Lattes and Leaders w/ Dr. Brad Johnson

[Music] good morning and welcome to lattes and Leaders with Dr Brad Johnson best-selling author and accomplished public speaker specializing in education and educational leadership I am your co-host Jeremy Johnson organizational psychology consultant specializing in career coaching training and development meet us here each week to discuss topics in Education and Leadership and meet with some of the top education talent and thought Partners from across the globe so grab your latte sit back and enjoy a relaxed conversation that will leave you informed and [Music] encouraged this morning we have a very special guest with us we have Dr Rachel Edo EIT how are you doing today I'm doing well thank you so much for having me hey good morning glad you're finally here good to see you you as well yeah so um let's get started tell us a little bit about your journey so far and some of the things that you're working on now yes so um thank you again for having me my name is Rachel eked and I currently serve as a principal in an elementary school in Maryland before that um when I started my career I was a kindergarten teacher and I loved teaching fiveyear olds and just being that Ambassador for um families and new students and children as they enter the school and uh I had a great mentor who was a former principal of mine who said one day I think you could be an administrator and uh at the time I wasn't interested in that role but she saw something in me that really helped me to understand how I could have a bigger influence on not only the children that I served but also the teachers and the entire community so uh after about a decade in the classroom I transitioned to being an assistant principal and I served in that role for four years and now I'm in my sixth year as a current School principal and um I'm really enjoying that work I've learned so much and I'm continuing to learn from so many amazing um teachers and leaders all across the country great that's so awesome and and I like that um uh you talk about someone seeing something in you I think that's so important you know often share we see in others what we you know not that we often don't see in our self and so it's good to have someone that not only sees that but articulates that to you and encourages you in that because that you know allows you maybe to go further than you even thought about going before definitely definitely yeah and that's something that's great about our role too because we can do the same now for other people so one of my friends recently was just promoted into the assistant principal ship and we talked about over this past year um she did an internship experience with me and I said you know I see you as being that school-based leader and we had a similar conversation she said nope I don't think so I'm just I'm just fulfilling my certification I said nope I think you'll be be more than that and she just got her promotion this week awesome I love that yeah that's great that's great so you mentioned um you mentioned when you were telling us about your background a little bit some of the works that you've done with with famili so you can you speak a little bit about the importance of reaching the Greater Community in your schools and maybe some of the ways that you've implemented that in your roles yeah thank you so I love working with the families and with communities one of the things I always do and I did it as a teacher as well as I do in my role as a principal is just being very approachable to families letting them know that they can call me at any time that they can stop by the office it's very important that the families see a school leader um that we're both visible and not only visible that we're present that we know their children so one of the simplest ways that I build relationships and support families is by getting to know their child what's their child's name what are their child's interests when I have an opportunity to build a relationship with the student that's a great bridge for building relationships with families sometimes families need support with finding out you know where educational resources are I can help connect families to those um um I also like to connect family to community- based resources that may not be educationally academically based there may be some resources that families might need outside of the school and I love working with our teaching staff to connect resources for families so anytime a family or a child is experiencing something that they need support with then that's my my time and my role to kind of step in and and start making that that connections for families or working with our staff seeing what skills are present in the staff and who can I connect people with so that's one of my greatest Joys is finding out what families need what students need what teachers need at times and figuring out who are the people within the network who can best support them um and so that's something that I have done over many years I'm in a new school this year so I'm really excited to get to know all of the new families all of the new students the new staff members that has really re-energized me and brought me back to some of those best practices that I'm continuing to use oh I love that so much and um you know it's it's so important and I love what you said about being present being visible for the for the families because you know it's like because I think we understand that sometimes uh the students that don't like school don't like it because they had parents that don't like it and so for you to be able to uh build that kind of warm and friendly uh relationship with them to let them see hey it's okay it's a safe place your kids are welcome you're welcome and I think that really helps you know build that Community with them do you have a tip because you are at a new school for like new administrators and I know Jeremy will probably ask later but like what do you what will you do first or maybe that you've already done to like start building that engagement with them yes so this is my first time transitioning as an administrator I was an administrator at my school previously for nine years so I am learning along the way as well one of the things that I um did as when it was announced that I was transitioning I received so many letters from my previous School Community just saying what they liked and enjoyed about me as a leader and one of the things that they said was that you knew my child's name and that you were always present in the car Loop or at school events so one of the first things that I did in my new school is talk with my assistant principal and the previous principal and asked them for a yearbook so I'm currently studying the yearbook so that I can