Learning to “Lead Change” as Early as Kindergarten

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I sit here in the Klingenstein Center #NAISAC workshop on “Leading Change” and I am struck that other industries need to take a lesson from ours.

I am sitting in a room filled largely by other Heads of School, all who regularly seek opportunities to gather together in person and learn something new …not to keep up with our medical licenses or to be appraised of a new product, but because we want to lead the change that we seek in education and in our future.

In the end we come to consensus that the solutions we seek to leading change are based in simply in honest communication. The same foundation that saves a marriage, builds trust with a teenager, or rekindles a lost friendship.

It strikes me that these lessons are governed by classroom rules learned in kindergarten. Use your words – provide the information that others need to know. Listen closely – you can prove you are doing so by repeating back what the person said which validates what they are feeling. Share your feelings (to an extent) – be brave enough to be vulnerable in sharing how you feel about what you hope.

Having just sent home progress reports to parents who might question what impact these “soft skills” have compared to the hard academic skills of math and reading… I would say… the impact means everything.

I am happy to have you disagree with me. It sharpens my thinking.