Imagine.Believe.Achieve: Recent Episodes
Elizabeth Erwin
Learning Through School Leadership - Learn strategies, habits, and tools to become the school leader you imagined you could be.
Website: https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/
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email me: lizerwin@imaginebelieveachieve.blog
When you’re thrown into a stressful situation and you haven’t laid this groundwork—if you are not thinking about how you want to show up so that you can act according to your purpose—you might be reacting instead of responding, and then later feeling disappointed with the outcome.
Once you have a clear purpose or leadership mission you can ask yourself questions in tough situations where you need to show positive leadership, but might not have a solution: How can I stay on mission? How can I act away that is congruent to my mission?
Once I started reframing stressful situations as opportunities to do my best as a leader, supporting my teachers, not only did I provide better leadership and support, but I also left those situations more resilient and less beaten down and stressed. Ready to define your mission and step into your leadership potential? Download your step-by-step guide and template for writing your mission statement here.
Your vision is your desired future state—your ultimate destination as a leader. It is what you want to achieve, create, or become in the long term. It is also your source of inspiration and motivation in the present. I recently discovered that without a clear vison, I was unable to find the motivation to do work that was important to me.
In Season 2 Episode 2 of Imagine Believe Achieve, I get personal as I dig into the process of creating a personal leadership vision. I share my experiences of not having a vision and what happened after I wrote one. Learn how to craft your own vision for your school leadership and get clear on how you want to show up for you staff. I’ll take you through a step-by-step process and provide thought prompts, examples.
Inspiration for this episode – Edie Wadsworth Coaching
Link to Vison Statement Template and Examples
To lead your school well for a long time you need to craft a VISION for your leadership. This involves figuring out:
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What you have to offer your school regarding your strengths, tendencies, and personality traits
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What you want your day to day experience to be like in your school. Once you have a crystal clear vision of how you want to show up as a leader, you can work on making it a reality. But you have to have that vision first.
In today’s episode Liz provides examples of what that was like in her experience as a school leader and actionable steps you can take to get started crafting your own personal vision for school leadership.
In this week’s episode, Liz tackles the topic of mental exhaustion. She will share a 3-step plan for what to do when you start noticing the signs of mental exhaustion.
STEP 1: Recognize it and name it.
STEP 2: Stop: Be still and quiet.
STEP 3: Choose an activity that allows you to withdraw and restore.
Building a personal productivity system can make the overwhelming job of being a principal much more manageable and decrease your stress. Today Liz discusses concepts from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, the art of stress-free productivity.
Key ideas:
- You need to have a place and systems for processing your "stuff."
- You need to have a system to collect, process, and prioritize your thoughts.
- Having a system is essential to not just getting things done efficiently, but also to managing your stress.
Join Liz as she discusses a 3-Step Process for getting organized and shares her weekly routine for prioritizing and reviewing the previous week and week ahead. Her Weekly review is based on David Allen’s review and Michael Hyatt’s Weekly Review from the Full Focus Planner.
Michael Hyatt's Podcast
In this mini episode, Liz discusses 3 practices that support the leadership is learning mindset. These practices will develop your self-leadership and get you on track for a successful first year or your best year yet.
Practice #1 Start by paying attention to yourself.
Practice #2 Develop your systems for organizing and remembering
Practice 3: Develop Your Systems for Effective and Efficient Communication.
Leadership is Learning is a mindset CRITICAL to adopt for your success and mental well-being. In this episode, we will explore what Leadership is Learning really means for you and what it looks like by applying the Leadership is Learning mindset to three main areas.
1. We start with the relatable Learner of Learning mindset. Having this mindset means that you are a learner of student learning and instruction. This is an attitude that most school leaders can relate to and one that is easy to tap into as instructional leaders. When you have the mindset that you, especially, are a learner of learning, you model the open, growth mindset you want your teachers to have. This openness will help your teachers be more willing to take risks and try new practices than they would for a leader who “already knows everything or has all the answers.”
2. Being a Learner of Peopleis about learning how to lead your staff in human resource management—like holding people accountable, having difficultconversations, handling conflict, etc. By keeping a mindset that you are a learner of people, you can allow these situations to be learning opportunities for youinstead of irritations. In this episode, you will learn ways you can apply this mindset to authentic school examples.
