching this, and let's talk, let's talk,
let's come up with something.
(02:17):
One of the things that I knowthat has really helped me, and
still has me to this day, iscoaching.
I have several coaches.
I just picked up another one,tom, if you're watching, who was
actually a senior principalwhen I first became a principal
and then he he left my districtas I was starting my career as a
(02:38):
principal and now, you know,all these years back here he is
now, you know, as one of mycoaches.
It's very important.
You know, coaching is very,very important.
Mentorship is very, veryimportant.
If you're a plate sports of anykind or you've been in any high
level space, whether it'sacademic, whether it's
professionally, there's alwayssomebody there who's showing you
(02:59):
the ropes, somebody there evenafter you know the ropes,
somebody there who's guiding you, somebody you can lean on and
say, hey, I'm stuck, or I'mthinking about this big thing
here, or whatever it may be.
So I just wanted to acceptmyself in that capacity.
But now let's get back to thisword, this thing that we don't
want to talk about.
Or if we do talk about it, wetalk about it with shame, and
(03:22):
that thing is called fear.
You know, I remember, when Iwas a kid, a church.
I was told and I'm pretty sureif you've ever been gone to
church or you're, especially inthat Pentecostal space, the
whole notion of fear is falseevidence appearing real and yes,
that's an awesome acronym falseevidence appearing real.
(03:44):
But however, fear is real.
Fear is real, no matter how youwant to break it down
psychologically, sociologically,or what kind of meaning or
actually what you want to put itfear is a real thing.
And fear is a real thingespecially for school leaders.
Because let's look at thetypical trajectory of a
(04:06):
principal or a system principal.
At one point in time you were ateacher, you were in a
classroom.
You might have been, you know,starting off kind of shaky, but
eventually you get to a pointwhere you're realizing you have
skill sets that put you in aposition to support other
teachers.
And then, all of a sudden,maybe your principal or your
(04:28):
administration says, hey, wewant to give you more leadership
responsibilities.
But you take on and you do yourthing right, and you start to
tell yourself you know what,maybe I think I can do this
myself, maybe, just maybe Icould also be I'm sorry, I'm
trying to adjust my mic I couldalso be a school leader one day,
(04:49):
maybe a system principal, maybethe principal.
So you go through all thatright, and the whole time I tell
you watching.
You're watching the leadershipof your leaders from the outside
in, you know, because you'renot privy to, by closed doors,
on all the decisions and all thethings that have to happen, all
(05:09):
the conversations with you knowthe hierarchy of the system.
I'm talking about potentiallythe superintendent's and the
central office.
You're not there for thereviews and the and sometimes
the tongue-lashing that yourleader might have to take.
You're not understanding whythere's so many pivots.
(05:31):
You know one day you're doingone particular curriculum and
the next day that switches tosomething else and you're like
what's going on?
Man, the principal,administration, they just so
they don't communicate.
They're all over the place butyou don't realize that often
it's because they are.
They're really in a positionwhere they're negotiating
(05:53):
directives.
You know some directives thatare, you know, non-negotiable,
some directives that are kind oflike, implied as being
non-negotiable, and in thatspace you have to remember that
person, that principal, thatschool leader, who maybe even
superintendent, are people whoare put into a position in which
(06:17):
their role is not necessarilysecured in the sense of that.
You know, unlike a teacher whomight be, who I mean, teaching
unions probably tend to havepretty strong agreements on how
teachers are evaluated and movedout of the position.
And those rules, I mean,they're still pretty good for
(06:38):
administrators but they're alsokind of like, you know, much
easier to use to remove aprincipal or school leadership.
So what's up happening?
You have people who come intothe position and then they
realize, oh my God, there's somuch more than what the textbook
(06:59):
said with my professor, at youknow, at my Leisure Program said
there's so much more, so manymore nuances, right, and all of
a sudden you're like man I don'twant to mess this up because,
unlike a teacher, where theremight be tens and dozens, in
some cases hundreds of positionsstill open like right now in
New York City, thousands ofpositions still open you know
(07:20):
there's an opportunity for youto find another space, but as a
leader it's not the same.
You don't have tens andthousands.
I mean so tens and hundreds ofpositions.
So you could just say, okay, itdidn't work out here, since the
principal wanted to go overhere and then, where he's a
principal, I gotta go over here.
No, there's so much moremonitoring, there's so much more
(07:41):
eyeballs, so, and you're somuch more exposed.
So you find yourselfquestioning whether or not you
know, if this doesn't work out,I can go somewhere else.
And for a lot of people itliterally means going backwards,
and I've seen principals who'vegone from being a principal to
(08:01):
being back to being a teacher ina classroom within the same
district.
So yesterday you were runningschool, today you're teaching
third grade.
You know, I've seen principalswho you know and that's I mean
okay.
I've seen the leadership toback to the classrooms of
teacher.
I've seen principals back downto being assistant principals.
(08:22):
I've seen, you know, somepeople was to remove.
They just walk away.
