Empathy as a Leader

As we reflect on this past year and all of the challenges and opportunities it brought, a word comes to mind: empathy. Throughout 2020, we heard story after story of struggles people faced across the world with the loss of their jobs, uncertainty regarding their health, the loss of loved ones, not knowing how they were going to make ends meet, and something near and dear to our hearts - re-imagining how we deliver high quality instruction to students in a virtual setting. Then came summer when we had the opportunity to put our heads together with our colleagues to figure out how we are going to open school to in-person learners in an environment that was safe for both students and staff.  As we walked through these unchartered waters together, leading with empathy was essential. Examining each challenge through the various eyes of those who would experience it was critical.  This year has reminded us that empathy is an essential leadership skill that must be cultivated at all times, not just when walking through a pandemic.  

What exactly is empathy? Many misconceptions exist, and some believe it is simply listening to what someone has to say or saying, “I hear you.” However, empathy is much more than that.  Webster’s Dictionary defines empathy as: (a) the feeling that you understand and share another person's experiences and emotions, (b) the ability to share someone else's feelings. Empathy is more than active listening. It is trying to understand and share someone’s experience and emotions.

Many of you are champions at this. You may know a family struggling and you work with them to help their student be successful and make sure their needs are met, because you feel the challenges they face. You may have a teacher who has a sick family member and you walk alongside them through that journey, making them feel valued and heard. 

The idea of empathy can be intimidating for some leaders while others view those who lead with empathy as being weak.  2020 has proven that empathy is what connects us as humans across languages, races, nations, and cultures.  Empathy is what stirs our soul, prompting us to act when we hear of a person we do not even know who has lost their job due to no fault of their own or a family who does not know where they will get their next meal.  Empathy is about relationships. Empathy is about accurately perceiving what another person is feeling.  It is both a trait and a skill, and it can be cultivated. Dr. Roman Krzanaric said, ”We can cultivate empathy throughout our lives and use it as a radical force for social transformation.”

We wanted to offer three tips on how to cultivate your empathic leadership skills.  

Tip #1

First, when you are listening to someone, try to imagine what his or her life is like. Pay attention to what the person is communicating both verbally and non-verbally. Practice active listening by nodding, making eye contact, and asking clarifying questions such as, “is it fair to say you are feeling uncertain about what steps to take next?”  

Tip #2

Second, focus less on saying the right things and more on being present with the person in the moment. Some of us can be easily distracted and our mind may wander to other things.  This can lead to less empathic listening. Work on training your brain to focus on what the person is saying and listening actively.  Think about how the person may have been feeling as they experienced what they are describing.

Tip #3

Third, spending time regularly with small children or senior citizens can help one cultivate empathy.  Because accurately perceiving what the needs of younger or older people requires us to rely more on our intuition, it requires us to really pay attention to small cues and non-verbal communication while also anticipating what the person’s needs may be.  Some experts say spending time with animals can also cultivate empathy.

Empathy can be developed, and if 2020 has taught us anything, it has taught us the power of human connection and the importance of putting others’ needs before our own.  Leading with empathy will connect you to your team as they feel supported and loved.  It will allow you to connect first on a human level and will inspire hope in your team.

Welcome and About Us

Serving others is our calling. There is not a doubt in our mind that we are here for a purpose, and we are here on purpose. We know that regardless of our role or title, our calling is to serve.  Our names are Melanie Acker and Megan Gist, and we are on a mission together to lift up, encourage, and serve others in every area of our lives.  We invite you to join us as we learn and grow together, sharing ideas, and empowering others to use their unique gifts to make a significant contribution.

Melanie wears many hats as wife, mom, educator, author, and Licensed Professional Counselor. Her educational experience includes elementary teacher, elementary and middle school counselor, elementary and middle school assistant principal, and Director of 504 and intervention services. She and her husband, Joey, write and illustrate children’s books as the authors of Acker Books.  Melanie regularly presents at conferences across the state and loves collaborating with others. She is the wife of an assistant principal and mom to two children who are the light of her life.  

