[00:01] SPEAKER_01:
Welcome to Principal Center Radio, bringing you the best in professional practice.
[00:06] Announcer:
Here's your host, Director of the Principal Center and Champion of High Performance Instructional Leadership, Justin Bader. Welcome everyone to Principal Center Radio.
[00:15] SPEAKER_02:
I'm your host, Justin Bader, and I'm honored to be joined today by my friend, Dr. Naftali Hoff of Impactful Coaching and Consulting. Dr. Hoff is an executive coach, school leadership coach, organizational consultant, and like myself, a former school leader, former head of school. He's the author of Becoming the New Boss, The New Leader's Guide to Sustained Success, which we're here to talk about today.
[00:40] Announcer:
And now, our feature presentation.
[00:43] SPEAKER_02:
Naftali, welcome to Principal Center Radio. Thank you, Justin.
[00:46] SPEAKER_00:
A pleasure to be with you.
[00:47] SPEAKER_02:
Well, hey, congratulations on the new book, Becoming the New Boss. And I think many of our listeners can relate to that memory or that feeling of being in a new leadership role, whether it's kind of their first leadership role or simply a new role in a new organization. And having been in that situation yourself and having worked with many people as a coach who are in new leadership roles, I wonder if we could start by having you describe for us what you saw as the need that new leaders have that kind of prompted you to write this book. Absolutely.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00:
So I got to tell you that, first of all, the book in many ways brings together two aspects or two components that I'm very passionate about. Number one is leadership. Number two is education in the sense that I was parlaying or hoped to parlay my experiences as a school leader and transitioning specifically into that environment, into that role, and to help others in a way that would ultimately be helpful to them. Meaning to say, you know, I felt that there was something I could have used when I was transitioning as a principal, something that if I only would have realized more, for example, about the school culture and how critical that is and preserving it, yet at the same time finding ways by which to make your own inroads, to understand, you know, the impact of my predecessor and how much that could impact, you know, ultimately my transition into my position and go all the way through the various aspects that the book covers.
[02:17]
It was really intended to help folks who are moving into leadership, who are transitioning within leadership, who are finding new opportunities to give them as many tools as they could and help them avoid some of the pitfalls that really do complicate things for people so that they can not only get off on the ground running, but have sustained success.
[02:38] SPEAKER_02:
Well, and I know the book is composed of quite a few short chapters, and I think that's a great structure for kind of getting a sense of the lay of the land. Like as a new leader, you have almost an infinite number of kind of blind spots right there. There's an infinite number of things that you're not thinking about. at any given moment. And we all go into the job with enthusiasm and with a sense of what we think we need to be focused on. But there are so many blind spots, so many things that can catch us off guard.
[03:05]
What are some of the things that you think are easiest and most dangerous to miss for new leaders coming into an organization?
[03:12] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it really could hit you in many, many ways, you know, everything from understanding what your responsibilities are and getting on board with that, that everybody, in this case, we're talking about school leaders. So we're talking about, you know, the search committee and the board, as well as your teachers and other people within the organization, your parents, other constituents, that everybody's clear on what your role is. You know, in my school, for example, we had issues associated with Am I functioning as principal, which is really what my predecessor did, or am I really living up to the role of head of school? And so as a result of that, because we know that there are differences between the two, you want to make sure that there's absolute clarity as best as you can achieve it in terms of what exactly you're there to do. Make sure it's contractual.
[03:56]
Make sure that it's part of your assessment as well so that everybody's really focused on helping you grow and helping to keep you on the straight and narrow in terms of your responsibilities. That part, I think, is critical. Another area which I think is important is change management. In my situation, I was following a decorated principal. He had been in the chair for 15 years. He had built the school pretty much from the ground up.
[04:20]
And he had hired basically everybody on staff, had a very unique, charismatic personality. And that, you know, in many ways was ever-present all throughout the building. So here comes the new guy. People had been interested in change for a while. There were things that he just wasn't getting to. He was sort of retired and on the way out.