learn to know the staff members names and the students names um I also asked that my in my first Community letter I said if you're ever by the school please come by and visit me my do is always open so I've been having families take me up on that they've been visiting um I've been learning some magic tricks I've been trying to do those with the students with limited success um but that's been a lot of fun to get them into the the office I have lots of books and games and Legos and coloring that the children like to do and it gives me a time to connect with their parents and with the students at the same time oh wow I love that that's so powerful yeah I mean what a way to come in and making an immediate impact thank you it's been great it's been an awesome transition so far wow wow great um so along those same lines can you tell us a little bit about your personal qualities you think have contributed most to your success yeah so first I love people I tell people if you're going to be a school leader you have to like people this is a very people centered role not only are we serving adults but we're serving children so it's Unique School leaders are unique in that way that we are serving different constituents um but people have the same need people want to feel welcomed people want to feel valued and people want to feel important so I think think one of the one of the strengths that I bring to the role is number one I like people um I also like to add value so if there's something that someone needs one of my strengths is figuring out who to connect people with so I've talked about that already but um that follow through is something that's important to me so if someone says they need something I may not have the answer but I can figure out who I need to speak to to help get us closer to An Answer um another strength of mine is communication this is a role you have to have really good communication skills you have to be able to talk to the right people with the right message at the right time so that's something that I have cultivated and I'm continuing to learn but communication is definitely something that um I'm strong in and another strength that I have is I'm organized so this is one of those roles where you have to have a high level of organization but you also have to be flexible because things change so I think I have the right mix of being organized and responsive but also being able to Pivot when something changes oh great great yeah I like how you um mentioned how important approachability is I mean that's huge so I mean it it's just very important um to build those relationships to you know have people feel like they can just stop by and that's great it's you know it takes a lot of transparency um so yeah yeah and that's something that again I'm I'm new to transitioning but I know what has been successful um in my previous experiences so I'm really trying to cultivate and beef those beef those things up that I know work well um with all School communities and it's just been such a wonderfully welcoming experience the community has been so kind to me and um I'm really looking forward to working working with a new group this year here great so can you tell us about a few of the challenges you faced in your leadership roles yeah so one of the largest challenges that I had was being a new principal during the covid-19 pandemic I was promoted in the year 2019 into 2020 and we all know in March of 2020 the world changed and so that was extremely difficult I think for any teacher or any leader who was present during Co 19 we started off kind of you know I like to say it ended up kind of being a roller coaster but initially I had a lot of energy around okay we'll we'll be home for two weeks I'll see you in two weeks that didn't happen then we were doing a lot of this virtual learning that was such a challenge communicating with families getting families connected you know to Wi-Fi making sure that that people had what they needed we had a lot of people unfortunately who became ill so that was really hard and I think being a new leader I was looking two other leaders for advice and everyone was new that was something that was the the beauty of that time even if you were a veteran you were new again right you were a new principal and so it was very challenging to balance the needs of the community the needs of the staff and also the needs of my own personal family so that was really challenging um years ago but the challenges are still persisting so we still have um families in need we still have students who are working on attendance and families we have challenges with um anxiety and and people feeling anxious about school um Behavior challenges so those are all challenges I think that are persisting and again communication is really important there just finding out and listening to what families need what does staff need what do our students need and then figuring out how to meet some of those needs in the best way that we can those have been some of the challenges that are definitely ongoing yeah I can imagine first year and then Co hitting and like but like you said you know in a way it was um everybody was in the same boat so you know everybody was new to and then but that that was a tough time like you said trying because we thought it would be a short period and then it wasn't and we had to transition everything um yes and and like you said we're still kind of dealing with some of the effects of it even even four almost four years later so um but uh yeah I love that just your your attitude of um just being flexible I think that that's um not talked about enough because I think some people when they get into leadership worlds they feel like well I got here because of what I do so I'll do it my way and you know that's just not necessarily the case especially when you're dealing with so many Dynamics and like you said as a principal you know I always say it's kind of like the loneliest job there is because you're you know working with the district on mandates and different things and then you're trying to you know work with your teachers then you have the parents then you have the students and so it's like you know you're trying to figure out how to deal with all these things at once and um you do I mean you just you got to be flexible and adaptable to be able to survive that yeah it is a very unique role and that's one of the things that I do love about it but yes it is it has its challenges and and so many more rewards definitely outweigh those challenges but definitely the challenges that you mentioned trying to be everything for everybody that's a part of the role that um you know that's not necessarily in the books when we're going through our trainings right how do you meet the needs that are