The Principal’s Backpack: Tips and Tools for Managing Yourself (So You Can Manage Everything Else)

[00:01] Announcer:

Welcome to Principal Center Radio, helping you build capacity for instructional leadership. Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center, Dr. Justin Bader. Welcome, everyone, to Principal Center Radio.

[00:13] SPEAKER_01:

I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to welcome to the program Dr. Nancy Flynn. Nancy has been an administrator in the St. Paul Public Schools for 24 years, serving as an elementary, junior high, and middle school principal. She is passionate about coaching, mentoring, and reflecting on leadership practice with aspiring principals, as well as those with all levels of experience as school leaders. Based on the ideas in her new book, which we're here to talk about today, Nancy created Leaders Hike, a professional learning workshop for school leaders that combines her passion for coaching and her love of nature and hiking.

[00:43]

Nancy has written for LeaderTalk, Educational Leadership, Leading and Learning with Technology, and other publications, and she holds a doctorate in Educational Administration and Policy from the University of Minnesota. Nancy is the author of The Principal's Backpack, Tips and Tools for Managing Yourself So You Can Manage Everything Else.

[01:01] Announcer:

And now, our feature presentation.

[01:03] SPEAKER_01:

Nancy, welcome to Principal Center Radio.

[01:05] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you, Justin.

[01:06] SPEAKER_01:

Well, I'm excited to talk about the principal's backpack because I get the sense that, and certainly I remember feeling this myself, that the both demands and to some extent lack of structure when moving from say a classroom position into an administrative position like that just catches so many people off guard and sends us for a loop. Talk to us a little bit about what you saw happening in the profession, what needs you saw out there as you work with principals that informed your writing of the principal's backpack.

[01:35] SPEAKER_00:

Well, truly, you just hit that nail right on the head there with the fact that the job is so complex and it's very challenging, especially for somebody who is just moving into the position, even from an assistant principal to being the administrator in the building. And many times you're the sole administrator in the building. I was the sole administrator for most of the years that I was a principal. And many times we just don't think about that. how our own self-management actually relates to how effectively we run a building and how effectively we lead. And we talk a lot about as a principal, when you're talking about professional development, when you're talking about like principal preparation programs, we're always talking about leadership aspects.

[02:24]

And rarely does anyone ever use the word management, because we like to always separate the word management from leadership. But there really is a place for management in leadership, and that's with yourself, how you manage yourself. And managing yourself is truly a key to being an effective leader. It allows you to stay on an even keel. And we know that so many principals get to a point where they start to crash and burn. And they say, oh, the stress is really getting to me.

[02:59]

All the things that I have to do, all the responsibilities, all of the aspects of the job. And a lot of times we're looking at those outside forces. We're looking at those things that we really can't control. Instead of saying, there are some things about myself that I can control in order to effectively work this through. And that's where my book comes in. It talks about how do you actually look at making a decision, setting your goals, making sure that you understand your purpose and your values.

[03:35]

And when you understand your strengths and your work productivity, how you work and how the people who you work with, how they work so that you can actually create really positive outcomes productive teams. And a lot of times, but I have found, you know, talking with so many principals is that they're just continuously talk about the outside forces. Those things that they just say are just always coming at them instead of looking within. And so my book is to truly pass on what I call my lives and learns and as they relate to the job and also kind of as they relate to life. Because what I do with the book is I kind of entwine my adventures and sometimes misadventures of backpacking around the world with what it's like to be a principal.

[04:30]

I kind of call it the wilderness. It's like the same as you, you never know what you're going to encounter. Okay, any day when you walk in, you can walk into the wilderness, it can be absolutely beautiful. Next minute, there's a huge storm. It's the same thing when you walk into the office. You may say, oh, you know, this looks really nice and calm.

[04:50]

And the next minute, something happens that puts you into a completely different realm. And you have to be able to work within yourself to stay calm, stay balanced, make reasonable decisions. and be able to deal with a lot of the things that, again, may be outside of your control, but it's how you control yourself and the situation that matters.

