Page 3 of 3

Posted on

On Leadership

I’ve been thinking a lot about leadership lately. No doubt some of the impetus is reflection on my own personal and professional experience, but I’ve also seen recent news items: one superintendent changing districts, another retiring, a campus principal and long-time friend receiving national recognition for a simple act. I’ve also heard personal stories from several other friends and acquaintances in leadership roles about their life changes. As someone who’s unabashedly and unapologetically philosophical, things like this get my brain going.

I happen to love leadership. Not from the standpoint of having the illusion of power or the ability to make decisions. I just love stepping up and helping a group get things done. Throughout my academic career, I gravitated toward leadership roles, from being on the old Safety Patrol in elementary school to serving as president of Kappa Kappa Psi, my honorary band fraternity, in college. When I was in high school, I became a drum major of the marching band, something I did through college. 7 years total as a drum major, plus 16 years teaching drum major/leadership camps to high school students. Those 16 years as an instructor are really why I became a teacher, because I enjoyed the learning process so much as I helped students discover their own abilities as leaders. It’s fair to say leadership as a pursuit has helped shape my life.

When I moved to central administration, I pursued a Master of Education degree in Educational Leadership (naturally). I actually had never previously anticipated getting a Master’s degree. I saw myself remaining a classroom teacher for roughly 30-40 years, then walking away. I didn’t want the disciplinary and other hassles that came with being an Assistant Principal, nor the politics that came with almost every position higher than that. But even as a classroom teacher, I was always willing to step up as a campus leader, so when the opportunity to split my work 50/50 as a teacher/“data specialist,” I took it. Campus Data Specialist meant I managed the state and local assessments for the campus. Not a lofty title, but it was leadership – getting things done, and helping teachers and students deal with a thankless but required task. Eventually, I moved up to District Testing Coordinator at central office – also a leadership role, now getting things done by helping campus administrators manage their own thankless but required tasks. And hence, the desire for an M.Ed. to help me fulfill the role better, and maybe move up the ranks if that was in the cards.

“Are you about to segue into a blathering list of all the things that are important qualities of a leader?”

No, you can find that kind of stuff with a simple web search and get all the leadership info your heart desires. What I can offer are a few simple guidelines about what good leadership is, based on my background and experience, along with some examples, good and bad, that I’ve encountered in my career.

So, the rules:

  1. Leadership boils down to two things: Inspiration and Influence. The leader inspires others toward the organization or group’s goals based on their conduct and character. The leader influences other sometimes by directing people to do specific things, but mostly by setting an example and doing those same things themselves.
  2. The central purpose of the leader is to get the appropriate things done for the group or organization and its members. That often means delegating to others who answer the proverbial call, but sometimes that may mean doing certain things yourself, and you’d better be willing to do it. There’s really only one question at center of the leader’s focus regarding decisions, actions, directives, or behavior: “Does this benefit the group or organization and its members?”
  3. If there’s an essential quality of leaders that should reign above all others, it is Humility. Once you’ve convinced yourself that you know all, or you’re above certain tasks or rules, or you should be the sole arbiter of everything, you’re lost. That’s not leadership; it’s power. Humble yourself and recognize the value of everyone in the group or organization.
  4. There are multiple “right” ways to do everything. Flexibility is essential for leaders. If you’re not willing to change things up, then you’re not learning. And if you’re not learning, you’re stagnant. Organizations are like rivers: the water’s going to flow as long as there’s a sufficient source. The leader’s role is really to elicit the flow from the source and guide it in the proper direction. But just like a river, the organization can meander over time as needed because of different approaches toward the goal. That’s not dysfunction, it’s progress.
  5. There’s really no such thing as a “servant leader” separate from “other” leaders. ALL leaders, if they’re doing it correctly, are serving the group or organization and its members. The term “servant leader” is just virtue-signaling lingo based on the notion that leadership is about power, so somehow the “servant leader” differentiates themselves. It’s a little disingenuous because it assumes the worst in people in leadership roles.