[04:39]
And I think people just felt they couldn't push him beyond a certain point. And now the new guy comes in with all of these expectations. And yet at the same time, I had a staff that really wasn't ready for the change that others wanted to see happen, even if they had expressed an interest. They weren't necessarily on board with the process. I had to build that equity. I had to really establish relationships, become a great communicator.
[05:02]
And frankly, you know, I feel that I hit a number of landmines along the way because I didn't fully appreciate all of those dynamics until it was already time to do some triage and some, you know, some damage control. And so I think that that's another area where people coming into a new position really want to get a handle on what's the history of the place. Who am I succeeding? What were their unique contributions? What are the areas where they're going to be most missed? And what are the areas and what are the opportunities in terms of me being able to go ahead and make my own positive impact in a way That's not going to throw everybody off kilter.
[05:40] SPEAKER_02:
Right. And I think that sense of continuity and change is a really important tension because as you alluded to, everyone has this kind of pent up backlog of things that they want to see happen in the school. And they bring that to you as a new leader. And often they conflict with each other. You know, everyone wants something different. Everyone wants to move in a different direction.
[05:58] SPEAKER_00:
How do we listen to that? Right. And you can't address it all and you can't do it in a way that's necessarily going to be consistent. And this is what we're coming back to what I said before. So let's take your board of directors, for example. You know, you have a certain set of let's call it strategic priorities that you agree to at the very beginning where you formulate early on in the process.
[06:19]
And now all of a sudden they're getting feedback from parents. They're getting feedback from teachers. They're getting other people chiming in their ear about various issues that. They want to see addressed and it might be about you in terms of your style. It might be in terms of other issues that have come up educationally or otherwise within a school environment. And you have to have the discipline and the fortitude to be able to tell these people, hey, you know, that's important.
[06:45]
I get it. On the other hand, we agree to ABCD. And if we don't stay focused on ABCD and now you want me to add EFGH to that list as well. So I think we all get that I'm not going to be able to do all of that and do it well. So either we're going to take A, B, C, D, or some of those parts and take it off of my list in order to address these other areas, or we're going to have to agree to have the patients to hold off on these other points so that I can make sure that we get the strategic priorities that we agreed to in place and then allow me to let the other aspects of it sort of come in afterwards.
[07:20] SPEAKER_02:
And I think one of the reasons that's so difficult for us, especially when, say, becoming a principal for the first time, often we get into that leadership role. We earn that leadership role by saying yes to a lot of things and by kind of pursuing the projects that were assigned successfully. You know, we say yes, we move forward with things. And often we've not really been conditioned to learn that we need to say no. And to put things off and say, let's prioritize, as you said.
[07:47] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, that's true. And then, you know, on the other side of it, one of the things that I talk about in the book is that leaders need to be more we first than me first. Meaning to say that, you know, if you're a teacher, for example, in a school or you're a regular employee in a work environment, wherever that might be, typically you're looking for that promotion. You're looking for that recognition. You want people to see how you stand out and that you deserve to take that next step professionally. And so your condition or really try to put yourself front and center in front of everything else, you know, that's happening around you.
[08:21]
And the we, the team element of it tends to fall by the wayside to a degree. Now, all of a sudden, as we know about leadership, leadership is not about putting yourself front and center. It's about servant leadership. It's about the golden rule. It's about, you know, how you treat others and create those relationships. And so one of the things that I found to be a challenge, and I think many people probably have similar experiences is How do they walk that fine line where they can demonstrate that they're doing good work, that they're moving things forward, that they're checking off the boxes, so to speak, in terms of what their job expects of them, and yet at the same time not to do it in a way where it's all about self-glamorization.
[09:03]
It's more about how do we advance the team and of course get the recognition on the back end.
[09:07] SPEAKER_02:
I wonder if we could jump into another issue that I think is a totally new experience for a lot of people, especially in the independent school sector, especially for people who are coming from maybe the public school sector where the school board is more distant to a public school administrator. And if you're in an independent school Of any kind, you might find quickly that the board is much closer and much more relevant than ever before. What advice do you have for new leaders on relating to your board of directors, your school board, whatever that kind of decision-making group is that you're accountable to as the leader?