[05:19] SPEAKER_01:

So Nancy, I think you and I share a love of hiking and the outdoors and just the experience of getting outdoors and taking a hike, not in the take a hike way, but in the, you know, in the enjoying the outdoors sense. And you actually use that as an organizing metaphor for the book. So you talk about mapping your route and packing your bag and navigating the trail and unpacking your bag. I get the sense that for a lot of leaders, it's, moving into the principal ship is more like getting on a theme park ride where there's a lot of waiting and a lot of crowding and then you get there and then they just kind of shove you in and off you go. And like all this stuff happens to you and you feel like you're not in control of all these things that, you know, You're expecting to kind of have some opportunity to exercise leadership and to implement your vision, but there's just all this stuff happening that's pushing you forward.

[06:13]

Take us into that metaphor of the backpack a bit and talk to us about how we can be a little bit more purposeful and intentional, knowing that there are going to be powerful forces pushing on us, pushing us in certain directions as soon as we get into the role.

[06:24] SPEAKER_00:

Well, I always look at backpacking kind of as life as a principle. Okay, you're going to have your ups and downs, your elevation changes, your rocky stretches, some really smooth sailing, you know, some nice level, calm stretches. You might encounter a storm, but it's going to pass and the skies are going to clear. And you might get bitten. You may get stung. You may stumble, trip, but you have to pick yourself up.

[06:53]

And so... As you navigate a trail, you need tools. You need tools. You can't just go out into the wilderness without the proper tools.

[07:03]

And these tips and tools are kind of like what you have in your backpack every day. So I have a literal backpack when I'm out there on the trail. And I have a figurative one that I have with me all the time when I am in a school. Because you have to have that stuff with you. You know, when you're out in the wilderness, you can't just run to the nearest 7-Eleven and get what you need. Okay, it's kind of the same thing when you're in the school.

[07:31]

When you're there and it's you, you are the one who is going to have to deal with whatever it is that comes your way. And you have to have those tools. So my tips and tools are what's in your backpack. You're not going to need them all at one time. In fact, some may sit in your backpack for years and not be used, and others you're going to be using continuously a lot more often than you're going to use others, depending on what your situation is. So that's kind of how I wrote it.

[08:00]

I wrote it to be kind of the human side of the principalship. It's showing that, yes, It is a difficult job. And we see a lot of articles written about the burnout. We see that the principals are overloaded. They're overwhelmed. But nowhere did I ever find anything that said, okay, we get it.

[08:24]

It's a really complex, complicated job. And there's so much to it. And we get that you're stressed. But nowhere did anyone say, well, let's take a look at what we can do to combat that. And so that's why I decided to write this is because I wanted to pass on those live and learns. I wanted to pass on what tools I have used.

[08:45]

I also had a coach for the past 12 years who I worked with on an ongoing basis. And we looked at a lot of these tips and tools and I used them throughout most of my career, you know, at least the last half of it. And What I did was I kept a lot of notes. I mean, I wrote in journals for over 20 years. And I went back to a lot of the situations or incidents that I wrote about. And I wrote about even very incidental things.

[09:19]

But they were actually what brought me to the point of looking at tools and looking at ways to improve. to work through whatever the situation was, even if it was really small. Like, for example, I'll just remember, this is when I was early on and I was in my office and one of my staff members comes in and sits down and she goes, you know, I just want to talk to you about something for a minute. I'm like, sure. You know, your emails can come across kind of rude. I said, you know, talk to me about that.

[09:51]

How do they come across rude? And she said, well, you know, you just tell us what you want. And I thought about that and I thought, well, you know, I don't, I didn't want to expound on my emails because I know they get a lot of emails. I just thought, well, you know, I'll just tell them what they need to know. But that's not the way they wanted to get an email. And so what I learned was, OK, I will address what I need, but I will also put what I called the.