Having made those observations from my own experience, I am happy to say that the majority of the supervisors for whom I served were more good than bad as leaders. My first principal was a flawed individual, but his heart was in the right place, he meant well, and he was generally flexible about how to run the campus and made adjustments over time. My second principal was opening a new high school and was very much the picture of inspiration and influence. She thought more big-picture and allowed others to hammer out the details, and that collaborative approach and helped establish a strong culture for the campus. Principals 3 and 4 were similar to my first principal in that they were good-hearted and flexible, and both were remarkably free from serious flaws. So yeah, I experienced a relatively charmed professional life at my first two campus stops.

Normally, I don’t identify my specific campuses, districts, or any individuals in my posts because this blog is not about grinding axes; it’s about sharing insights and experiences. But I will occasionally break this rule to call out particularly positive individuals for their contributions to the education profession in general and to me, personally. Today I’ll break the rule three times. Here’s the first one: Dr. Teresa Stegall. She was my first boss in central administration as the Director of the department in which I served as Coordinator. In a word, Impeccable. She embodied every one of the five rules I listed above. The picture of grace and humility. I suspect she maintained such a great attitude because she had literally fulfilled every duty in the department by herself at one time or another in the past, and she had empathy not just for the department members, but for people across the entire district. She knew my own strengths and played to them, including making use of my interest in voiceover. She was also willing to do the work, as well, like the time she asked me to take an online course in Microsoft Access to enhance my skills, then took the course herself along with me because she knew she would also benefit. Her character was, and is, unimpeachable, and she remains both a friend and mentor to this day.

Dr. Stegall ultimately retired from her position as Director, and after some reorganization by the district (another long tale for another post), the department simply didn’t operate the same. So I left that district after 25 years for potentially greener proverbial pastures. And while the upper administrators in my new district were excited to bring my personality and skills to town, I soon found that the new leader of that department would be the absolute worst leader I encountered in three decades in public education. I won’t call out this individual by name (frankly, it may as well be Voldemort, because we do not speak that name), but I recently ran across my exit letter to district Human Resources upon leaving, and Holy. Cow.

The exit letter was very factual and intended to document as many problems with inconsistent and poor leadership of the department as possible. 9 pages, 5,300 words. (!!!) I won’t bore you with details, but here are a couple of highlights to give you a sense of the issues:

  • I was hired in part because I brought an innovative approach to training and communication, including better layouts for department documents. When I revised a state assessment annual overview to increase its visual appeal, I was told, “Well, the one we had seemed to work just fine for 7 years.” Uh-Huh. Lack of flexibility: check. Lack of humility: check. Lovely. Passive-aggressive, too? Bonus.
  • On another occasion, I requested a testing check-in document from a previous year and was told, “I’m not going to share last year’s because you’ll just change it, anyway.” Wow, throw in some more passive-aggressiveness as the cherry on top.

And where Dr. Stegall appreciated my voiceover aspirations and worked to involve them in my work, Lord Voldemort here seemed to resent them because it meant I wasn’t taking tasks home and working until 9:00pm like they were. What a disaster that year was.

Fortunately, the proverbial skies parted the following year as I returned to a high school campus and served under the next leader who I shall highlight, Laigha Boyle. She was easily the hardest-working principal for whom I ever worked and aLeo embodies the rules I listed earlier. In fact, if there’s a flaw in Mrs. Boyle’s approach to leadership, it’s probably that she was a little too willing to do some things herself at times. But I know as she progresses in her career, she’ll develop more willingness to delegate. I wish her luck, as she has departed Texas public education to continue her career in New Mexico.

But I will save the best for last: Jason Mutterer. You might have heard the name. He is a long-time friend and colleague of mine going back to the late 1990s when we were the only two male World Geography teachers at a dedicated ninth-grade campus for a larger high school. We actually entered the profession the same year, 1994. I tapped out after 31 years, but Jason is still going strong. He endured a fair amount of political nonsense on his journey in educational leadership, but he’s now the principal of the high school we both helped open in 2002, and he went viral on a national (and perhaps worldwide) scale this summer. Check it out if here you haven’t watched it. That action on his part – hand-writing a note to every senior for graduation – reveals his character, his commitment to his campus and its students, and his approach to leadership, in general. I’m certain his faculty and staff can tell stories that reflect his commitment specifically to them. I’ve known of his compassion and character for roughly three decades, and it’s been gratifying to see him persevere through hurdles in his own career, and now to see him receive well-deserved recognition for what is ultimately a simple but powerful gesture. It was a few months ago, but it still resonates, and it inspires others. But if you want to see the real reason Jason is such an effective leader, go to the 4:45 and 7:15 marks of the linked video and listen to him. Humility. “There’s a lot of people who could sit in this chair today.” He deflects the focus away from himself and talks about how his entire staff connects with students, how so many educators are doing similar things to serve their students, and we should celebrate them all. He managed to gain a free trip to New York and an appearance on the Today show, and he used the platform to showcase and uplift others. That, friends, is a leader.

