TL;DR:
- Asking for help and showing vulnerability shows strength, not weakness.
- It is important for leaders to model their expectations.
As educators, we “are supposed to have all the answers.” We are the people other people come to in order to get answers, learn, and grow. But what happens when we don’t have the answers? What do we do when we need answers? Even more, what if we are the “leader” of a building or of a district?
Gone should be the days where asking for help or showing vulnerability are looked at as a weakness.
With all the things we can learn from the last year and a half, self-care needs to become a priority for our people and for us. Asking for help needs to be expected, not just accepted. Click To TweetVulnerability shows strength, not weakness.
We need to make it ok to ask for help and be vulnerable.
As leaders, we need to model the behavior we want to see in our people. We are constantly trying to remind our people to take care of themselves. But what does our reminder mean if we are not modeling the behavior we want to see from them? How can we expect it from them?
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We need to model our expectations.
If we tell our staff to make sure they take time for themselves and unplug, then we can’t send them emails after hours. If we want them to ask for help and tell people when they don’t understand or know something, then we need to ask for help and be honest when we don’t know something or understand something.
With all the things we can learn from the last year and a half, self-care needs to become a priority for our people and for us. Asking for help needs to be expected, not just accepted.
Being vulnerable needs to be a strength and not a weakness.
About Raymond Porten
Raymond Porten is a husband to an AMAZING wife, 2 wonderful boys, a principal of an elementary school in northern Illinois, and a Golden Apple Scholar. He spends his free time traveling with his family, cooking with his boys, and he finds the time to co-host 2 podcasts. He’s been in education for 20 years and has worked as a 5th grade teacher, middle school dean, 7th and 8th grade social studies teacher, middle school assistant principal and now as a principal. He believes in the importance of building relationships and of taking every opportunity to lead and make a difference in the world.