[10:18]

sauce and the condiments and the buns. So what they didn't want, they didn't want just the meat taken off the grill, slapped on a plate. Okay. And sent, they wanted to have all the fixings. So I would always start you know, addressing them. And then I would talk about, you know, thank you so much for all that you do every day.

[10:39]

You know, you go, but here's what I need for you to do. And like, thank you so much for always going above and beyond you. So you always just put that, you know, make sure you got two buns and all the fixings. And I call that the well-dressed hamburger. So rather than just get annoyed that people don't like the way I write emails, I thought, okay, let me look at what I'm writing, what they want and let me fix it. you know, because a lot of times we just go, just another thing that they're upset about, you know, and we don't look into ourselves and say, you know, let me reflect on that.

[11:12]

Let me look at it. It was like another time where I was walking behind two staff members after staff meeting. And one of them said, well, the last half of that staff meeting could have been sent in an email. And, you know, the first thing I could think of as well, you know, if I sent it an email, who's going to read it, right? You know, they're going to tell me, oh, I didn't see it. I didn't get, you know, and so this is something that I felt they needed to know.

[11:35]

But then I thought to myself, okay, let me really think about how I'm communicating. What are the things that absolutely need to be in a meeting? What things can I send in an email? What things can I say? Okay, you know what, today I am going to shorten our meeting today, but I'm going to be sending some of the information in an email so please read it carefully you know so rather than saying well they don't read my stuff anyway and just blow it off i think to myself look at my communication methods how can i work through them and so that i say what i need to say but if they feel that some things don't need to be i can write them so it's always looking at these communication tools You know, your tips and what are your tools? So these are some of the things that I would just always think about when I would hear things, overhear things, see things.

[12:27]

I would just take note and say, let me take a look at what I can do, what I can control of that and how I can be a more effective leader. in the eyes of my staff, because that's the most important part for me is how can I be an effective leader for all of this staff that I'm working with at a school?

[12:53] SPEAKER_01:

And we should say, you've got the book organized into the chapters using the hiking metaphor that we talked about, but you also have within each chapter, a number of tips, and then for each tip, a number of tools. And one that jumped out at me that I wanted to ask you about was your tip around making decisions and some of your tools for making decisions. And I think one of the things that often catches leaders off guard is when somebody comes to you before the other people come to you and wants to influence you about a decision or wants to ask for something. And sometimes those situations can surprise us in the way that they unfold. They can come back to bite us if somebody comes in later and says, hey, I heard so-and-so came and spoke with you, but I want the opposite of what so-and-so asked for, or I want that too. Take us into some of your tools for making decisions because that covers, you know, so many situations involve making decisions.

[13:44]

And I think there's a big opportunity to learn from that wisdom.

[13:48] SPEAKER_00:

I think the one that I like the best is what are the concerns and what can I influence? And how can I take the concerns and make them smaller than the influence? And even if I go back a little bit before I make any decision, I always think to myself, and I always use the two-time, I always call it the two-time litmus test. Is it good for the school? Okay. Is it good for students?

[14:15]

And if I could answer yes, then I start in with all of the other thoughts and of how I'm going to go about making these decisions. And I really try and look at what are all the concerns? Like, you know, you hear, like you said, you hear from some people, I want this, I want this, I'm concerned about this, I'm concerned about this, and this is what I want. So you put all of that in there and you say, okay, what can I influence? And you try and you look for the things like, okay, I can take this concern and this is how I can influence this. And I can Take that out and make my influence circle a little bit larger.

[14:54]

And I use an example in my book. If you'd like, I can talk a little bit about that. One year, we were asked if we would like to take on a pre-kindergarten four-year-old class. And I said, I would love to, because I would like to make sure I'm able to fill kindergarten. I couldn't fill kindergarten. So I thought it would be great.

