Mafost Mashup

What's Your Next Step?

Episode 108 is focused on time management for principals and provides recent research from new principals, a time management tip for power meetings, and an essential leadership concept - the circle of influence.

Why is it that some principals always feel like there's a monkey on their back...they're always frayed and ran to the end of their energy? Yet others can complete all the tasks of the day with a sense of calm and the headspace to lead as their selves. Time management is the difference.

Permission to Struggle. Survival Instincts. The amygdala. These are all tied up in the learning process and the school culture. In this, episode 107, you'll get 6 ways to lead learning in the struggle.

Understanding these two pressures can help any principals avoid plateaus and headaches associated with change resistance. Wall building and conformity bias are little known pressures that exert large influences on school cultures. Here's what to do about them.

Clerical Work, Substituting, Intervention, Inner Circle. These are four common missed opportunities and missteps when utilizing the role of instructional coaching.

In this first live episode, typical school vision statements are put to the task of becoming visions.

Two Quotes on Gratitude, Special News, and a Thank You.

These three communication missteps are essential to avoid as a principal and school leader. Your teachers, community, and students depend on it.

Clarity and Toxicity, Matt sits with Hal Bowman and discusses real-life experiences with school cultures, including: -Shaping School Culture vs. Letting It Happen -Creating a Tribe -Bringing Clarity to the School Vision and Purpose -Uncertainty and Toxic Cultures that Result -The anxiety of the Unknown -Finding the Right Fit -Unintentional Culture Viruses -Communicating with Clarity Principals, instructional coaches, and educational leaders will receive helpful insights into why toxic cultures form and how to turn them around.

Elisabeth Bostwick is the author of Take the LEAP: Ignite a Culture of Innovation. In this episode she shares actionable ideas related to the efficiency problem, building emotional safety in classrooms, and shaping classroom cultures.

Principals Mark French, Lauren Higgins, Chris Chappotin, Heather Patterson, Cathy Jacobs, Chris Legleiter, and Jon-Eric Zaier join the episode to share what they are currently learning about:

•   Leading Community with Purpose 
•  Creating a Sense of Community in a Large School 
•  Asking for Help 
•  Being a part of a Principal Network 
•  Empowering Teachers 
•  Reaching Students Each Day 

If you're going to lead, there will be tough conversations. But that's not the same thing as tough confrontation. 

Elisabeth Bostwick, Chris Chappotin, Jon-Eric Ziaer, and Chris Legleiter share mistakes they made and lesson they learned from their experiences leading learning. Topics include: 

•  Asking for Help 
•  Context Switching - Finding Your Identity 
•  Priorities, Management vs Leadership
•  Given the Right Feedback after Walkthroughs 

Mark French, Heather Patterson, Cathy Jacobs, and Lauren Higgins discussion four lessons. 

1. Assumptions. 
2. Student Discipline. 
3. Letting Go. 
4. Relationships. 

These amazing school leaders and principals share mistakes they made that made them better.

Next week, we'll continue this conversation with Elisabeth Bostwick, Jon-Eric Ziaer, Chris Chappotin, and Chris Legleiter.

4 Leadership Tips for Culture Crafting. 4 Management Tips. Questions to evaluate your school culture. Starting points for building trust and solving problems.

Tough conversations are an unavoidable part of life. In school leadership, having the right words to say will compound your leadership influence. Here are 9 phrases that can help you navigate difficult conversations in your work.

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Every school leader needs questions. We lead with questions. We learn from questions. Here are 18 questions for school leadership, management skills, and instructional systems.

What do World War II, Peter Drucker, and School Principals have in common? That's the guiding question in this brief history of management.

What do the Houston Texans, Stock Market, and School Innovation have in common?

In this episode, part 2 of "10 Obstacles and 10 Traits," we look into teacher obstacles 6-10, which are:

• Upward Mobility
• Perceived Disconnect
• Support
• Sabotage
• Cynicism

Likewise, 5 leadership traits are offered to help tackle these obstacles in your school.