[09:40] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, I think that that's really important. And in my case, it was perhaps even more acute than the way you described it because we were living in a small, at least logistically, relatively small area where the school community was most densely located. And most of the people who were on the board, as you can imagine, had a particularly invested interest in the success of the school. Many were parents, grandparents, or somehow had relatives within the school. And so that created a lot of familiality, which on the one hand is a nice thing to sort of have that family type environment. On the other hand, it created complications in terms of getting out into the community, having some personal space, all these kinds of things.
[10:21]
But anyway, in response specifically to the question, I think that this was interesting advice actually that I got. I read about this in the book, how there was an individual who was very instrumental in my days prior to moving into this position in a different community into helping me advance through a master's degree program and also just generally to provide advice and guidance and whatnot into this whole leadership transition. And we sat down for breakfast during the summer between my first and second year in the position. I asked him for advice and he said to me, you have to own your board. And by that, he meant that I needed to really develop personal relationships with at least the key members of the board. I needed to be able to communicate very effectively, be above board, pardon the pun, but with the key people, especially the board's chair, so that we're really communicating effectively.
[11:12]
And a lot of this has to do with the work you do prior to the board meeting or in between the board meetings. You can't just show up on the day of the board meeting and sort of like wing it. In order for a board to really back you, They have to understand a lot of the dynamics at play prior to the meeting so that when you sit down together, there's a fundamental understanding. Number one, you don't have the time to make every point crystal clear during that meeting if you want to be able to get out before midnight. And number two, you want to be able to start earning people on your side or sort of pulling them over to provide that support so that when it comes time to vote, they've already more or less made their decision. So, you know, nurturing the board relationship is really important.
[11:57]
Providing them with feedback about how you're doing with some type of benchmark that indicates, you know, how you're meeting the particular responsibilities that you have, other metrics that you can use to demonstrate how the school is progressing in general. I think those are the kinds of things you want to be looking at in order to get them on your side. And to the degree that you can, you don't want to blur the lines, but to the degree that you can, whether it's through regular meetings, in my case, it was through the study of Torah, actually, through the study of the Bible, through understanding some of our sacred texts, because this was a religious school. To have that opportunity to sit with certain members of the board and kind of develop a non-academic, non-school relationship around something that we cherish and value, I think that that really helped just to sort of create more comfort and peace with the other people.
[12:51]
so that it allowed you to kind of work through what was important and not perhaps let ego or any type of relational distance get in the way.
[13:03] SPEAKER_02:
Yeah, I think that relationship is so powerful because really, aside from the fact that it makes everyone's job easier, so much information can come through that relationship. We don't want to find out in the board meeting when they take a vote that we have a difference of opinion. We want to know that ahead of time, get on the same page ahead of time. And I think that's a surprise for a lot of people who've never really worked with a board. And I think it wasn't until after I had been a principal for several years that I actually took a class on nonprofit management and board relations. Because as a teacher and public school administrator, the board is miles and miles away.
[13:38]
You never talk to the school board. You never meet the school board. So I think for anyone who's transitioning, say, into an international school role or an independent school role, That's a really critical understanding. And I think you have some great advice in the book, Becoming the New Boss, on relating to your board and building trust and building those relationships. I wonder if we could talk about other shifts in thinking and in understanding that we need to make when we're moving into a leadership role. What are some of the shifts that you identified in the way that leaders need to think differently from perhaps in their previous role?
[14:11] SPEAKER_00:
Yeah, I think there are a few areas that we could focus on. One of them has to do with the way by which we manage change. You know, so for example, if a person is a teacher, in most cases, they may have change that's mandated to them, whether it's something like Common Core, you know, some outside expectation on curricular change or things of the sort or administratively, et cetera. But they have to a large degree autonomy over their classroom. And so they'll have the ability to make personal curricular decisions. They can make decisions with regards to when they break and when they this and when they that and and how they interact with parents, et cetera, et cetera, all obviously within the framework that the school has created.
