As issues come up at school, it’s important to reflect and consider the different actions that led to those issues. Every leader needs the right reflection strategy. In my time as a school leader, I have learned that there is an important mindset you have with any situation or incident that occurs.
A Leader’s Reflection Strategy
Whenever there is a problem, tell yourself “it’s all my fault.” It doesn’t mean that you should absolve anybody else of responsibility, but that you should look at yourself as the ultimate owner. I’ve learned this to be a liberating approach, as there are so many different directions I can take when it’s my responsibility. Any time I have blamed another individual for a problem, I’ve felt powerless. I’ve thought, “what can I do about this since they are the ones who screwed up?” Once I started to shift my thinking, however, my possible future actions were endless.
A Teacher’s Perspective
When I was in the classroom as an 8th grade science teacher, there were countless times that I ended a day flabbergasted at my students’ performance. Whether it was after a lesson my students didn’t seem to grasp, a quiz where many of them failed, or a lab they couldn’t complete, I got used to failure.
Soon into my teaching career, I began to internalize their failure as my own. I realized how much control this mindset gave me over my students’ performance in the classroom. It pushed me to try new investment strategies, interventions, re-teaching, and ultimately helped my students shift their thinking about their own abilities. More than anything, this mindset gave me options and helped me avoid the trap of thinking there’s nothing I can do. Once that negative thinking takes hold, it can be difficult to believe you can have any impact on your students’ achievement.
A School Leader’s Perspective
This approach is just as important when working with adults. It can be frustrating to deal with a problem that could have been easily avoided if the adult would have made a different decision or changed their approach. It’s normal to think, “why’d s/he have to do that?” or “why didn’t s/he do it like we taught him/her?”
It’s important to eventually get to change those questions to, “what was my role in this situation?” or “what could I have done differently?” These new questions can eventually help get you to appropriate action steps to remedy the problem and help prevent similar issues from reoccurring. Regardless of your role in a school, you need to own your part in any situation that arises. You can’t control what other people think, do, or say, but you can control your own thoughts, actions, and words.
Never forget that you always have a part in any problem or incident that arises, no matter how small. Telling yourself that “it’s all my fault” can help you reflect on what you can control so that you can have a clear idea of what action steps to take moving forward.