competing and if you can't do that then how do you communicate that transparently and still hold the relationship ships um positively those are definitely you know some of the things that come along with being being a school-based administrator I love what you said about communication because that really is the key you know because I'm like I know there's some leaders that really aren't good maybe at the relationship part and building relationships but I'm like as long as you're communicating that to your staff that maybe I'm not the best at it but I am working on it and I want to do better just that ability ability to communicate that is more important than you know really the process itself but that that is that communicating part just is really is I think the key piece yeah that's definitely one of the strength said I'm glad that I have that is something that um can be improved right we all have had conversations that did not go the way that we wanted them to go and how can we learn for the future to ensure that the next time we have a similar conversation the positive the outcome is more positive so um communication is we're all definitely works in progress in that area so true so it looks like you have a couple of different books that are available now can you give us um a snippet or two yes thank you so I've written two books one for adults and one for children I've always um wanted to be an author and this has been something that has given me a lot of joy to write so the first book Is Brin for adults called the principal Journey navigating the path to school leadership and it's for teachers assistant principles or central office leaders who want to get into leadership and continue to grow in that area the book really talks about what experiences are necessary to help you become a stronger leader um if you want to be a principal I talk about which interview questions you should be studying how you can really beef up up your resume and make sure your cover letter is great and then I talk about how to be successful on the job once you get it so what does your first year look like as a school-based leader how do you have conversations that are challenging um how do you set up that great positive School culture and also how do you take care of yourself how do you have a balance between work and home because we know that that is an extremely challenging part of the job but so necessary and then I also have a book for children it's called the principal's Pals and uh that book was written and it came out of my work at my previous school we do something called the principal of the day with a student and then we have an assistant principal of the day so two students are chosen by Lottery and they get to spend the entire day with the principal and the assistant principal we do a fire drill we walk around in classrooms we um talk with the head custodian we do all of the roles and functions the community and the staff really get into it we address the student as a principal for the day we dress up we have lunch it's just a great a great opportunity for students to learn more about what the principal does and um so I wrote a book about about those experiences and it's dedicated to my grandmother who was a public school teacher for 30 years and she's one of the characters she was a school librarian so the students and the story go to the school librarian to learn more about how to be great and kind leaders I love that and what a tribute to your grandmother too that is wonderful thank you yeah it was so much went to write and to see children reading it and then I have an activity book that goes along with it um all of the activities correspond with the book so they come as a set together and it really is a nice way um no technology needed so the students are doing writing prompts they're doing coloring pages word searches it's just been amazing um to see the children learning um as a result of that book so both of those books the principal's journey and the principal pals are on Amazon now thank you oh yeah and we'll have links for it so absolutely yeah thank you for sharing that awesome yeah um so can you tell us about um an educator or two either from your um personal education or maybe some that you've worked with that have left the greatest impact on you yeah so many it's hard to choose um but I do love this question I would say I'm gonna start back to elementary school one of my favorite principals name is Mr slum he is still a mentor of mine today he was my principal when I was in second grade uh I loved his approachability we've already talked about what does that present me what does it mean to be visible and that's who he was he knew us by name um he was ahead of his time we would go to the office for positive reasons so I never went to the office for something negative but when we did something well we would have a pizza party this was in the 80s right so he was ahead of his time there and just being that positive leader and um cultivating that positive relationship so that I never knew I was going to be a principal in my adult life but I knew I was going to be a teacher um I'm a third generation educator so he helped me to see what was possible as a principal even though I did not see that at the time a lot of the things that he did I do so I have special greetings for students he used to give us a thumbs up when he saw us those non-verbal cues those are things that I do with my own students now I do a lot of hugging he Ed us a lot he really just showed us that we were special to him and so that's something that I do in letting children know that they are special to me um another person would definitely be all of my administrators in very different ways as a teacher helped me to grow uh as a teacher and be more effective in my role and several of my previous principles and assistant principles also poured into me and and sharing that they saw some leadership qualities and gave me opportunities to be Mentor teacher for instance or being a team leader those were all things that were prior to the principal ship but helped me to grow as both a teacher and a leader so earlier you mentioned self-care and how important it is so I have to ask how do you take care of yourself how do you do that for you yeah so I'm very simple um I I do not go to the gym but I do work out 10 minutes every day I I really try to be consistent found with my self consistency is really important um I really do try to think about my day and structure it so that I'm working really hard while I'm at school every single day but at the end of each day that is then my time for my family and for my friends I know as teachers and as Educators we sometimes feel a lot of guilt around leaving things unfinished or leaving things on our to-do list