[14:52]
But again, there's a lot of independence, and they're working with children. And so it's a little bit of a different dynamic. When somebody moves into a leadership position, they really have to understand the interpersonal component of change. They have to understand elements of fear that creep in because anything that's change-related is unfamiliar, and it offers potentially some threats to the way that we operate. They have to understand, you know, who are the players and what are their concerns and what are the benefits. And really to create the vision to allow those benefits to rise to the top, to let people really see what are going to be the end goals in all of this is ultimately going to make it all worthwhile.
[15:31]
So an example of this that comes to mind is at my school we had something called PBIS, which many of your listeners I'm sure will be familiar with. Positive Behaviors Instruments and Supports, which is a national organization, national movement that really tries to create a standards-based approach and values-based approach to behavior modification and whatnot among students. And this was driven by a segment of our teachers who felt that student comportment really wasn't what it needed to be and we needed to improve it and this and that. There wasn't full agreement there. A number of the teachers felt that the students were behaving just fine. It really wasn't an area that we needed to focus on.
[16:11]
And so we needed to be able to create a groundswell of momentum, getting people on board with the idea that we can, instead of being reactive to student conduct, we could be proactive in messaging what we want and what it looks like in different environments, different settings, different contexts within the school building. And then we needed to model that behavior as the adults in the school and getting people sort of transitioning through that process, working through which values we're going to embrace and how we're gonna roll it out to the students and how we're gonna reinforce it with positive as well as with negative consequences and all these kinds of things. All of that was an example of taking an environment, a culture, which was sort of used to one particular way of doing things and bringing them along to a point where it became part and parcel of who we were.
[17:02]
And the enthusiasm was palpable, not just from the students, but from the teachers. And in many cases, even more from the teachers, because I think they really saw what they were going to get out of it. And that helped them a lot.
[17:14] SPEAKER_02:
Yeah. There's so much communication that you can do when you kind of understand where people are and how that change needs to be communicated. You know, I think as leaders, we have access to so much information. You know, so many people bring things to us, share their perspectives with us. We see things across different classrooms and we forget that often that information is totally invisible. unless we communicate it, unless we share it.
[17:37]
So on the communication front, what are some of your key pieces of advice to new leaders on communicating with staff?
[17:45] SPEAKER_00:
Well, again, I'm going to tap a little bit into personal experience. When I first got to the school, my predecessor, who again was an older gentleman, not a digital native by any means, did not even own a smartphone. So he was not the texting type. He certainly wasn't using social media and things like that. And now a new guy shows up with his freshly minted Blackberry. And that alone became a totally different type of experience, much more texting, much more utilization of the phone.
[18:14]
In fact, and I'll come back to the communication in just a second, we were using an online program in order to be able to measure teacher effectiveness in our walkthroughs and our observations. And a number of the teachers and students said, did not realize what I was doing and thought I was coming into their classroom and texting in the classroom. And so that created somewhat of an angst, as you can imagine, to the point where I just put the BlackBerry away. I mean, I kept it on my hip, but I didn't take it out in the classroom. And I went back with a clipboard and a piece of paper and did it the old-fashioned way and then converted it in my office to what it needed to be in order to get into our system. And so communication...
[18:55]
we really have to think about what is the nature of the message, how will it best be communicated. I warn in the book about using email in the wrong type of way. Personal communication in most cases, especially if it has an element that could raise a little bit of the temperature and angst and whatnot, be best delivered in person, wherever that's possible. I talk about having somebody reread or edit My email before I send it to somebody else, you know, kind of sleeping on it, but also getting some feedback. How would this be perceived by you? Because a lot of communication is nonverbal.
[19:32]
It relates to our physical relationship, where we are, where we sit vis-a-vis the person who we are talking to. It has to do with our body language, our facial gestures, our tone. And none of that could be replicated using email. None of that could be replicated using text or any other type of social media. certainly even with the emojis, it certainly doesn't have the same type of feel. And what's also interesting is that people, there's been a lot of research done, people overestimate their ability to read whether somebody is being serious or sarcastic, for example.