You know they can't handle theshame or the burden of the
questions of what happened, orin my case, what happened was
very public.
So I always say that fear.
Fear becomes that kryptonitefor a lot of leaders because
(08:44):
they don't want to get introuble, they don't want to be
put in a position of beingremoved or being shamed.
So what does that mean?
What does that mean for leadingin spaces, leading schools,
supporting students, parents,the community?
You know it means that you havea lot of leaders who don't go a
(09:06):
hundred, like I'm wondering.
I'm talking about, I'm nottalking about going out and just
going to being like at leastI'm just going to do whatever I
want to.
I'm saying they don't go ahundred in the sense that you
don't ever see their fullpotential, their full, you know,
battery of of ability andintellectual weapons and
(09:29):
educational.
You know, expertise in theexperiences, all the things that
that are reality.
That's why they were put inthat position.
You see them taking baby steps,being cautious, and this is
what I want to talk to you abouttoday.
You know, and and there'snothing wrong with being
cautious, but when fear cripplesyou as a school leader, that's
(09:52):
a whole other thing.
So let's first talk aboutidentifying the roots of fear,
thank you.
I want to share with you a storyof me being in that position as
(10:14):
a new school leader and beingvery, very careful.
But first of all, okay, let metake one step back to when I
became the assistant principal.
So first, unfortunately, I wasvery lucky to have had a mentor
principal who I'm still reallygood friends with to this day.
His name is John, and John, youknow, I tell him every time,
(10:36):
like you know, you put me in aposition where you forced me to
think outside of the box.
You do so much of my play asyour dean, then as your
assistant principal, that Ididn't know that leadership
wasn't the typical leadershipwasn't what he did for me, and
what I mean by that is as a dean, you know.
(10:59):
He became a turn aroundexecutive, became an executive
principal, and he was given aschool that literally, they
pretty much said listen, youhave but a year or so to make
some significant changes, or theschool shutting down.
And this offer was made to him.
He was already in a verysuccessful, successful school
(11:22):
and then he asked me and anothergentleman to join him to go to
the school.
And I said, yes, this is a manwho gave me an opportunity to
really stretch myself.
So I said yes, we went to theschool and we were there, for we
were there together for abouttwo years.
Two years, yeah, two years, two, two, maybe three years.
I'm getting old.
(11:45):
And in that space I came in as adean.
My job was culture, right, butthen he said you have a special
education license, so you alsogo to be my special education
coordinator.
I was like, okay, he says andyou also taught science.
You know living, environmentand physics.
You know you also going to leadthe science team, yes, sir.
(12:06):
And then you know, he said youknow what pick the math team as
well.
Mind you, I was at this point intime when all this transpired.
I was in my fourth year as aneducator and I was now the dean
of a school that was on achopping block with eyeballs on
(12:27):
it.
Then I was, also for that sameschool, the special education
coordinator.
I was the math lead and thescience lead, and it was a very
young team of teachers and mixedwith some teachers who already
had gone through they've gonethrough the ringer, you know.
They were at a school who wasstruggling for a couple of years
.
(12:49):
And here I am in that positionand, yes, I was kind of like,
okay, how am I going to do this?
I wasn't scared, but I was likeI was a little bit overwhelmed.
How am I going to do this?
And my principal said to me Itrust you.
You know, listen, I'm going togive you every tool you need.
I need you to know what'shappening there so you can tell
me what's happening, so it couldbe on the same page, you know,
(13:10):
because I can't be everywhere.
So I was like, okay, that's mymandate, I'm going to lead these
teams, I'm going to make surethey were meeting all our
compliance, that we wereassessing and we knew where all
the kids were and we were doingwhat we need to do.
And that's how I function,that's how I rolled.
I rolled like that and the wayhe led me is how I led my teams
(13:31):
and that school is stillstanding to this day.
It's been well over a decade.
That school has already beenone of the better high schools
six to 12 schools in the Bronxand it's also an international
baccalaureate school now, and Iknow that the seeds were planted
when, you know, my principalsaid hey, I need your lead and
(13:51):
I'm going to give you the spaceto lead and be innovative and
really, you know, do what youthink you need to happen.
You know, just make sure you'repainting within the lines.
Sometimes I cut it off out ofthe lines, but don't ever any
surprises.
I told me exactly what I wasdoing and he gave me full
support and I rocked out.
I rocked out and that yearthere was article posted I think
(14:15):
it was like daily news that wewere the most improved school in
New York City based on parentssatisfaction surveys, and that
was incredible.
And then, to go to boot, ourscores were pretty dope as well.
So again, school does neverclose down and it's still there.
But now, when I became aprincipal, the first school that
(14:37):
I'm years later that I becameprincipal of was a school that
had its issues, had its issuesand I had a superintendent who
was pretty much like, okay,here's your school, here's the
map that I've created for you,and it was a good map.
It was a good map.
These are the things that Iwant you to do at this school to
(14:58):
turn the school around.