Posted on

Ode to Presentation Skills

Let’s talk Presentation Skills. You should probably get some if you will present something to a group of people. Or at least if you ever intend to do so. Even if you won’t give any formal presentations, there still may be some value in knowing how to present something – a topic, a philosophy, an argument, even your career or life story. You never know when the moment will arise where it’s necessary to convey a message in a coherent, organized manner.

I attended a voiceover conference this past weekend and sat in on several presentations. It was pretty much all “sit-and-get” with opportunities for questions. As you might expect, it was a mixed bag. But then, these were primarily voiceover artists whose profession regularly calls for them to interpret and deliver the words given to them, not necessarily write their own stuff, so I took a forgiving mindset into the presentations. One presenter eschewed any slides on-screen altogether (quiet hallelujah) and just talked through his points and ideas. That was admittedly a risky approach, but he was knowledgeable enough that he could proceed in this way and help everyone in the room gain useful information. Others committed some proverbial cardinal sins of presentations. Clearly they were not quite polished enough, but that was fine for this particular conference.

The experience reminded me that I have given hundreds of presentations. I’m good at it, maybe even great. Last year, one of my colleagues, after a presentation I made to our faculty, suggested I should become a professional presenter (not sure there is such a thing besides emcee work; there’s usually an area of expertise as a foundation). It’s definitely a skill I’ve cultivated, but I had to get good at it: I taught government and economics for 19 years, classes that were required for graduation but were not exactly at the top of any student’s  wish list. Then when I moved toward administration, I specialized in testing for another 12 years. Testing, where the topics really got mind-numbing…I mean, “challenging” – mostly compliance-oriented training on such wildly popular topics as test security & confidentiality, testing irregularities, testing procedures, student accommodations, and so forth. No one was ever busting down my door begging for a presentation. Sometimes I did get requests from specific groups needing specific training on specific topics that I understood and they didn’t. But even then, the topics were Sahara-desert dry. The point is, I developed strong presentation skills because I knew that if I Ben-Stein-ed my way through it (you know Ben Stein, don’t you? “Anyone…anyone…Bueller?”), my audience is gone almost immediately. I had to be engaging, energetic, and focused on what the takeaway of this nonsense I’m talking about is. Otherwise it’s just boring political and bureaucratic talk, or “the dismal science,” or that awful testing stuff we have to do every year.

I have also attended hundreds of presentations, many of which were excellent, but most of which, honestly, were somewhere between mediocre and brutally bad. Some even seemed impressive but were actually terrible, like the time a curriculum supervisor was supposed to be talking about her district’s correlation between its curriculum development and assessment, but she A) talked so fast and B) spent so much time lavishing praise on her own district and its leadership, I wonder how anyone was supposed to decipher any kind of point from it, let alone glean ways that their own district could use this information. I found myself just wanting the PowerPoint in PDF format so I could try to figure out anything I could actually use. Just stop talking already and please let me read instead.

Did you see that dreaded word in the previous paragraph? PowerPoint. Insert your own shuddering reaction here. Don’t get me wrong – PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides, Canva, Prezi – they’re all wonderful, powerful tools capable of enhancing your presentation. But they are tools. At the end of the day, no one cares how impressive the builder’s hammer was; they care about what the builder actually built. And set of PowerPoint slides is only as effective as the message the presenter delivers with them. Transitions, animations, little GIFs embedded in Canva, etc. – they’re all nerdy and sometimes cool things in the programming, but they don’t make the presentation itself any more interesting. Sometimes they actually distract.

