How important is resilience to your leadership?

The past few years have thrown our schools into many situations where there just aren't any playbooks to guide us.

✏️ School closures from the pandemic.

✏️ Mask policies.

✏️ Reopening schools.

✏️ Navigating budget fluctuations.

No surprise that the average time in office for a district superintendent is hovering around three years.

If there ever was a time to build resilience in education leadership, now would be it.

We can't predict what the next crisis is going to look like.

And fighting yesterday's war by over-indexing on SOPs for the last crisis rather than preparing for the next one is a rookie mistake.

But how do we go about doing this?

Recently, I had the great pleasure of speaking with Dr. Todd Cutler, Superintendent of Lake Tahoe Unified School District, and we spent a large part of our chat talking about leadership resilience, making mistakes, and building the next generation of leaders in schools.

Here are three key takeaways I had from the conversation:

1. Composure in the face of chaos

As a veteran superintendent, one of the things I noticed immediately about Dr. Cutler was his calmness even when speaking about massive disruptions.

I asked him specifically about it, and he said:

"I believe that when you're in this role, the role of the superintendent or leading an organization in any way, that you have to be a model of stability, of balance. You can't be up and down.”

You may not be able to control many of the things that are happening to your schools, or even the emotions you feel towards them, but you can control how you respond.

Demonstrate stability and calm first, to instill confidence and clear thinking in your team. Then respond together from the best possible place psychologically.

2. Reflect on successes and failures

Reflection on both successes and failures is essential for leadership development. Dr. Cutler stresses learning from experiences without holding onto negative outcomes.

"You got to learn from it. But the other mistake would be to let it haunt you, meaning you got to let it go."

Experimentation, calculated risks, and reflecting on outcomes—whether triumphant or falls short—form the bedrock of progressive leadership.

Notably, this approach creates a culture where failures are not stigmatized but instead serve as pivotal learning moments that drive the collective forward.

3. Build enduring leadership capabilities beyond yourself

"Good leaders don't do anything alone. They find others to really help carry the ball forward."

A secret to building resilience in leadership is ensuring that the mantle of being a leader is carried by more than just one person.

This starts with clearly identifying the strengths and talents of the people around you that help get work done successfully. Whether this is done by honed intuition or a well-executed assessment strategy doesn't really matter.

Once you've established that baseline, then it's time to figure out how to build leaders at every level within your schools and administration.

By identifying potential leaders, nurturing their skills through workshops, and providing them with real-world problems of practice, Dr. Cutler ensures a pipeline of well-prepared leaders ready to take on higher responsibilities. This has broad implications: such leaders are more likely to be resilient, adaptive, and innovative, traits crucial for fostering a robust educational environment.

Don't take my word for it.

Listen to the full interview with Dr. Cutler on the Engaging Leadership podcast, or read the accompanying article with his own personal leadership assessment tools that he uses.

Enjoy,

CT at Engaging Leadership

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