I looked at it and I was like,okay, this is cool, but it
didn't speak to the way I wastrained.
Look at the details of what washappening.
Studying the space this is whatJohn taught me.
And who are the players?
The teachers, the students, theparents, the community.
(15:21):
What was the community sayingabout the school?
All these little things.
We approach leadership from avery assessment driven mentality
.
You go into the hospital.
We're going to assess, you,evaluate, you, you're going to
see what.
Like you know, remember the TVshow House, the way the team
(15:41):
would walk in there with thepatient and be like that's no
ideas.
What do you think this is?
Oh, it might be this, it mightbe that, it might be this, until
you came down to two or threethings and, by process of
elimination, you came down tothe probability of this one
thing, and sometimes it wasn't.
But that's the level ofthinking we're doing in that
space.
My first year as a principal,was given a task that was like
(16:03):
here You're going to bake a cake, here's the recipe, don't
deviate from this recipe.
And I had a problem with that.
But I was a new principal and Iwant to lie to you, I was a
little shook, I was a littlenervous, I was a little bit like
you know, I don't know what Idon't know.
(16:24):
So I'm going to follow theinstructions given to me, and
what I did also was it made mevery nervous because, again, I
didn't want to screw up therecipe, I did not want to screw
up the task that I was beinggiven.
So that's how I moved.
(16:45):
Everything that I did wasbecause the superintendent said
so and, even though it might go,I knew this is not going to
work Like what I'm looking onpaper and I'm like this is not
what the school needs.
Because at the same time as I'mtrying to apply this recipe,
I'm studying, I'm assessing andevaluating and I'll be honest
with you, it crippled me.
(17:06):
It really did cripple me, andso at some point in time I had
to, kind of like you know, makea decision.
You know, am I willing to sithere and drive a bus that I know
that's going to break downpretty soon.
Or do I stop the bus?
You know, pull out the righttools, fix it, do what I need,
(17:31):
do what I know needs to happen,then we'll do what's for it.
So that's what I did.
I sat down with my AP.
You know, my core team had aconversation and I don't think
they even realized what mythinking was.
The thing is, I just needed toget them on the same page with
me.
I knew what the mission was.
The mission was to bake a cake.
You know the recipe, you knowthere's the outcome, but
(17:52):
sometimes you might have to makesome adjustments to that recipe
, and that's what I had to do.
I had to make some other things.
I built my team out, who I putin what position.
I had some strong people and mything was the blueprint was
given to me when I was led.
So all I did was to get thatsame blueprint and tweak it just
a little bit to fit my styleand identify the strong people
(18:15):
in my team, and I said listen, Ineed you to take over in
special education.
This is what you're going to dohere.
You can do this.
You're going to do that.
You're going to do it in aweekly basis, in some cases by
weekly, for you to share with mewhat's going on, you know.
Then we can make the rightadjustments and all that.
And the outcome, the outcome,you know what's great at the end
(18:37):
of the year, you know.
But I did take a tongue lashing.
I did take a tongue lashing.
That superintendent met with meand was happy about the results,
but did question me about why Ididn't follow her instructions.
And I argued the data.
And that's the thing too.
(19:01):
I was fearing that conversation, but also I realized because
this is also what I learned frommy training in turning schools
around the data, the data, thedata.
You can do, all the cosmeticthings you can put in all the
(19:22):
curriculum and programs.
That sounds great on paper, butif there's a number to support
the implementation and tosupport the value of that thing,
then what are we talking abouthere?
And yes, she was mad at me, butat the end of the day, you
couldn't deny the scores.
You couldn't deny the scores andit was great because I didn't
(19:45):
allow fear to stop me from doingwhat I had to do and even
though listen, it wasnerve-wracking but I was like,
no, if I let this be the way Imove forward, then I'm not going
to survive.
So I just want to say this,like in sharing the story as a
(20:07):
leader you may face, you mightface no, you will face fear.
Fear is going to be in yourface.
I'm trying to find a way to.
Are you going to feel, feel,how are you going to put that?
But in the fear, it's going tobe based on the possibility of
failing judgments and whathappens if you make an unpopular
(20:34):
decision.
But, however, if you know whatyou're doing is the best
direction for your community,sometimes you just got to do it
and sometimes you might not knowif it's the best, but have the
data to support the decisionyou're about to make.
Have the data to say listen,there's a high probability that
(20:57):
this is going to work or this iswhere we need to go.
Yes, nothing is guaranteed.
Of course, nothing isguaranteed.
I made some decisions where itdid not go right at all.
But, however, how would I knowif I didn't try it?
And I've always mitigated mydecisions Again, like I said,
with data, like okay, what's theprobability of this working?
(21:17):
You know where have I seen thiswork before?
You know, in these other spaces?
Were they similar to mysituation, to my school?
You know, I talked to otherleaders.
I'll call.
I've called leaders from otherstates where I was reading an
article or something.
I was like this person's aprincipal, just like me, and
they're in Ohio.