Megan currently serves as an elementary principal and has also served as principal of a middle school.  Her teaching experience includes 4th-6th grades, and she has also served as an assistant principal at the elementary and intermediate levels.  Three years ago, one of her dreams was realized when she had the joy of opening the elementary school where she currently serves.  She recently earned her Ed.D. in educational administration and absolutely loves her role of serving her school community as principal. Her husband, Jim, is a band director, and her son, Jake, is an 8th grader who loves playing percussion and serving on the media team at their church. They enjoy camping together as a family.

We met while working together at a middle school. We quickly realized that our beliefs, our hopes and our vision for leadership are very much aligned.  But most importantly, it became abundantly clear that our purpose is aligned with one another.  We believe that we have a choice to make every day, regardless of our circumstances, to choose joy. We believe that our days should be treasured, and that our lives should be lived purposefully. We believe that our purpose is to lift up those around us to help them see the gifts within them and empower them to use those gifts to affect great change in the world.  We are here on purpose and for a purpose, and we believe that you are too!

We Love Teachers!

Nine months ago, we made history together.  We opened the doors of Linda Lyon Elementary School and set out with a spring in our step, an abundance of joy, and a profound commitment to one another to spend our days empowering greatness in our students, our parents, our community, and one another.  This has been the most special year of my life. While it has been a longtime dream of mine to open a school, I knew that if we were going to do this, this school was going to be no ordinary school...it was going to be extraordinary.  I had this ideal picture in my head of a school where kids hopped out of their cars and off buses eager to enter the building with excitement and energy, where teachers eagerly waited to greet them and make each day  just as special as the day before. I imagined parents truly partnering with us as, together, we created memories that our students (and us!) will cherish for a lifetime.  I imagined something special, something you feel when you walk in the building, something that is indescribable, something you just have to experience to understand. 
     Team, that is exactly what we have done.  We have poured our hearts and souls into our school. Your commitment to making it extraordinary is evident in the JOY with which you approach our work and your willingness to be honest, vulnerable, and transparent. You embrace growth and change with resilience and grace. You work hard, because you are invested in making our school a great place for kids and adults. You are genuine in your love for teaching and learning, and it shows in the way you choose to do school differently. Your data driven and goal driven approach to designing meaningful lessons is balanced with a warm, and caring learning environment where children are valued for who they are and feel safe to take risks, explore, and create.

     You see, to create the kind of school we envisioned, you have to have the right team. You have to have people willing to take on that challenge and be fully committed to it every minute of every day. It was no accident that you are here - that you were chosen to be a part of this very special journey. Our school would not be the same without you.  YOU are what make Linda Lyon Elementary school great. YOU are what fills our halls and classrooms with joy, energy, and excitement. YOU are the ones who empower greatness in our students and one another. 
     Thank you for not being willing to settle, for pushing yourselves beyond what you thought you were capable of, for recommitting yourself every day to our school's purpose, for taking risks, for choosing to grow, and for choosing to be a part of our team. Your unique gifts, talents, and experiences make us better.  No other person can contribute exactly what you have contributed. Your voice is now woven into the fabric of who we are as a team and as a school.  On this eve of teacher appreciation week, I just want you to know how grateful I am for YOU. Thank you for giving our students, parents, district, and community a school of which they can be very proud.  What starts here empowers greatness!

Lots of Love,

Megan

Mobile Office

When talking to fellow administrators, one of the topics that frequently comes up is visibility on campus. Sometimes, we have weeks with many meetings or are handling situations where we may not have the opportunity to be out in the building as much as we would like to.

As an elementary counselor, I would feel this way, too, and often I would take my counseling bag and just visit kiddos in the hall and devote a day to being around the building and doing check ins. With all the duties of a counselor, those days reminded me of my why.

 I do not like the feeling of not being as visible to the staff and students. Having a mobile office is the perfect solution. I have seen it floating around on Twitter and Instagram and thought I would give it a try. I know Megan does it, as well, at her campus. I even had the privilege of seeing her "wheel" by one day when I was at a meting. So what exactly is a mobile office? Basically, you grab a cart or flex/standing desk, grab your laptop and walkie, and anything you need to work on and work around the building. I was also doing classroom walk throughs so I didn't have a specific place to station myself. If a discipline situation came up or a staff member needed me, I had my walkie and my phone. I actually was able to "roll on over" to where I was needed and it worked beautifully. Outside of my office door, I put a sign that said I would be in my mobile office and to please text me if they needed me so if anyone stopped by, they would know how to reach me.