By now, you’re probably asking, “Okay, since you’re such a pro at presentations, what should everyone be doing to be like you, smart guy? HUH?!?” The answers are simpler than you might think. From my experience, a good presentation comes down to 5 core ideas:

  1. The old adage, “Begin with the End in Mind.” Don’t just start making slides or writing down notes to read from. Ask yourself, “what ideas or skills should people attending my presentation gain?” Someone who spends their time listening to you ought to get value out of that time. What value will you provide? Plan the takeaways for the audience before you plan the bullets and graphics and speaking points for yourself. Educators should easily recognize these as “learning objectives,” and you need them before you start deciding what to show and say.
  2. If you’re using slides, keep them limited, relevant, and visually engaging. No one, and I mean NO ONE, enjoys experiencing “Death by PowerPoint,” where the presenter hammers everyone with slide after slide, some of which they don’t even bother to feature. Better to have too few slides than too many. For slides that are primarily text, follow the 6×6 Rule (Maximum 6 lines of text, maximum 6 words per line), but be willing to break it if you need to. Use graphics when possible, but make sure the audience can decipher them and that they actually add to your message.
  • Side Note: I used to know a central administrator who insisted that PowerPoint presentations by administrators, particularly campus principals, should be graphics-only with zero text, because “the audience should be listening to words, not reading them.” This was one of the WORST takes I ever heard in my education career. (I believe the technical term is “horsesh**.”) Obviously, don’t beat people down with overloaded text on a slide, but graphics-only slides are useful for effect. They are NOT the norm.
  1. PREPARE what you’re going to SAY. Do Not Read your Slides to your Audience (unless they’re a bunch of toddlers who cannot read yet). Your job is to SPEAK TO the points that appear on-screen. Offer details, tell stories, embellish – these things engage the audience. Reading what everyone can already see is BORING, and it’s brutal for the audience. But I know why you’re reading the slides; I’ve been there. You’re not really prepared to speak. You drew up a slide deck, you don’t really know what to say with it, so you’re just turning your eyes to the screen and reading what’s there. Yes, that is better than fail-smiling to the audience because you’ve got no words, but only by about 0.03%. This is why PowerPoint literally has a Notes field for the Presenter view. If you have to, use it. Better to read prepared notes from your laptop at the podium than reading the words on the screen that they see. But YOU have to PREPARE those notes. If you’re not using slides, then you’d really better be prepared to speak, unless you happen to have the natural ability or the experience to start talking and find your way to a coherent message.
  2. Be Energetic, but Slow Down. There’s a thing in education known as “wait-time,” usually reserved for moments when you pose a question to students and need to pause and allow them to answer. Even in a sit-and-get presentation, wait-time is still essential. People can only process so much auditory and visual stimulation in a given timeframe. If that means you have to cut slides and speech for time, so be it. Edit yourself. Your content isn’t so important that 100% of it is absolutely critical and necessary. Figure it out. Speeding through things just to get through all your slides is poor presenting.
  3. Know your Technology. Use your Technology. If you’re personally managing the slides, know how to advance and reverse them ahead of time. It’s frustrating for your audience when you keep saying “Whoops” and struggling to find the correct frame. And USE THE MICROPHONE. You know that person who says, “I’m loud and ya’ll can probably hear me, so I’m not going to use this.” While it may be true that you’re loud, I’ve already stopped listening now, because you’re an idiot. They gave you a microphone so we can hear you better. Please use it. And if it’s a lavalier (the little clip-on with a transmitter box), please clip it to your shirt and belt like it’s designed. Holding a tiny lavalier microphone at your chin is NOT how it was designed, and you’re causing distortion. We cannot understand you. Ask for help before the presentation, lest you look like an amateur or worse. Figure it out.

When it’s all said and done, your presentation comes down to credibility. You as a presenter at least need to look like you know what you’re doing. Even if you enter the room as an expert in your field, if the audience cannot hear or understand you, if you talk too fast, if you’re just reading the slides, if you have too many slides, or if there seems to be no point to what you’re showing and/or saying, it all falls flat. The ability to maintain coherence and competence with the presentation itself builds credibility for you and ultimately strengthens your message so that people remember the information and are perhaps inspired to use it for their own benefit. And that’s the whole purpose of taking the time to make, and attend, a presentation.