Let me hit them up real quickand ask them some questions and
people will pick up.
People will pick up becausetheir leaders, just like you and
(21:40):
they've gone through they'vegone through a lot of similar
things, just like you and the sothere's a ripple effect of fear
and leadership that needs to beaddressed.
This ripple effect is I'm goingto make this very, very clear
(22:02):
when you're leading, alleyeballs are on you.
Everybody's watching you,everybody's listening to you.
You're literally hanging on thetip of your words, like
whatever you say, and the thingis that you don't have to be a,
you don't have to be aphenomenal leader.
You don't have to be, and youmay be just brand new traffic or
things out, but when you'releading people, people are
(22:25):
literally following yourdirectives and it also goes
beyond your words.
Do what you carry yourself,your level of confidence, what
you believe, what you espouse,like they're literally hanging
on every word in motion, how youcarry yourself, you know.
(22:46):
So if you are afraid, are youzipping fear or you're kind of
all over the place?
It permeates itself throughoutthe hometown community.
It really does.
When I visited many schools,I've known many school leaders,
the leaders who were just likelocked in on top of their game.
When you walk through theseschools, you can see it.
(23:07):
The school becomes a directreflection of them, no question
about it.
Then when you walk throughschool where there's a lot of
nervous energy and you know theprincipals over the place or the
APs are just all over the placeand they're barely hanging on.
That's what you see A schoolthat's barely hanging on.
(23:31):
You know it's very important tounderstand that fear-driven
decisions do cascade down.
It ends up affecting staffaround.
Student achievement is schoolculture.
It's something that you have tomake sure that you're aware of.
You know it's sad.
(23:53):
I've seen schools that werephenomenal and the leadership
change of leadership was becauseof my retired, you know.
Unfortunately it might havebeen a tragedy.
Maybe the leader might havepassed away.
The systems in that school wereamazing.
They were long-standing.
They bring a leader in who'snew to the space and all of a
(24:14):
sudden they're now coming inwith their fears and their
self-doubts and slowly, slowlybut surely, they start to
unravel.
Because they're not making thedecisions or they're allowing
fear to make them change thingsthat were working, but because
they're trying to impress theirown leadership.
And maybe that new leadershipmight say, or maybe their
(24:37):
leadership, the superintendentoffice might say hey, there's
this new program that is workingin Delaware and we want to
bring it over here.
And and over a sudden, you'relike I have something here
that's been here for a long time, it's been working amazingly
well.
But you know what though I'mnot going to argue it, that's my
, that's my boss.
And then they take out thethings working, put in a new
(24:59):
thing and the bus crashes andyou're wondering what happened,
like what happened?
And then they start thinking tothemselves well, maybe it was
me, I just didn't, I wasn't ableto implement it.
Well, I didn't implement itwith fidelity.
No, it should have been changedand you knew this.
And she says you should havesaid something, you should have
fought harder, but you didn'tfight because you're like,
you're not the one rocked theboat.
(25:20):
I don't want to be that person.
And that's when it's happening,that ripple effect your fears,
your anxiety, your, your issuesstarts to impact everybody else.
So this is something that youhave to really be aware of and
I'll tell you this Many leadersfind themselves in this position
(25:44):
because they don't speak up.
If they do speak up, they don'tspeak loud enough.
I'm not saying go yell at yourboss, no, I'm just saying speak
loud, be sure you're being heard, make sure what you're being,
what you're saying, is beingdocumented.
So that is very clear.
This is where this is wherewhat I thought you know and I
would love to negotiate with youas my leader, and best steps to
(26:07):
go, move forward, and if it'ssaid like, no, we're going to go
this way, then let it bedocumented that you know I
opposed, but I respectfully I'mpart of the team and I
respectfully said okay, I will,I will implement with fidelity.
But you guys speak up, and I'lltell you this every time I've
ever spoken up, the outcomeswill almost always positive,
(26:29):
positive in favor of what I wasspeaking up for.
I can only think about oneschool leader that I've had that
was my leader who shut downeverything I said.
Shut down everything I said andit was okay.
She was the principal, I wasthe assistant principal and, yes
, assistant principal.
Sometimes you have to speak upbecause your principal might not
be seeing the full picture, youknow, and if you're the
(26:51):
assistant, that means you guyshave.
You guys should have a muchcloser relationship because
you're working together.
You know, I was told.
I've always told my systemprinciples Is do I have a run?
It's not me hearing you here.
No, it's me here at the centerand you next to me.
If I have multiple systemprinciples, then we are all
(27:12):
standing.
I'm just I'm the one in thecenter because when people focus
in and lock in, they see me,but your shoulder shoulder with
me, because you're an extensionof me.
That's what I believe.
Now I'm trying to think about ifI should share another scenario
, another scenario where fearplayed a role in my decision
(27:38):
making process and in theensuing results.
And I want to give you anegative one, not a negative one
, one where I didn't go with mygut.
I don't know, there's probablyone.