This is part 1 of 10 obstacles facing your school and 10 leadership traits that will remove those obstacles!

The emotional labor of teaching - what is it and what can we do about it? Mismanaged and it leads to teacher stress, fatigue, and even burnout. Here are some questions and ideas to ponder.

Fear and Creativity. They feel like opposing forces. Elizabeth Gilbert thinks so - as you'll hear in today's episode.

A riff on 4 steps to building shared accountability within your school's culture.

Ever wonder why some teams are wildly successful and others struggle to solve problems? Team problem-solving is not that straightforward - it involves team entropy. What is team entropy? What are the 4 phases of team problem-solving? What leadership moves can you take to prevent team entropy? Get it it all in this episode of the Mafost Mashup!

Transform basic back to school principal tasks into vehicles for crafting school culture. In episode 79, we explore: 

• Back to School Letter 2.0 
• Pre-Videos for Meet and Greets 
• First Day back with Staff 
• Edcamps 
• Micro Emails 
• Delegation 
• Insider/Outsider Focus 
• 5 Visibility Techniques 

 How does a school leader or principal build collective efficacy? In this episode of the Mafost Mashup:

• Floods
• The Metaphor
• A Rant on Effective Balance Between Leadership and Capacity
• Places to Build Collective Efficacy
• Smart Data Methods
• Building Communication Capacity
• Teachers Giving and Receiving Feedback

If you’ve sat behind the principal’s desk for more than 6 hours, you know it’s difficult, and in some cases impossible, to stay focused on any single task. Magnify that challenge across days, weeks, and semesters, and you have the daunting challenge of staying focused as a school principal or educational leader.

Why is it so hard to stay focused? What are the pitfalls and sidetracks for meeting goals or following through?  How can we make it easier to say no to distractions? What supports can we use to stay focused?

• Where to Find Distractions
• Quick Tips for Staying Focused
• Costs of Distractions
• Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals
• Too long, unfocused
• 2 Methods to Stay Focused as a School

Problem-Solving on Teams is not as easy as it looks. Teacher teams, school leadership teams, and district leadership teams can get distracted by sophisticated problems. In this episode, you'll find the role leaders can play in improving the performance of teams in educational improvement. 

Bonus Episode: Saying No This Summer. It really is the only way to open the space for improvement. Why must we say no? How does it benefit the school?

What is a blog crawl? This strategy will increase your school leadership network, your professional learning, and your contribution to the profession. A blog crawl is a great way for school leaders and principals to collaborate and generate new ideas and solutions. This episode will examine the benefits of a blog crawl and show how to get started.

 > Why a Network?

 > How to Build Your Network

 > Leadership Collective Efficacy

 > Why a Blog Crawl?

 > What is a Blog Crawl?

 > Biggest Benefit of a Blog Crawl?

 > The Essence of a School Leadership Network

 > Blog Crawl First Steps and Invite

Now is the time to jump start the next school year. Here are 5 strategies to help you with this, plus bonus ideas from a few friends.

School Leadership Strategies in this episode:

1. Plan Out Your Summer Collaborations. 
2. Address August Amnesia. 
3. Create Outlier Policies. 
4. Visit With Your People. 
5. Manage Up. 

Comments and Ideas from Friends: Decluttering, Goals with Initial Steps, Using Padlet, Pause But Don't Stop, Community Engagement Slide.

It takes more than spreading the narrative, using social media, or creating a "brand" to make change happen in school culture. As a matter of fact, there are three categories for leadership behaviors that can impact school culture. In this episode, I'll share 5 ways to initiate change that can result in a positive school culture.

• 2:29 Defining Leadership Behavior
• 2:51 Three Types of Leadership Behavior
• 4:36 Action
• 5:56 Be a Feedback Loop
• 7:31 Stoke the Fire
• 8:31 Clarify the Problem
• 10:26 Research Download

In part 2 of this discussion, we talk about the core concepts and practices in personalized learning, both with and without technology. Several metaphors are given for personalized learning, and Marci shares insights into how Lexia Learning uses technology to enhance teaching.