Your staff is reading you every day.
Your moods. Your silences. Your tells.
And they're getting it wrong.
Today’s Do School Different article highlights how to build your “Principal User Manual” and set your team up for success.
First time reading? Sign up here and join {{active_subscriber_count}} Ruckus Makers Doing Do School Different 🎉
OFF CAMPUS
🎧 The One Principal Calendar Change that breaks the reactive leadership cycle
💪 The Principal’s User Manual: this takes guts
📽️ Quietly Losing Teachers? Danny tells a real world story of helping one principal rebuild trust with his staff. Watch now.
🩺 Real World Job Training: LA Unified students are better prepared for college
🎯 Educate Kids in the Top 1%: Here is how one school does it
A MESSAGE FROM ODP Business Solutions
SEL Isn’t a Program. It’s a System.
The best SEL work doesn’t live in a binder — it shows up in classrooms, hallways, and how students regulate emotions under pressure.
This short guide shares 4 ways schools can build SEL into everyday learning, from immersive tech to calm corners and flexible spaces that support real emotional growth.
Worth a 3-minute read.
DO SCHOOL DIFFERENT
Your Staff Already Has a File on You
Danny Bauer recently dropped a mini-book on Substack called The Principal's User Manual. If you haven't read it yet, block out the next twenty minutes.
The premise comes from CEO Clint Carnell, who requires every one of his executives to read his User Manual and write one of their own.
Danny took that idea and built a framework for school leaders.
Eight sections, one page, one afternoon.
Your staff is already reading you.
Every hallway glance, every clipped email, every closed door.
They're building a version of you from fragments, and they're getting it wrong half the time.
The Principal’s User Manual is how you give them the straight goods.
Danny suggests blocking 90 minutes on a weekend to get it done.
It took me closer to three hours, but I got deep into it.
No regrets — that’s Selfmentorship.
But you could move through it faster, especially with Digital Danny (since he’s trained on the Principal User manual, every book, and 10+ years of coaching conversations with school leaders).
It asks good questions and pushes back when you could go deeper.
The eight sections cover ground you'd expect: who you are, what you're responsible for, how you measure success, how you give and receive feedback.
A few of them were hard to answer.
For instance, my tells are important for my staff to know.
When I'm quiet, I'm thinking.
When I ask a lot of questions, I'm concerned.
When I rush, that's not disrespect toward you.
I knew these things about myself.
But I hadn't written them down or said them out loud.
My worst characteristics.
Nobody talks about these, but everyone already knows.
I wrote things down that my staff almost certainly already knows about me.
I operate loose.
I prefer figuring it out as I go.
I get short when I'm stretched.
Writing them down felt vulnerable and a little embarrassing.
And also a relief.
That's the insight at the heart of Danny's mini-book.
Your team already has a version of you.
They've been building it since the first time they met you, from your moods, your silences, and your patterns.
The dysfunction happens when nobody talks about it.
The Principal’s User Manual takes all of that off the table and puts it into words — your words — on your terms.
Writing this manual helped me be explicit about how I will show up for my team, and how they can work more effectively with me.
Ready to write yours?
Here are a few things that made it easier for me:
Clear your desk, grab a coffee, open a fresh doc. Send your brain the signal that this is a work session.
Set a timer, and work through one section at a time. When it goes off, move on.
Keep it to one page. Constraints force us to be clear.
Write a messy first draft. Then share it with one trusted person (or Digital Danny). Ask them: What's missing? What doesn't sound like me? What did I soften too much?
Read Danny's mini-book here.
Then open Digital Danny and get your draft going.
Your team is already reading you.
Give them the real thing.
SELFMENTORSHIP IN ACTION
Write the Document Your Team is Begging For
Eight sections sounds like a lot. It's not. Here's how to move through it:
Start with who you are in one line. Don’t get hung up on vision or a fancy title. Just one sentence. It warms you up and sets the tone for everything that follows.
Write your tells before your worst characteristics. Tells are easier — they're just patterns. Worst characteristics require honesty. Build up to it.
If you're stuck, say it out loud first. Record a voice memo. Transcribe it. Your spoken voice is usually more honest than your written one.
Borrow the mirror test. After each section, ask yourself, “Would my staff recognize this as true?” If the answer is no, go deeper.
Write for your hardest day. That's the version of you your team needs to understand.
Version one is allowed to be uncomfortable. If you finish your first draft and nothing in it makes you wince, you haven't gone far enough.
SUNDAY VIBES
CLASS DISMISSED
Whenever you are ready, here are 3 ways we can help you on your Selfmentorship journey:
If your campus runs you instead of you running it, meet Digital Danny — your 24/7 Ruckus Maker coach. Start here.
Experience weekly coaching and peer mentorship. Surround yourself with other Ruckus Makers in the mastermind. Apply here.
Keep Making a Ruckus,
PS … hang in there
How did you like today's newsletter?