It's just that I've just beenvery lucky to be not lucky
(28:01):
Fortunate.
You know, good fortune has beenon my side that that I just
speak up.
I speak up no-transcript.
I mean, the only thing I thinkabout maybe is when I was
outside of education, when I wasin corporate sales.
I used to work for Kingco, so Iwas an account manager for them
(28:22):
, and I could think about timeswhere they were like, hey, this
is your sales pitch and this iswhat we need you to say and
everything else.
And I've never been good withsales pitches, but I did that
for over a year where I went bythe script.
I said you got to follow thescript and my sales was just
like mediocre at best, becauseI'd be like hello, this is
(28:45):
Uchean Joku.
I'm calling from Kingco'sIncorporated.
I am a territory salesrepresentative and I'd like to
find out for you if you have anyupcoming projects.
Whatever we can support you.
I was more like listen, I don'tbe on the phone.
So my process which again I wastold didn't work, because if I
(29:05):
was hitting the phone I would beat 100, 200 calls a day.
The chances of me gettingbusiness was much higher than me
pounding the streets and maybein a day only hitting four, five
or six businesses.
But, however, this was mysystem.
I would look at sales recordslike who bought what, when,
(29:28):
where, how much they buy, andbecause I wanted to create my
own spreadsheet of companiesthat should target based on the
month and then also and alsobased on their, their purchasing
history.
But I was going to just callyou.
You know I also looked throughand see who are the gatekeepers,
(29:50):
secretaries and who who do thatspeak to.
We took meticulous notes.
The good sales people did, andI did.
I would try to find out who wasspoken to, who is the person
who handled that particularorder as far as calling us for
the order or, you know, managingthe work that we're doing for
them.
And I went through all that.
I had all that stuff and if Iand if I didn't know, maybe that
(30:13):
was the phone call hey, this isa chain joker call from King
goes.
I was territory sales rep Lastyear.
We did a couple of jobs for you.
It was amazing.
I just want to update myrecords.
It's so, so still at thecompany, but that was.
That's what I make sure thatyou know.
If I'm not around and they callfor the same job again, that
you know my team knew no, soit's be expecting, and this is
the kind of stuff I would dowho's the secretary?
(30:34):
Who do you talk to?
And then I pound the pavement.
So I was up in Rochester, newYork, um years ago and I was the
work of King goes in the salesand I got two jobs back to back
months Because my, my salesgoals were always like hey, if
(30:55):
you get 40, 50,000 dollars forthe for the month and in small
to medium, medium to in small tomedium um business orders.
That was amazing.
If you broke, if you win over ahundred thousand, that was like
like oh my God, what.
That was just like.
Oh my God, right.
So what I was doing was I had alittle you know um penny cash
(31:17):
situation so I can buy, likecoffee and whatever, whatever
for, for for um our clients.
So I would go buy flowers or buya little gift basket, depending
on who I was going to go see,oh, or it might be a gift card
for some coffee, whatever.
(31:38):
And I would go to the officeand say, hey, I'm here to see
Lynn and Lynn would.
It would be like the secretaryat Bosch alarm or something like
that, and they'll say who I'm,like I'm called blah, blah, blah
.
You know, I just want to stopby and drop this off for her.
No, as a thank you for theorder from last year, bro.
So I'd walk in and they wouldnot be expecting it and I would
do mid morning.
(31:58):
But I tell me you're gettinghungry, you want to get lunch or
you've been annoyed by by yourteam, and that gift card, those
flowers, that gift basket thatmaybe cost me like $5 from from
Wegmans, you know, or $10 fromWegmans, they'll be so happy.
And I wasn't there to get to getto get a job.
(32:20):
I was there to to just bringsome sunsight into their lives
and get them talking.
And I found myself now closingconsistently 60, 70, 100,
150,000 jobs without having tocall a hundred companies.
I would have two or threecompanies that do that for me,
(32:41):
based on, you know, maybe atotal of 20 visits to different
companies, versus sitting in theoffice and making phone calls,
Because my thing was always howmany other people are sitting in
the office making phone callswith these same companies?
Because, I'm sorry, you all hadthose calls that come to your
house or to yourself or wherever, and they're like you know, hey
, I'm coming from.
What do you do?
(33:02):
You hang up, click, because youknow you don't.
I don't want to take a salescall, but what I did was I
wasn't going to do sales calls.
I was going to stop by and justsay, hey, I'm just here to
bring the sunshine to your dayand thank you again for what you
did for the order from, fromfrom last month or from last
year.
I just want to.
I was just in neighborhoods,wanting to make sure that if
(33:22):
there's anything coming up outthat you, that you remember I'm
here for you.
Here's my business card.
Again, that stuff worked.
But yeah, I'll tell you this,though it was working.
But before it worked there wasdouble start coming in.
I took a lot of stuff.
You know, the, the, the, theregional sales manager was like
what is going on here?
(33:42):
We're looking at your salesforce and you have built any
calls in there.
What's going on?
And blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like you know, thisis what I'm doing.
I'm sorry, I will, I will jumpon those calls.
Sometimes I had to lie to them,I'll jump on those calls.
But I wasn't going to jump onthose calls.
But I had something I was doingthat jump on those calls was
going to take, take away from me.
(34:03):
I'll tell you this.
When they got that first$100,000 plus sales hit from my
branch, from the work that I did, everybody left me alone.
They left me alone and it wasfunny because my peers were like
I mean, how are you doing this?
(34:23):
How many calls are you making?
And I'm like I'm making maybetwo or three, maybe four or five
calls a day.
And it was a follow up calls tothe people I was visiting and
then I'll hit the road.
Sometimes I'll be on thosecalls, for I've been on calls
where I just called to say hey,it was good seeing you yesterday
(34:44):
, and that call turned into a 15, 20, 30 minute call about
football or about gardening orwhatever the case may be.
Oh my God, I didn't realize Ikept you on the phone for this
long.
I have a question.
We have this little job.
We have this order here.
Let me call, let me call Frank,and next thing, you know, I'm
going to phone Frank and Frankis like.
You know, I do have this orderand this job and it's just
(35:07):
annoying.
I need 300 copies of thisparticular binder and back then
this is before Google Docs andall that stuff Everything was
all manual, those copies, colorcolors and everything else, and
they were not cheap and that'show.
That's how I did it.
You know, I refuse to allow asystem to pressure me into doing
(35:30):
something that I didn't thinkwas going to work.
But I also knew that once Ibucked the system, I better be
able to prove or have evidenceof what I was doing successful.
And yes, there was momentswhere it was kind of dark and I
was like, oh my God, this isgoing to.
You know, if this doesn't work,I might lose my job.
But I I would say 99.99% of thetime I was came up, came up on
(35:54):
top, and even those times whenmaybe the results would probably
have been the same, I hadevidence to show, like, okay,
this is what I did.
I documented what I did and whyI did it and hear the results
and most of the time you know myleadership would like whoa we
love this.
And a lot of times they justleft me alone.
Keep doing what you're doing.
But also understand that if itstopped working, the expectation
(36:18):
was I was going to go back todoing what they wanted me to do.
So now, strategies to overcomefear.
You just don't wake up and say,okay, I'm not afraid anymore.
No, it doesn't work like that.
Listen, every decision I make,there's always still fear there.
There's still some level offear like what if that doesn't
(36:38):
work?
A lot of you know that I tookover ISPS 224.
Now living we call MS224,exploration and discovery, in
the South Bronx, district 7.
And yes, fear is there on adaily basis.
It's there.
There's nothing I do about it.
That's part of the human, youknow human experience.
(36:59):
I overcome fear.
Fear does not overcome me.
I acknowledge the fear.
I'm open about it.
You know, with I have my coreteam at the school money ship
team and we talk about this.
I say, hey, this is the thingthat we got to watch out for.
(37:19):
This Like this is going to be aproblem if we don't resolve
this.
You know, this is what I'm,this is, and I and I paint a
picture for them.
If we don't do what we need todo, this is the outcomes of what
we're facing.
So what I do is, rather thanhaving the fear live inside of
me and I'm having this internalconversations and dialogues, I,
I involve my team Because andthey know, I need to hear from
you what are you thinking?
(37:41):
You know, there is so much,there's so much in my school
right now that, honestly, isstrange, because I have to let
go, because I had, because I, Igave permission to strong key
members to take over certainaspects of the school.
So, and and and I tell like,for example, I'm a big culture
(38:02):
guy how we move in the hallwaysto transitions and everything
else.
My Dean took it over.
You know, and anyone who's beenin that position you know is
that it requires constantmonitoring, constant monitoring
and and, and I'll be honest, onFriday I had a staff member who
was calm like you know, I'm nothappy with the way things were
(38:23):
moving and came to me I saiddon't I like you listen, listen,
I hear you, but you got to gotalk to the Dean because that's
that's the space that he's takenover.
And I know it's easy to come tome as a principal and say, hey,
we have fixedness, but you'regoing to go to the Dean.
And everything in my core wantedto be like, okay, here's a
solution, like no, I'm creatingsystems here.
(38:45):
And if I allow my fear to takeover, I mean now me jumping to
the mix and fix the thing.
That.
What am I?
What am I teaching my Dean, whowill one day be an amazing
principal, what am I showingthem by allowing my fears to
jump, jump into the mix?
So I said to her do you talk tohim?
And I will also.
I will also hear from him,because when we have a meeting,
(39:09):
I need to know what's going onand whatever the case may be,
and that and that's the thingyou know, and and the same thing
with my, even my supervisors.
I talk to them, I speak.
Okay, this is my concern, andthat's one of the hardest things
.
When you talk to yoursuperintendent, deputy
superintendent, district peoplebecause one of the issues was
fear too, the fear of beingjudged.
(39:30):
You don't want to, you feellike you don't want to say
anything, then I make them thinkthat you're not ready, you're
not capable, absolutely not.