Posted on

No Loyalty, No Problem

Let me begin this post with what might sound like a controversial opinion: K-12 public education is just a job. Yes, it can be a deeply fulfilling one because of the lives an educator can impact. But it is not a vocation. It is not a calling. It is not, as a speaker at a conference I attended several years ago said, “driven by a sense of service and altruism.” At least, it shouldn’t be. You may feel called to teach, as a general principle, or to work with a specific age group or type of student, but you were not called specifically to K-12 public education. One of the best pieces of professional advice I ever received: “Just remember, there’s no loyalty in this business.” One of my friends, a teacher and tennis coach, imparted this wisdom when we were colleagues during my first high school gig many years ago.

I don’t remember his exact words, but the general theme of that conversation was: “You are replaceable. They may praise you and call you valuable, but things can turn immediately. They decide they want you out for some reason, or they want someone else in your position, and you’ll find yourself moving on, like it or not.” Years later, this person found himself honored by the district in its athletic hall of honor for his work as a coach. He graciously accepted the gesture, but I imagine he still remembered occasions when he may have felt unappreciated. Perhaps time has softened those memories; I don’t know. What I do know is 1) he was absolutely right, and 2) there’s really nothing wrong with a lack of loyalty.

Why do we value professional loyalty in the first place? My theory is that society was conditioned for this during the 20th century: Study hard, sign on with an employer, work hard, and you may well be with that same employer for your entire career. You’ll receive promotions and move up in the company until you reach whatever plateau is your professional destiny. Maybe they’ll relocate you at times, but you’ll be a “company man” (or woman) because you’ve worked so hard and given so much for them, and they reciprocate.

Historically, we view public schools in the same way. Look around at the local elementary schools around you. It’s likely that many of them are named for pillars of the district – people who served the local community in different roles, but in the same place, over decades, and the district named a campus after this person. We reward long-time educators who are our best. We also make it difficult to remove any educator who is mediocre or even bad. Once a given teacher has 3 years of experience, it’s incredibly difficult to fire them – districts have to document problems clearly, set up growth plans, and create a path for dismissal over time to remove a teacher. For administrators, there’s more performance incentive and less protection; they work on a year-by-year basis, so the path to removal is much easier for principals and other admin if they underperform. 

But it’s not the 20th century anymore. Whichever path an educator chooses, there’s always an exit ramp, and in the 21st century, that ramp is used more frequently. My surprising take (perhaps not-so-surprising for those who know me well) is that there is nothing wrong with this lack of loyalty, particularly on the part of the educator. Are there situations where a teacher may be “unfairly targeted” by a principal who documents every little thing and makes his/her life miserable for a few years in an effort toward removal? Absolutely. Are these situations rampant? Absolutely not. In my experience, administrators don’t have the time to target anyone. If you’re a teacher on a growth plan, you’re somewhere between mediocre and a full-on problem, and they’re ready, even desperate, to move on from you.

At the administrative level, things honestly get even crazier. Fact: Anyone with “Superintendent” in his/her title, whether as an Assistant, Associate, Deputy, or the head honcho, is as much a politician as an educator. Lots of other central administrators also have political realities embedded in the job. Politics are fickle; the politics of K-12 public education, even more so. Even the most committed, well-meaning educator moving to upper administration could be unfairly affected by the political shifts in a district. It is cruel, but it is reality. And the best administrators I’ve ever known were all deftly able to navigate the political waters while still maintaining a focus on making educationally sound decisions in their work.

Fact #2: This proverbial street (Loyalty Lane is a terrible pun, but it works) goes both ways. If you’re a teacher, of course you should care about your students and do your best to serve them. That’s the job. But at the end of the day, week, month, six weeks, semester, or year, you owe them nothing. Your personal loyalty is to the important people in your life – spouse, family, friends, etc. That’s it. If your campus or district is moving in a direction you cannot abide, make no apologies for seeking opportunity elsewhere. If another opportunity arises unexpectedly, do what is best for you and your family. Even if it’s best to leave the profession and you have that chance, take it. No apologies.

What if you’re an administrator? In the “era of accountability,” where your job performance may be dictated and judged by a (stupid) A-F letter grade in a politicized, oversimplified system that is changed every 5 years by law, you have minimal incentive to stay where you are and “fight the good fight” for a campus, district, or community. The politics of educational administration basically require you to preach about being a “servant leader” and about climate and culture, academic rigor, parent and community engagement, school improvement…all the latest buzzwords. Preach them. Heck, believe them, and do your best to fulfill those lofty concepts. But make no apologies for also leveraging those terms to your next promotion. Your loyalty is to the most important people in your life, not to a campus or district. Beyond doing your best in the here-and-now of your job, you owe them nothing. Maybe you’re content with where you are, and they’re happy with you, but things can turn in what feels like an instant. You could be blindsided and suddenly feel like you’re being forced out.