but over time I have matured in found out that there will always be things on our to-do list there will always be an email there will always be one more thing we need to accomplish however the people in our lives are not guaranteed to be there but the work is guaranteed to be there so I had to I had to really mature in the role and understand that I can be great at school and I can also be great at home I never want to be in a situation where I'm great at school and revered in a community but not in my own home yeah so that is something that helps to keep me grounded in my perspective that you can do two things well at one time but each needs their own time to be done well yeah I love that you're and you're so right it's um you know as Educators it's almost like it's instilled within us to you know go go go never have an off switch and but like you said I mean at the end of the day you don't want to look back and regret that your family suffered because because of the job and it's an important job it really is but at the end of the day yeah it's it's a job and and we want to um like you said give it our best but we need to give our best to our family too so I love that I think that's a healthy way to look at it and I think a lot of times um when teachers see their principal doing that it kind of allows them the freedom to do that too so I think just modeling that for your staff is probably more important than anything you could really say to them pertaining to that yeah I I again have been at my previous school for nine years but one of the things that spurred that was covid-19 I didn't have any work like boundaries and I was in a really bad place mentally and that was showing because I didn't have a off switch I was truly working from home around the clock beginning some mornings 5:00 a.m. all the way through past midnight um so I wasn't sleeping and I wasn't eating I wasn't exercising I was not taking care of myself and that was bleeding into other areas of my life and so I said to the staff um our first staff meeting back that that year that you know I am thankful we made it through that hard really hard portion of the Year and that experience however I do not have the capacity to continue at that pace and so I said from that point forward I would not be emailing them after a certain time and I would like that they not email me after a certain time unless it was an emergency they can call me everyone has my cell phone number and um that was our agreement and from my team leaders I heard you know because you said that that gave me permission and my team we don't text that dinner anymore we let it go and we will come back together in the morning and I said that's perfect and so I really hope that um I can continue to model that because I've been able to accomplish so much more um outside of of my you know principal ship I've been able to write books I've been able to do speaking engagements I've been able to create leadership courses I've been able to coach and Mentor um which is another passion of mine but I would not be able to do that without those boundaries in my life I think that's so important for um leaders to remember we always talk about um and reminding teachers that um you know they set the example they model for their students but leaders model for their staff too so that I think that's a really good takeaway from that to remember is that your staff's watching you and you know and it's like the old saying what you do is much louder than what you say so yeah I love that I think that's a a good perspective thank you all right so we have just one last question and this is the hard one so but this is called lattes and leaders so what is your hot beverage of choice if you have one is it coffee latte cappuccino tea or something totally different it will always be hot chocolate I'm not a coffee drinker and I love chocolate so it's hot chocolate for me okay yeah it's funny you know we have a few people that have been on in their like why I don't drink coffee and I'm like that's okay I just came up with a term to make it you know kind of like sitting at a coffee shop relaxed and talking but you know and um one guy um you probably know Willie spear or of heard of him the speaker and he was talking about he's never drank coffee because when he was a child he started to drink some of his mom's and she hid him because you know coffee's for adults and I was like that's how I was raised too you know that wasn't a a drink for child so he's like I've never drinken as adult because all I remember is her hitting me and I'm afraid she'll do it again that's funny that's funny so but hot chocolate is a a great ant sir so yes but uh yeah thank you so much for being with us today and sharing I mean you have a wonderful Journey um we got to meet in Orlando not long ago I've been following you for a long time on social media and so just really enjoy all that you're doing the success that you're having and I just thought it would be yeah I thought it'd be wonderful for you to share all that with with us so oh I'm so thankful I've read several of your books um as a teacher and a leader and I'm just very grateful we've had the opportunity to continue to connect that means a lot to me and me too yeah thank you so much so do you have any last Pearls of Wisdom for those in leadership yes I would definitely say to lead authentically um be yourself this is one of those roles where there's not going to be a standardized way to do it successfully you can look at other people and take things that work for them that that May incorporate and work for you however ultimately you are the one who is in that seat for a reason you're there because you have a unique set of skills that has B you there and continue to tap into what makes you a unique leader so that you can continue to help and support other people along their educational Journeys so uh and I also just want to say thank you this work is not easy this work is is great work but it is challenging at times and just to you know stay the course choose to come come every day back to this work and continue to pour into other people just the same way that other people have poured into your life well said well said Well it has been a pleasure talking to you today we hope to have you back on soon and have a great rest of your day thank you I would love that thanks again [Music] this has been lattes and Leaders with Dr Brad Johnson we hope that you leave today feeling informed and inspired for more educational content be sure to add this podcast to your list and follow Dr Johnson on any and all social media platforms for more information on Dr Johnson Jeremy Johnson and special guest check out Dr Brad johnson.com that is d o c t o R Brad johnson.com hope to have you back soon [Music]