The Friday That Wasn't

I want to tell you about a Friday I had as a principal that I think you've also had.

Maybe last week.

I came in early. I had a plan.

Three things on the list:

That was the plan at 7 am.

By 7:30 am, the plan was gone.

A parent had called the front office about a bus issue.

A teacher had emailed me at 7:15 am about a kid who'd been making her uncomfortable.

The district had sent a "quick favor" that wasn't quick.

By the time I looked at the clock next, it was 3pm.

I had handled everyone else’s to-do list except my own.

And here is the part I want you to sit with on this Sunday morning:

Friday was busy. Not productive.

Yes, I extinguished the fires.

Yes, my inbox showed movement.

Yes, I cleared a hundred notifications on my cell.

And yes … people saw me sweating and even said thank you for handling things.

But busy is not the same as productive.

Busy is movement. Productive is progress.

(read that again)

Busy days move you sideways and you call it work.

Productive days move the school forward (even by an inch) toward the campus experience worth showing up for.

The hard part is that busy days feel like real work.

The teacher email …

The parent call …

The bus issue …

These are all real issues. They all need to be handled. I am NOT saying don't handle them.

What I am saying: if every Friday is the Friday I just described, you are not running your school.

The school is running you.

The school is running you when the conversation with the AP keeps getting pushed.

The school is running you when the teacher observation gets dropped.

The school is running you when Monday's agenda gets written on the weekend.

Again.

Running the school looks different.

You identify your Big 3 tasks for the day (and you get them done before addressing the “urgent”).

And those things only happen when you decide that you are going to protect the work that nobody is asking you to do today.

The leadership team is not going to email you for the agenda.

That teacher who needs your feedback isn’t texting “please observe me today.”

Your AP is not going to walk into your office and say, “I’ve read your mind … and we need to talk about culture.”

The work that matters most is the work that nobody is asking you for.

That is why it gets dropped first.

And that is why a year goes by and you cannot quite name what you actually did, even though you remember being exhausted every single day.

I am not going to give you the fix in this article.

There is a fix. There is a real one.

I have taught it to school leaders for the last 10+ years.

And on May 28th I’ll be eradicating reactive leadership from those leaders who attend The 2nd Selfmentorship Sprint.

But I want you to spend today, this Sunday, sitting with the question instead of reaching for the answer.

The question is this: What did you do last week that nobody asked you to do (but you needed to do)?

Not what did you handle. Not what did you respond to. Not what did you fix.

What did you initiate?

If you can name three things, you had a week where you ran the school.

If you can name one, you had an okay week.

If you cannot name any, the school was running you.

There is no shame in this. Most weeks for most principals are this kind of week. It is not a moral failure. It is a structural one.

The structure is what we have to talk about.

But not today.

Today is just the question.

Sit with it.