“Gosh, what a sad perspective on the system.” I am keenly aware of this, but it is a perspective on the system, not the profession. As a naive college student who wanted to teach because he was interested in the learning process itself and in helping students grasp abstract themes and concepts in social studies, I had an idealized view because I viewed teaching as my calling. (I still do.) I saw myself in the classroom for 30+ years, possibly in the same campus. Then I met with reality, and it was…nuanced. I was moved around against my preferences. I received promises that were ultimately not kept. I learned that I was a proverbial cog in the system, serving the needs of the campus or district when it suited them. But I also learned that my calling to teach was simply something that overlapped with the K-12 public education system, though not always 100%. And I learned to take control of my own destiny within that system – switching campuses by choice, going after a promotion, eventually switching districts (twice), and finally, retiring on my own terms. My loyalty remained to myself and my family, and I did what was best for us. At my core, I remain a teacher, but where and how I teach is my choice now. And the 21st century affords me opportunities that are not confined to a bureaucratic system. K-12 public education was my career for 31 years. But in the end, it was just a job.

Posted on

First Trip Around the Blog

Listen to this Post

Above Audio Recorded Using:

  • Microphone – Sennheiser 416
  • Interface – cEntrance PASportVO
  • Hardware – MacBook Air M3 13”
  • Software – TwistedWave
  • Additional Software Treatment – AU HiPass, LoudMax, iZotope RX11 Mouth De-Click

Recorded in my Home Studio

This is not a voiceover blog.

Yes, I am a voiceover talent (I prefer the term “talent” over “artist.”). And that’s Mr. FULL-Time VO Talent to you, thanks to my recent retirement from K-12 education. But this is not a voiceover blog, because frankly it’s been done, and it’s being done, by people with a whole lot more experience doing VO and writing VO blogs than me. I’m not sure I have much to add to that conversation right now.

“So what kind of blog is it, then, ‘Mr. Full-Time VO Talent?’ Is it an education blog?”

Sort of, although education blogs have also been done and are also being done, with better research than I have time or inclination for. Not interested in doing a bunch deep dives into the facts on a particular issue of education. Maybe once in a while. But what I do have is 31 years of experience in K-12 education. And an opinion. And some things to say, I suppose.

“So you’re going to gripe about the education profession in a blog? Lovely. Hasn’t that also been done?”

Absolutely. But I’m not really here to gripe. Sure, 31 years is plenty long enough to give me several axes to grind online. I’ve worked in 3 different districts, in 3 different campuses along with central administration in 2 of those districts, for 9 different direct supervisors, under 8 different superintendents. With a myriad colleagues of all backgrounds and abilities. I’ve experienced and seen some inspiring and fantastic things in education. I’ve also seen some sh** that would make you shake your head or possibly even curse.

What will this blog address among all of that experience and all of those people? T.B.D. I won’t be calling out the worst people I’ve encountered by name. I will most certainly recognize some of the best people by name, because they deserve celebration. But what I will spend most of this blog doing is highlighting systematic issues I’ve observed over 31 years – from the absurd to the sublime.

“Aren’t you at least going to talk about your voiceover career?”

Here and there. Now that I’ve escaped the trap of having my VO career crowded out by commitments to “the day job,” I hope to experience significant growth in my VO business, and I hope to share things I experience – good and bad, but hopefully good. But again, anyone expecting to read “My VO Journey” will be disappointed, because A) already been done, and B) I consider it a little self-indulgent for my own career. If I want to indulge myself, I’d much rather share tales from the trenches of education. Because 31 years, don’t you know…

“Anything else going to be in this blog?”

That really depends on what crosses my mind during a given week. It is called “On the Brink of Instruction,” after all, so it’ll mostly be tied to my experiences in and thoughts on education. If another topic comes up – culture, movies, you name it – and I feel like I can actually add to the conversation, I may write about it. Plus, you know, the parent site is peterponcevoice, so maybe a little about voiceover. But…this is not a voiceover blog.