[15:18]

It'd be a wonderful way for them to start education in a four-year-old and continuously move on. We'd love to have kids who are more prepared for kindergarten. And so we took that for a year and then they said, okay, well, you know, the funding is, is over. You were, you're going to lose the program unless you can pay for it. Well, I certainly couldn't pay for it. I could barely pay for paper.

[15:39]

So. I said, you know, I really want to continue this program. I have a phenomenal teacher, phenomenal program. And I think it's a wonderful way to have students begin their schooling. And it really helped them be successful in kindergarten and as they move up through. So I looked for ways that I could possibly continue this program in a public school.

[16:04]

And I had asked, could I charge tuition? They said, absolutely not. You may not charge tuition. for a public school program. And I thought, well, there's got to be other ways. So I looked at all the concerns that they said that there were with continuing the program, like budgeting concerns, curriculum concerns, classroom space concerns, and all the concerns that they had and the concerns that we had.

[16:32]

And I looked at, How can I influence these? Well, I finally realized how I could have this program through our community ed program or department and charge community ed instead of tuition, a fee. And I could make sure that I had enough for scholarships. I had the space for it. I had the teacher for it. And we would just develop the curriculum.

[16:59]

And so here are the things I told them in my mind, what I could influence. And they said, well, if you can't cover the cost, we're going to take it out of your funding. We're going to take it out of your regular school budget. And so it was a really huge financial risk for me because if I couldn't cover it by any means, like someone didn't pay the tuition fee, or they were going to actually take it away and that would affect the entire school community. So my decision was really, it was a risky one because for, you know, mostly financially, we knew that we could create the curriculum. We knew we could do everything else.

[17:38]

And after, you know, I looked at all of the things that we could influence and the only thing that was going to be Not as much would be to make sure that parents or guardians would pay. And I went ahead with it. I took the financial risk and it worked out. But there was a lot of doubt that it was going to work. But once I literally put the concerns aside, in this circle and what I could influence. And I finally made the concerns so small that it really just came down to the budget.

[18:13]

Huge, huge, because that was a huge risk. But that was the one concern, everything else we could influence. So I've decided we could go with it. It actually ended up being one of the best decisions I've made because we filled the class. It became very popular. It was a very, very sought after program.

[18:31]

And it actually changed how the school was received as well.

[18:36] SPEAKER_01:

I love it because that really captures the sense that in the principalship you have all of these things that are outside of your control and you have to figure out how to accomplish your goals, how to accomplish your mission, how to satisfy your stakeholders within that limited autonomy that you have. The best solution to you may not be one that you're actually allowed to do for various reasons, as that story illustrates, and we have to figure out how to work with the control that we have. to make things happen. And I know that basically the first half of the book is organized around having a plan, getting things to work for you, putting systems in place, putting a network in place. And then the second half of the book is more about managing yourself and managing the stresses of the job. Talk to us a little bit about how you view that self-management aspect, because certainly in this job, people are not always nice.

[19:26]

Things do not always work out. And there is a lot that can really put you on your heels and contribute to stress. And I think we've seen a particular rise in that in the last couple of years, but this has always been a stressful job. What are some of the key ways of thinking and tools that you include in the book for managing that stress?

[19:47] SPEAKER_00:

Well, one of them is there are tips and tools for staying calm. And one of the things like that I have always said is when things get tense, the tenser they get, the calmer I have to get. Okay, because the last thing you want everyone else to see is for you to panic. You cannot panic on the job. You have to remain the calm person. How do you do that?

[20:14]

There are many very easy ways. And I mean, I think that sometimes maybe people say, well, you know, it's too easy. But many times, if I just literally stop and literally breathe, literally stop, okay, because I think a lot of times we just run forward and our heads are not clear enough to think when we're just in a panic. It's kind of like when I was backpacking and we noticed that there were some bears behind us and boy, I ran making so much noise. I had 30 pounds on my back and my friends said, I have never seen you run so fast with 30 pounds on your back. Okay.