[20:06]
So we think that the person intended X, and in reality, their intention was something different. So I think it really is important for us to try to be good listeners, try to create safe and regular opportunities to be a listener, whether that's through walking around, you know, getting into classrooms, being visible, whether it's coming to visit a teacher, in most cases, best off in her classroom when there's, you know, there isn't class and you could sit at her desk or maybe go out to Starbucks or whatever it might be, have those conversations and do it in a way that creates that bond, creates that openness. I find that that really helped me. And in the beginning, you know, The absence of that to some degree hurt me as far as building that equity and really getting people on board with the stuff that I needed to do afterwards. You know, communication is sort of like you indicated earlier.
[20:57]
It's like the portal to whatever else needs to happen. And you could have great ideas. You could have wonderful thoughts and all the best strategies in the world to help the school grow and help the teachers and all of that. But if they don't buy into you, and John Maxwell talks about this, if they don't buy into you as a leader, You know, if you haven't created that trust and created that relationship, then in most cases, even if they like the message, because they don't like the messenger, it's going to impact your ability to deliver. And frankly, it may ultimately result in, you know, you parting ways much sooner than you would have liked. So it really is something that I think everybody needs to be mindful of as far as getting things done and really helping a school grow.
[21:40] SPEAKER_02:
Well, and I think that's a good segue into the support that we need as leaders. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about coaching, because I know certainly I had the benefit of working with a number of different leadership coaches. And I know there's sometimes a stigma associated with coaching, that it's remedial or something like that. But I was fortunate to be in a district that just provided leadership coaching to new administrators as a routine matter and really benefited from working working with people like Carolyn Gellerman from the University of Washington and Yaro Durbin from Courage to Teach and really just had a thinking partner in that new role that can be so isolating. So what's your advice on working with a coach?
[22:24] SPEAKER_00:
Well, I guess I'm a little bit biased because that's what I've chosen to move into professionally at this point and to a large degree because I saw the benefits of coaching. I will tell you that in the book, I don't speak about coaching specifically. I talk more about mentoring. and getting a mentor. But I think that a coach is certainly a very viable either alternative or perhaps supplement to what I talk about, which is mentoring. But to answer your question, I think that a coach is a great idea because what coaches do, just for clarification for those not familiar, coaches are not there to tell you what to do.
[22:57]
That's really more of what a consultant does. A coach is there to ask questions, to help a client get more clarity about what he or she really wants, what are their limiting beliefs, what are their holdups, their hangups, whatever those might be, and to help them have those breakthrough experiences where through the questioning and through the conversation, they identify more effective ways forward. And then to hold those people accountable with clear, whether we call them SMART goals or other types of measures, things that are going to really help them identify processes forward, attach timetables to it, in order to make sure that that progress is happening and is effective. When I talk about in the book about mentoring, it's really with the same idea, but the focus there is to find somebody ideally who has experience in your particular field, who can speak to those experiences, but at the same time has enough sense and enough humility to not just be there as the big brother providing all of the answers or big sister, but really trying to, you know,
[24:03]
tap into those experiences where appropriate, but still give the mentee the latitude that he or she needs in order to kind of find their own way. So it gives you the support like you talked about. It gives you somebody you can turn to because it is an isolating position. I write about that in the book as well. You know, when I remember when I was in graduate school, I read a book that basically said that the classroom teacher is the loneliest position in the world because you go into your classroom and you close the door and you're with kids and you really don't have that adult in your let's call a professional space where you can confide in and relate to on a regular basis. And while there's a lot of truth to that, I think that school leadership is even more isolating and lonely simply because of the fact that you have in many ways, nowhere to turn to within your building.
[24:50]
You don't want to turn to the board when you feel vulnerable because that's only going to make it feel worse. You don't necessarily want to turn to the people below you administratively and certainly not your teachers because you don't want to look bad, et cetera, et cetera. And so you need somebody who is safe, who is supportive, who understands what you're dealing with and will provide that type of encouragement as well as those ideas and give you perspective that goes beyond your immediate space. So that you can feel confident that you're moving in the right direction. And yet, you know, you have somebody who you can turn to when things get rough, not only to vent, but also to brainstorm and to come up with solutions.