Because, listen, if I was thatdamn good that anything I
touched to turn the gold whilemy principal has to be president
(39:51):
, I should be king of the world.
If I'm, if I'm just like KingMidas, I'm just that dope.
But we're all human, we allhave our faults and and and.
Allowing your fears and thethings you're concerning to not
be articulated and expressed toyour team, so do we, so it could
be all hands on deck it'sactually doing you more harm
than good.
Actually, it's doing you nogood, it's doing you all harm.
(40:14):
So that's something that youhave to really, you know, keep
in mind, you know, and, andagain, it's important that you,
that you talk, you talk, youknow and and I said this earlier
about mentorship and coachingAt any given time, at any given
(40:39):
time I want to say I have atleast five coaches.
Some are formalized and some arenot formal, some are just like
people have known for years thatcan call on my role.
That's right now.
I have former deputychancellors, I have chancellors,
I have superintendents, I haveprinciples like high-performance
principles, from around thecountry, some, some
(41:01):
international people that I,when I call, they pick up the
phone and say, hey, what's goingon?
And I don't just call you about.
Hey, you see the football game,how's the weather out there?
I'll call him, but I, hey,how's the family?
Speaker 2 (41:12):
You know okay.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
I'm calling because I need a thought partner in this
thing and I am so grateful tohave that.
You know, I'm so grateful tohave that because, again, fear
thrives on, on the self-talk,what you're saying to yourself,
(41:38):
what's happening in your head,because then you start to build
all kinds of negative scenariosin your head.
But when I talk to people,guess what happens?
When I talk to those trustedcolleagues, coaches, mentors, I
hear myself speak, I hear themsaying to me all of a sudden the
fear is out the window.
It becomes more of a strategysession.
(41:58):
We're sitting here now tryingto to figure out and calculate
the risks and figure out whatare the next steps, and I'm
sorry, that's why I mean you putyou into a winning position.
When you do that, you know yougot listen, I'm going to say it
(42:18):
again you got to involve yourstaff, your core leadership team
, your you know console withyour mentors, you know, have
dialogues with your, with yourown leadership.
You know your principal, your,your, your direct supervisors,
whether superintendent Wsuperintendent, maybe it's your
principal if you're AP, it mightbe your AP if you're a team
(42:39):
leader.
You got to have theseconversations because once you
start having those conversations, trust me.
The fear goes away and then, ontime, the fear becomes less and
less potent, it becomes lessloud in your head because you
know, hey huh, problem, let mego talk to somebody, you know,
rather than problem.
Oh my God, what am I going todo?
What am I going to do?
(43:00):
This has nothing to do with IListen.
The school is a team.
I look, I'm going to be, I'mgoing to be that corny.
There is no I in team, you know.
So you have to engage people,you know.
And so transforming fear intoleadership, into a leadership
(43:24):
asset and I know this soundsweird, right?
Everything I've been sayingseems like we need to put fear
in its proper place, put it in abox and lock it away.
But fear is, can be, aleadership asset.
I'm going to use combat as anexample.
Do you think if you were out incombat like, let's say, you
(43:46):
were in a war, you know you'rein a scenario where you had to
survive and you were a soldierdo you think that fear would not
exist at all?
Do you think that generalPatton had no fear?
Genghis Khan had no fear?
I'm trying to think Shakazulu,I'm thinking Khorlam Powell, I'm
(44:11):
thinking about, like Hannibalof Cartage had no fear.
Of course you have fear because, again, you know you're going
to a space where you might notcome back from.
The question now is this do yousay I'm not going there because
I'm afraid that I might not comeback, or do you say how do I
(44:37):
leverage my expertise, myknowledge, to make sure that the
scales are tipped in my favor?
So, for me, fear the thingsthat I fear, the things that I
face head on, that I have to sitdown and figure out what's
going on.
This must sound corny.
Like I hate heights, I hateheights.
(44:58):
Like I hate heights.
But you know what I hate more?
I hate the things that I hatethe feeling of that feeling,
that fear.
I hate that even more, but itcripples me.
So my thing is this how do Imake sure I reduce the potency
(45:23):
of that thing that makes mescared?
So what heights?
When I was younger, I wouldjust say listen, I'm going to go
to the roller coaster, I'mgoing to walk, I'm going to go
at the whole entire time in time, I'm going to keep my eyes open
and I'm just going to be likeyou know in other times, you
know, I'm going to put my handsup in the air and see what
happens.
I was still afraid, but thefear had less and less of a hold
(45:48):
on me.
The ultimate thing I ever did.
No, actually, before I tell youthe story, I'm going to the
Grand Canyon and we got anyonewho's been to the Grand Canyon,
I think it's like the west ornorth face, whatever that thing
is and you have the glass bridgeor the.
It's like a plexiglass.
It's not a bridge, it's calleda skywalk and it just saw maybe
(46:11):
about 20 or 30 yards, if that,maybe less than that, and it's
just literally a plexiglass.