3. The number one way you can prepare yourself to take on principalship and continuously grow as a leader is to be a Learner of Yourself. By learning about your go-to reactions, thoughts, feelings, and going further—your strengths and weaknesses in these areas—you can make conscious efforts to improve your leadership skills and build stronger relationships with your staff. Being a learner of yourself starts with paying attention to yourself and your thoughts, emotions, and reactions. This self-awareness can be cultivated through practices such as journaling or regular reflection.
Ultimately, having the Leadership is Learning mindset is about taking responsibility for your own growth and development. By paying attention to yourself and what you come to learn is your leadership style, you can lead with authenticity and self-awareness, build stronger relationships with your team members, and create a culture of continuous learning and improvement.
Liz continues the Leading WELL series by introducing five principles of Effective and Efficient Communication: Principle 1: Face to Face is Sacred SpacePrinciple 2: Just Because You Know it Then, Doesn’t Mean You Share Again
Principle 3: Facebook’s for Tooting not TellingPrinciple 4: Solving may be Satisfying, but Supporting is Sustaining
- Source: Cognitive Coaching Training https://www.thinkingcollaborative.com/aboutcc
- Book cited: The Coach Approach to School Leadership by Kathy Perret, Shira Leibowitz, and JessicaJohnson
- Click here for the printable sentence frame
Principle 5: Cut the Credibility Killers
In this episode, Liz introduces a 2-Step implementation plan, strategies, and tools for dealing with the stressful moments and seasons.
For the PAUSE CHEAT SHEET click HERE: https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/PAUSE
Implementation Plan:
Step 1: Preparation
Be prepared for stressful situations by starting your day with a spiritual practice. A morning routine helps make that a reality. Check out Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning, Michael Hyatt's Daily Rituals for more on this. See episode #33, Four Rituals That Make You Super Productive, in Hyatt's Business Accelerator podcast.
Step 2: PAUSE For the Cheatsheet go to: https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/PAUSE
P stands for Pick – Pick a breathing exercise to calm yourself.
A stands for Ask for Help – Ask for help through prayer.
U stands for Understand – Understand that this situation is an opportunity to show up in a certain way or learn something.
S is for Surrender – Surrender the fear or negative feelings you are having and respond in love.
E stands for Experience – Experience the situation fully. Write down any thoughts or feeling you can identify.
Every once in a while I see something about the importance of supporting school leaders in their mental health and wellness, but it seems like those instances are the exception more than the rule. Now that I am no longer in the principal seat, I want to try to change that. I want to share ideas tools, and strategies that I sought out and learned from a variety of sources. This episode kicks off my Leading W.E.L.L series. Today we start with the “W” which, you guessed it, stands for WELLNESS!
Be sure to check out my website https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/.
Ever feel like you are driving yourself crazy because of the expectations you put on yourself? In this week's episode I discuss my personal experience with that feeling and how I am trying to move forward. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/2023/02/09/releasing-yourself-from-expectations/
Let me know if this episode resonates with you!
I hope you enjoy this quick listen about how to balance the main purposes for being in classrooms. Get a few quick tips and tools to get you going!
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Check out my website: https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/
Few would argue with the importance or value of the instructional leader spending time in classrooms. if your classroom visits lack clarity, purpose, or you don’t have an intentional plan that balances the most important purposes for getting in classrooms, you won’t be effective in improving the quality of instruction--you will be wasting time. Bottom line: You need your classroom visits to leverage what you are trying to accomplish as a school leader. In this episode I’ll be sharing ideas and strategies to help you build a clear classroom visit system so that you can accomplish your goals. Be sure to go to https://imaginebelieveachieve.blog to connect with me!
We all want to be effective–especially as education leaders. What does personal achievement look like once you have gotten the leadership job or position you have always wanted? How do you define success? How you answer these questions in your own context is not only important for your self-worth, but also for your success in your position. Join Liz as she provides a step-by-step process for defining and reflecting on personal success. This episode is also available as a blog post: http://imaginebelieveachieve.blog/2022/12/30/effective-leadership-redefining-success/
For a free template of the steps email me!