Ideas & Inspirations

There was a time in my leadership journey when I took quiet pride in being essential. If I stepped away and things got messy, I noticed. If decisions stalled without me, I noticed. If people came to me afterward saying, “We needed you,” I definitely noticed. And if I am being honest, part of me liked it. It felt like proof that what I was doing mattered. Proof that I was making an impact. Proof that the organization was stronger because I was there. At least that is how I interpreted it at the time. Over the years, though, I began to notice something that made me uncomfortable. The more things depended on me, the more limited they actually were. Progress slowed when my attention was elsewhere. Growth was constrained by my availability. Improvement only happened when I personally pushed it forward. What I once viewed as influence began to look more like bottleneck. That realization forced me to reconsider something I had never really questioned before. What does it actually mean ...

Tomorrow is Presidents Day. A day traditionally set aside to honor Washington and Lincoln. A day that, in many ways, helped shape the origins of Black History Month, which was initially tied to Lincoln’s birthday and the Emancipation Proclamation. A document that served as a catalyst toward the end of legalized slavery in the United States. That is the version many of us were taught. Clear. Direct. Moral. But history is rarely that simple. Over time, scholars and historians have made it clear that Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation purely from moral conviction. It was also a strategic military decision designed to weaken the Confederacy and preserve the Union. Lincoln himself made this clear in an 1862 letter to Horace Greeley when he wrote that if he could save the Union without freeing any slaves, he would do it. If freeing some or all would save it, he would do that instead. His priority was the survival of the Union. He also expressed views about race that are ...

I recently helped facilitate a leadership training session with school leaders. During our time together, we posed two simple questions: What is a recent leadership win? and What is a current leadership struggle? A pattern emerged immediately. When leaders spoke about wins, nearly every response centered on their team or their school. Success was collective, shared, and outward-facing. When we turned to struggles, the shift was stark. Almost every answer became deeply personal. Leaders spoke candidly about their own shortcomings, blind spots, and areas for growth. When we pointed this out, the room grew quiet. The realization landed. Reflection matters. Continuous improvement matters. But so does recognizing your own victories. Too many leaders are experts at accountability and amateurs at celebration. I know this because I live it. I struggle with personal praise, with public recognition, with allowing myself to simply receive a compliment. A therapist could likely trace that bac...

Today marks the first day of Black History Month. Those who genuinely honor this month understand that Black pride, excellence, and contribution do not begin on February 1 nor end on February 28. Still, starting here felt intentional. It felt necessary. Many of you have likely seen the film Sinners . If you have not, you should. Recently, the film returned to the public conversation following the Golden Globe Awards. Sinners earned seven Golden Globe nominations , a significant acknowledgment of its reach and resonance. Of those seven, the film received two awards . One was for Best Original Score , an honor that was not aired during the broadcast. The other was for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement , a category tied largely to revenue and audience turnout rather than artistic evaluation. For many, those outcomes felt unsatisfying. Not because recognition did not occur, but because of how it occurred. The film was present in the conversation, yet absent when the major artistic ca...

 “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.” Over the past few months, the first half of that statement has been everywhere. Good. Better. Best. It became a mantra tied to the Chicago Bears’ unexpected season and their return to the playoffs. For many fans, those words felt new. Fresh. Energizing. They were not new to me. Years ago, when I was principal at Plato, we talked a great deal about excellence. Not as a buzzword, and certainly not as a synonym for perfection. We talked about excellence as doing the best you possibly can with what you have, where you are. There was a stretch of time when we began many of our mornings with the full mantra, not just the catchy first line. The emphasis mattered. We were intentional about framing excellence as personal growth rather than comparison. Today should be better than yesterday. This week better than last week. This month better than last month. This year better than last year. If t...

Tomorrow, Indiana University will head to its first football championship in quite some time. They are undefeated and, by any objective measure, having an incredible season. This creates a problem for me. I am a Purdue graduate. My wife is a Purdue graduate. One of our daughters is a Purdue graduate. The rivalry between Purdue and IU is not subtle. Walk around Purdue’s campus and you will see “IU sucks” signs. It is a chant shouted after every kickoff, regardless of who Purdue is actually playing. Rivalries like this are baked into identity. So of course, we have given our other daughter and anyone else who graduated from IU a hard time. The same goes for friends and family who attend or are considering attending. That is part of the culture. Playful banter. Ribbing. A shared understanding that allegiance comes with jokes at someone else’s expense. And that is where it should end. Healthy rivalry creates space for competition without contempt. It pushes each side to sharpen its ed...

During this past holiday season, I attended my wife’s holiday party. It was exactly what you would expect from a room full of educators. Easy laughter, shared frustrations, food, drinks, and that lightened emotional state that comes when the end of a quarter and a break are finally in sight. As we sat talking, my wife and her colleagues started pointing out the “babies” who had recently joined her team. New teachers. Fresh energy. Wide-eyed optimism. At some point, we realized something that stopped us for a moment. Some of them were the same age as our own kids. Then one of her colleagues walked in, stopped in her tracks, and stared at me. She looked familiar, but I could not immediately place her. She eventually sat with us and said, almost casually, that I had been her principal at Thea Bowman. I was only at Thea Bowman for one year. It was my first year as a principal. I was thirty years old and, if I am honest, there were plenty of moments when I questioned whether I should be run...