[21:00]

That's where I didn't, you know, I didn't have to say, I was just, I was going, but we can't do that in a school unless, you know, there is something beyond that puts you there. But I'm saying in most cases, even when it's something pretty serious, we have to have a level head because we have to make decisions. And we can't do things that are rash. So even if it's taking time to say, okay, I am just going to do a few yoga poses. I am just going to really meditate for just two minutes, just a few minutes. I need to clear my head.

[21:37]

I need to think. There's a lot of things that we can do right there that we can say, We don't need to rush into something in a panic. I write in the book about, I had an intern back when I was at the junior high, who whenever she heard something on the radio, she would run to it. Well, guess what? Everybody else was like, oh, she's running to something. It was like the Pied Piper.

[22:03]

And then half of them would get to the situation before her and not a good situation. I always said, I get that there's an incident. Running to it in a panic doesn't do us any good. We need to make sure that we know what we're doing, we get there, and when we get there, we're thinking rationally. There's just a lot to being calm. The other part I always talk about for the stress is the balance.

[22:36]

We've got to have a balance in our lives. If we have a lot of stress outside the job that we're not managing, it's coming right into the job and it's making it that much more difficult. And I've seen that a lot where there are things that are happening in your personal life that just exacerbate the stress that comes into the school. So looking at the balance. And a lot of times, again, you can't always...

[23:06]

control all the stress in your personal life, but you also, there again, you have to look at what can I influence? What can I change? And where can I fix the imbalance? And I remember when I, in one of the elementary schools, I did a, what I talk about in the book is a paper plate activity. And I said, okay, here's a box of crayons and a paper plate. Put in here how much time you spend on all your things and make sure that if there's some time for yourself that that gets in there.

[23:36]

Everyone said, there's no sliver of time for, there's no sliver of time for me. And I said, that's exactly the object of this activity is that we're not balanced because you could tell there was more stress and the stress is that there is balance. And if they're not balanced, we're not, we probably are in the same boat. Okay. We're not as balanced either. And sometimes we, It might be a difficult decision to let something go, but sometimes we may have to do that.

[24:09]

And it may be, but we also have to put in something that is going to give us joy, something that is going to keep us from feeling the stress in our personal life, something that we really enjoy doing. And I really always tried to keep that part of my life. I always enjoyed the hiking, the sports, I've been in a band for many years. And even though I have a very, I have a 10 to 12 hour a day job, I make sure that I made time for the things that brought me joy. A lot of staff say, you know, I'm doing so many for my kids. I said, I get that.

[24:52]

I've been there. I've done that. Please try and find one sliver. Even it means you're going to read a book for a little while. You're going to listen to some music. You're going to watch a 30 minute TV show, just something that is going to relieve you of the constant doing for other people.

[25:10]

And it's not easy. It isn't easy, especially when you have the demands. You know, you've got all those demands at school, but you come home and you've got all the demands of a family as well.

[25:20] SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. And Nancy, earlier you mentioned that for years and years you have kept a journal. I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about how the journal fits into some of what we've been talking about and just how it helps leaders with that kind of finding balance and making good decisions and taking time for yourself and so on.

[25:38] SPEAKER_00:

My journals allowed me to reflect. At the time that I wrote a lot of the, you know, anytime I heard something, I would just write it. And I always took time at the end of the day to reflect on my day. I would go back in and see what I wrote, see what I heard or saw, situations, thoughts, ideas, anything that I had put down. And I felt that that was the best way for me to reflect on the day. And that's part of the unpacking your bag, because at the end of the day, you'll always put your bag down and you'll take out what you need.

[26:15]

And you'll think about how the day went when you're on the trail. It's the same thing I was finding. And that's how I actually ended up writing it this way is because at the end of the day, when I was backpacking, I would do the same thing as I did in the office. I'd take a pad of paper and I write down my thoughts so that I could reflect. And I think reflection is huge because this is the time where you can just Sit by yourself and think about what the situations were, how you handled them. Did you handle it the way you wanted to?