[25:29] SPEAKER_02:
Absolutely. And I like to kind of do a little exercise to get myself clear on kind of what I need to do next and then figure out how I need to get additional assistance with that. You know, there's kind of an infinite number of people who serve as coaches or consultants or who have advice positions. that you can follow. And certainly we both fall into that camp of people who provide advice for other people to consider following. What I like to do is I like to look at kind of the whole landscape.
[25:54]
And for example, just the table of contents of your book is a great tour of kind of the leadership landscape. And then I like to think to myself, if I were hiring so-and-so as a coach, what advice would they give me just based on what I know that they already teach? And that's kind of my how to get free coaching from someone and then figure out where to go further. And I think often we can get ourselves started on the direction there and figure out some of those blind spots like, oh yeah, I really need to be thinking about relationships or I really need to be thinking about my relationship with the board. And then if I get into that and I realize, okay, I actually do need an external partner here, that's where it can become worthwhile to pursue that coaching. Because I think the challenge of working with a coach is that the coach kind of only knows what you tell them.
[26:38]
And that was something that I experienced working with my coaches is if I chose not to share something that was relevant, then they would be in the dark about that and not able to kind of give me the perspective that I needed. So I really had to know how to use that coach. And I think having that kind of sense of the lay of the land can really, really help with that. So the book is Becoming the New Boss, The New Leader's Guide to Sustained Success. And Naftali, if people want to reach out to you, learn more about your coaching and consulting, where can they find you online?
[27:09] SPEAKER_00:
So they can find me at my website, which is impactfulcoaching.com. And they can shoot me an email. You can send it directly to me at nhoff.com. at impactfulcoaching.com, or they can send it to info at impactfulcoaching.com.
[27:22]
It'll all make its way to me. But I love to have conversations as well. Part of what I just talked about, certainly want to practice what I preach. And we can be reached at area code 212-470-6139.
[27:36]
I'll say that number again, 212-470-6139.
[27:40] SPEAKER_02:
Well, it has been a pleasure to speak with you again, my friend. Thank you so much for joining us on Principal Center Radio.
[27:46] SPEAKER_00:
Thank you very much, Justin. I really appreciate the opportunity. It's been a pleasure chatting with you, and I hope we'll have an opportunity again down the road.
[27:54] SPEAKER_01:
And now, Justin Bader on high-performance instructional leadership.
[27:58] SPEAKER_02:
So high-performance instructional leaders, what did you take away from my conversation with Naftali Hoff about becoming a new leader, moving into a new leadership role? I really want to re-emphasize the kind of awareness or the kind of blind spot issue that we touched on at the beginning and then again there at the end when we were talking about coaching. I think there's an infinite number of things we could be thinking about that we could be be worried about and that can be overwhelming if you're aware of it and it can be dangerous if you're not aware of that landscape right so we've got to really gain some perspective from other people from a book like Naftali's from working with a coach and then once we've kind of done that scan of the landscape you know what are the issues that I just need to be aware of in terms of my leadership and the challenges that I face.
[28:50]
And then within those, I need to prioritize what's going to get my attention. I need to prioritize what's going to get my focus. And specifically, I recommend that you keep your priorities in a document and you just actually make it explicit for yourself. You actually write down what your priorities are, and I call that your leadership agenda. At the same time, when you're writing out your leadership agenda, you want to make sure to specify what is not yet a priority or might never be a priority that is going to keep popping up no matter what you do. People are going to keep bringing it to you.
[29:25]
If there is something that you are choosing not to take on, as an element of your work, as an element of your leadership, you need to be really clear with yourself about that because you need to protect your time and your focus so that you can be effective in what you are focusing on and not distracted by the infinite number of things that you're not currently focused on. So again, Naftali's book is Becoming the New Boss, The New Leader's Guide to Sustained Success. And if you'd like to learn more about developing a leadership agenda, that's a topic that we cover in our members-only podcast, High Performance Habits. If you become a Principal Center Pro member, we will give you instant access to that podcast where you can listen just like you're listening now. So I want to encourage you to check out our Principal Center Pro membership, and you can learn more about that at principalcenter.com slash join.
[30:14] Announcer:
Thanks for listening to Principal Center Radio. For more great episodes, subscribe on our website at principalcenter.com slash radio.