I loved being able to answer any questions, address any situations quickly, and for the students and staff to not have to come to me in the office, instead I was right there to serve them. I actually got a lot of work done in between walk throughs. The students loved saying hello in the hall.  It was something so simple yet gave me the opportunity to be available and serve, which is what I aim to do.

Our campus had purchased the standing desk that I am using in the picture above. We have one we share in the office and we had a few that we have used for students that need them in the classroom. I do not have the link to the specific one I am using but there is a similar option that you can find HERE. Megan has a nice, oval shaped standing desk that has a lot more room. Of course, you can also use a cart or you could station yourself in a particular hallway with a regular desk and chair.

Regardless of how you do it or what you use, the goal is to be available, visible, and enjoy being a part of the campus where everything is taking place...right in the halls and classrooms.


-Melanie

Growing your PLN

Teaching our students to have a growth mindset is an integral part of what we do as educators; however, we assert that educators must also have a growth mindset in order to foster this in our students.. How is a growth mindset nurtured?  After reflecting on this question, we have found that three main things help us to keep growing as educators and leaders: professional reading, Twitter, and professional organizations.

First of all, we both are avid readers.  We read everything we can get our hands on, both old and new, from books and journal articles to blogs and manuals. No, seriously, we read manuals and happily highlight them.  TEA’s 2017 Accountability Manual is always within reach as it is necessary for us to know in detail how our schools will be measured and rated.  For more inspirational reading, TASA’s publication, Creating a New Vision for Public Education serves as our guidebook for shaping our schools to be a place where 21st century learning is cultivated as it was written by 35 Texas superintendents about 10 years ago to inspire educators to make public schools better for all Texas school children.  The superintendents were frustrated with the present direction of Texas public education and set out to describe with clarity and specificity how a preferred future for our Texas public schools should look.  While our list of books is extensive, we reference some of our favorites in our blog posts from time to time. We also plan to do more posts sharing books that have had an impact on us. Periodicals and newsletters published by the organizations of which we are members are also some of our favorite reading material.  TEPSA’s Instructional Leader and TEPSA News are some of our staples.

        Another major way we stay connected to other educational leaders is through Twitter.  The use of Twitter for professional learning has allowed us to grow our professional learning network (PLN) extensively.  We get ideas for our campuses, learn about innovative programs and have our thinking and beliefs challenged in ways that inspire us to learn more and grow.  Participating in Twitter chats locally, statewide, nationwide, and even internationally are one of the ways we make connections.  For example, our district hosts a weekly Twitter chat, #RISDchat on Tuesday evenings at 8:00 pm.  You are welcome to join us anytime.  Some of our other favorites include #leadupchat on Saturday mornings at 8:00 am and #LearnLAP on Monday evenings at 7:00 pm. In fact, a group of us from our district are hosting the #LearnLAP chat on Monday, January 8th. Please mark your calendars and join us!  

        Actively participating in professional organizations is another opportunity to collaborate with other educators. Social media makes it so easy to stay connected to members of professional organizations.  Since we are elementary educators, we are both actively involved in TEPSA, Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association.  We love their motto, “We support your work so you can focus on students.” Consider becoming a member, http://www.tepsa.org/?MembershipHome and definitely follow them on Twitter @TEPSAtalk.  Some of the member benefits include legal  benefits when you need help, providing the latest news and information on Texas education, professional learning opportunities, career connections, opportunities to make your voice heard, and a multitude of other support including the publications we mentioned previously.  We are each involved in other organizations too such as ASCD, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,  and TASA, Texas Association of School Administrators, each of which have member benefits of their own.  We encourage you to get connected with at least one professional organization that is a good fit for you and your role.

        Collaboration is an important part of establishing and nurturing a growth mindset.  We are thankful for the resources at our fingertips to become better educators today than we were yesterday. Our students deserve our very best, so we must equip ourselves to give our best each and every day.