So it's over edge of the GrandCanyon.
So we step on this thing.
You look down on the floor, youcan see straight through to the
bottom of the canyon Terrifying.
But you're thinking, if thisthing cracks, we done.
(46:32):
But I had to do it.
I had to do it.
I was like yo, but look in, thepictures made me nauseous.
So I was like I got to do it.
But it's again.
I want to be able to controlthat thing.
You know, the ultimate, theultimate thing that I did with
my fear of heights I wentskydiving, you know, and I've
(46:53):
done like I've done.
Replying out of helicopters doeslike that for a job, but
jumping out of a plane, just tojump out of the plane, like
literally jumping out of a plane, I think it was like 16, 1600,
see some somewhere between 12 to1600 feet, 1600 feet in the air
and you're falling and you'relike if this passion don't don't
(47:15):
pop off.
Thank you mom, thank you dad,thank you brother and sisters.
I know that's a little bit of apain, but when I landed my
heart was still racing but I hada big smile on my face.
I know I conquered that.
It doesn't mean the fear is notthere, you know.
I just want to look back at thepictures.
(47:35):
I was like what were youthinking?
But a part of me also said, huh, false evidence appearing real.
So it's very, it's veryimportant that you you take your
fears and and use them as a wayto strengthen yourself.
And that's what I've done.
(47:56):
And, like, jumping out of aplane wasn't, it was not just
for the novelty of it.
It gave me a leadership edgebecause it made me not
necessarily fearless but morebold and sometimes leadership.
You have to be bold.
You know the ability to say hey, boss, I need to talk to you
about this.
Can I show you some data.
(48:16):
This is what I want to do, andI don't think this decision
might work well for my school ormy team or my classroom, while
others would just say hey teamthis is the director, the
director that's coming down andthere's nothing we can do about
it.
So we just got to do our best,like no, no, no.
(48:36):
And again, don't get me wrong,I don't.
I'm not sitting here saying yougot to fight on everything that
happens because you, that makesyou afraid.
No, you got to assess what'sgoing on.
Why are you fearing this thing?
What is the?
What is what is reallyhappening?
Because social coaches, yourmentors, whoever then, when you
realize what the thing that youneed to fight for is, then
(48:56):
that's what you go after, and itmight not turn out in your
favor, but being bold man,that's the outcome of
transforming fear into aleadership asset.
I'm going to say one more timebeing bold is the outcome of
transforming, transforming fearinto a leadership asset.
Genghis Khan you know,alexander the Great Shakazulu
(49:23):
you're talking about ColinPowell like our great military
leaders, they were bold.
They were not fearless, theywere bold.
The bold, their, their, theirbeing bold was based on data,
information, strategy tactics toensure that they earned a
(49:45):
favorable outcome.
Um man, so, in conclusion, thisis much longer than I expected.
I thought it was going to be a20 minute episode.
It's pushing more like around50, but I'm pretty sure whoever
sits to watch this whole entireepisode, listen to this whole
entire episode, is going to getsomething out of it.
Um, because, again, this issomething that I know for a fact
(50:07):
.
Too many of us are sufferingthrough, you know, fear and
crippling us, and it makes itbreaks my heart when I come
across a principal who tells meman, if I could, if I could have
done this differently, I wouldhave done it.
If I could do this all overagain, I would have done it
differently.
You know, and um, and andthat's one of the things that I
think we got to do a better jobat, you know, coaching on fear,
(50:30):
making sure that our leaders arenot necessarily fearless but
they're bold and they're andthey're being given the space to
speak their minds and allow,allow leadership.
Shut down, shut down leadersand a lot of systems shut down
leaders and so leaders keepquiet.
We wonder why things are stillmessed up because they're seeing
(50:50):
things in the frontline, butthat that, um, they're not being
given permission to speak on.
So, if we're going to, if wewant our schools to achieve
excellence and be functionalhighest level, fear has to be
controlled, and that thing too.
We cannot perpetuate fear.
We cannot perpetuate fear.
(51:11):
We have to allow fear to bewhat it is, because it's going
to exist.
We want leaders who are goingto be bold and speak their minds
.
We also need leadership who aregoing to listen to the leaders
and make sure that we come to to, to that space, to internet,
the best possible solutions forour school communities.
So, um again, thank you so muchfor your time.
(51:32):
This, this, I didn't thismoment in time and listening to
this, um, I'm going to putmyself out there again.
If you are interested in justhaving a conversation and you're
like, listen, I need, I need towork something out here and I
don't have the, the coaches orthe, the mentors, and I reach
out, reach out, and if I don'thave the answer, I'm pretty sure
I know somebody who does.
(51:53):
Um, all right, this is Uche andJoku Sneaker Principal.
I hope you enjoyed this episodeof the sneaker principal
podcast, in which we talkedabout unveiling fear.
Um, specifically how fearimpedes principles from
achieving school success.
Ah, y'all be well.
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