[26:53]

If you didn't, how would you do it a different way? You can also, I used to reflect every single day when I was at the middle school and the junior high, when I had assistant principals, we would always every day spend the last 20 minutes after school, just going over the day. How did things, how did we handle certain things? What could we do differently? What did we do well? And you always want to look at what you did well too.

[27:16]

And that's part of celebrating. Anytime you've handled something well that you say, you know, that went well, I would have to remember how, you know, to make sure that when I'm in a situation like that, I'm able to do the same sort of thing so that I'm not in a panic. And I think that reflection is a huge part of professional growth. And it's a huge part of being an effective leader. You have to understand what you did effectively and what you didn't. and how you can grow from the experiences.

[27:46]

So as I continued writing these journals, and I probably, I don't know how many I have, I haven't even counted them. That's when I decided that somewhere in there, I could take all that I learned and put it into a book. And I never, I wasn't really exactly sure about how I would write it until I was on a backpacking trip, doing the same sort of thing at the end of the day that I would do in the office. And I said, and it gave me the conceptual framework. Because I really, I believe, and that's why I believe so strongly in coaching, in that it gives you that opportunity to reflect with somebody else. Okay, you've reflected on it, and then it gives you an opportunity to get another perspective and learn about it, you know, maybe a different angle.

[28:32]

You know, I learned a lot about cognitive reframing. You know, how can we reframe this situation? And cognitive reframing is a tool of reflection.

[28:43] SPEAKER_01:

Well, Nancy, thank you so much for sharing those insights into how you've reflected throughout your career and how you've kind of kept yourself on track through journaling and through the many other strategies you share in the book. Talk to us a little bit about Leaders Hike and what you've put into that program and how that works.

[28:58] SPEAKER_00:

It is a professional workshop that I've created to take participants out of of the normal environment of professional workshops, which is like a room, most of the time with no windows, and you've got a PowerPoint presentation. And I decided that getting them into an alternative environment, getting them outdoors, it just allows you to think creatively. It stimulates critical thinking to be outside of the normal environment. And when you're moving, you think better than when you're sitting. There is research to that and I truly believe it. Whenever I had to write any type of speech or do anything, I would start running or I would get on a bike or just do something where I would be moving and help stimulate my mind.

[29:47]

And I thought it would be really great to have participants learn more about their own self-awareness and their own self-management in an out in nature, hiking, reflecting and learning from others, networking. And so I wanted to give them a day away from the school, away from a building, away from what we normally think of in professional development that pertains to leadership, get them outside and Give them that opportunity to just be free of restraints, the rings, dings, and pings and all of that that's at the school. Even when you're at a workshop, you know, you're always hearing your phone going off and whatever.

[30:39]

This gives them the opportunity to truly get away from the environment that they're continuously in and just give them something different.

[30:48] SPEAKER_01:

And we're not talking about Zoom. We're not talking about a virtual workshop. You do this like literally outdoors in Minnesota. Is that right?

[30:54] SPEAKER_00:

Yes. I literally take outdoors. Yes. And we do some yoga. We do some meditation. We do a lot of reflecting.

[31:03]

We do a lot of networking, talking with others, the critical friends process. We go through that so that they understand how to do that because that's a really great process for really getting advice and really learning about getting different perspectives on issues that people have. And it just gives them the opportunity to self-reflect, become self-aware in a natural environment.

[31:29] SPEAKER_01:

I know people can learn more at leadershike.org. And the book is The Principal's Backpack, Tips and Tools for Managing Yourself so You Can Manage Everything Else. Nancy Flynn, thank you so much for joining me on Principal Center Radio. It's been a pleasure.

[31:42] SPEAKER_00:

Thank you so much, Justin.

[31:45] SPEAKER_01:

It's been my pleasure.

[31:45] Announcer:

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