If you are feeling the pressure right now maybe you need to ditch your superhero cape for a moment and find some other heroes to help. It’s about distributing the load.
Sort of like this –
So who are these other potential heroes in your school and why might they not be sharing the load with you?
I’d suggest they are to be found everywhere; amongst the team leaders, the teachers, the admin crew, the caretaker . . . Sure, not everyone in your school has superhero qualities – but plenty will. And then the question really becomes; why, in this time of need, are they possibly not standing with you, distributing the load?
Well, it might just be that you haven’t left a space for them to join you. When superman/superwoman is in the house, no-one else offers to take the lid off the jam jar.
As a favourite thought leader of ours, Seth Godin says –
It’s easy to use our indispensability as fuel. Fuel to speak up and contribute. That’s important. But it’s also possible for that same instinct to backfire, and for us to believe that if we don’t do it, it won’t get done right.
That’s unlikely.
Using the power of a pandemic to bring people together, now may be the perfect time to shuffle to the side a bit, make space and invite them to share the load.
However, some school leaders can be intimidating. They’re used to being in charge and potentially project an aura of perfection, of always knowing what to do and doing it perfectly.
To get others to step forward and shoulder the load, you need to be able to park your ego, – and and trust them to “get it done right”. To be, as Brene Brown explains so well, vulnerable. And if this way of working is foreign to your team, it’s going to take some deliberate actions by you to make the changes necessary.
It’s worth it though – one superhero is good, but a team of superheroes is unbeatable.
Dave