~Megan

My Hope For You...

When you think of your students...what is your hope for them?

One of the back to school activities we had at Shannon this year was to have our team members (staff and families) write their hope for our students on a card to be displayed in the hall. I was blown away by reading the cards because I think our team captured it all perfectly. It all boiled down to reaching every child not only academically but emotionally.

I think we can all agree that we want students to be academically successful and have high expectations set before them. We want them to rise to challenges and be resilient.

Yet, when we look at the child as a whole...our hopes for them involve more than that.  As educators, we work with students that have all types of backgrounds, differences, and challenges. Our job is to teach them even more than they "need" to know, make them feel safe, and help bring out the best in them (their talents, strengths, & abilities).

So, as our year gets settled, I challenge you to reflect on your hope for your students. What do you want for them? What do you need to do to bring that out in them? I feel that when we understand what our hopes for our kids are, it helps us focus on our why.

At the beginning of the school year, Dr. Anderson (our Secondary Chief Academic Officer) shared a video (below) by Michael Jr, a comedian, that talked about knowing your why. In the video, he said something that was so profound to me. He said, "When you know your why, your what becomes more impactful because you're walking towards or in your purpose."

This made me reflect on my why which brought me to what I hope for the students that I work with. So, as the busyness of the year consumes your mind, I hope that you will have the opportunity to reflect on your hopes for your students in your class, your school, and your district....and what your part will be in making that a reality.

-Melanie

I See You

One of my dreams will come true on Monday morning. I get to be a part of opening a brand new campus for its very first day of school EVER, Linda Lyon Elementary School in Rockwall Independent School District. It has been quite the journey, and I can feel, even now, that this experience has impacted me in ways I will continue to reflect upon many years from now. The staff is incredible. Every single one of them. They care deeply about the work we are doing and each little Lyon Cub that will enter our doors on Monday morning. This letter I sent to them this weekend is just a glimpse into my heart and theirs. It is my hope that our students find joy in their learning, that our parents are proud to send their children to our school, and that our staff is empowered to make a positive impact on every student every day, to empower greatness in themselves, their students, and their colleagues. All of these people have made an impact on me, and I am forever grateful.

Lyon Pride,

I see you.  I see you working in the early mornings, late into the evenings, and on the weekends.  I see you pouring over every detail of your classroom to make sure you create an inspiring and welcoming learning space for our students.  I see you collaborating as teams to design aligned, high quality lessons that will engage students and give them an opportunity to learn, contribute, and grow. I see you taking time away from your own family to spend time investing in our Lyon Cubs. I see that you care. I see your pride in all you do.  I see your positive attitudes. I see the joy with which you approach your work and the compassion with which you approach our students.

I see you, and my heart is bursting with pride.  You are my dream team.  You are here for a purpose.  You are not just here to do a job.  You are here to empower greatness.  You are not just here to make a difference; you are here to make an impact.  

We are a team, and these are OUR kids.  We take ownership of each other, our students, our learning, and our school.  We provide opportunities that nurture collaboration, innovation and creativity.  We embrace mistakes with resilience and grace.  We build relationships in a safe, joyful environment where all learners are excited to be a part of our school. We honor the individual growth and voice of all learners.  We value the strength of our partnerships with our families and our community.  What starts here empowers greatness.

I see you.  I see you doing this in the way you respect one another.  I see this in the way you go above and beyond to communicate and partner with our families.  I see you.  It is no accident that you are here.  We have been called to be here at this time in our lives for a purpose.  Every day is important, every hour and every minute.  Every child matters.  We embrace each one for who they are and meet them right where they are.

What a privilege it is to make history with you as we open our doors on Monday morning for the very first day of school in the history of Linda Lyon Elementary School.  This is no ordinary first day of school.  This is a day 430 students will remember for the rest of their lives. This is a day that we will reflect upon fondly in the later stages of our lives.  This is our time and our opportunity to make this not just the best first day of school in the history of Linda Lyon, but the best second day, third day, 100th day and last day of school.  This is no ordinary day, no ordinary year, and no ordinary team.  We are ready; I see you.

With Joy,

Megan