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Sometimes the most difficult leadership moments are not about one behavior, complaint, meeting, email, or conflict we can see. They are about the pattern underneath it. The coercive cycle of interaction occurs when two people or two groups become locked in a repeated back-and-forth pattern in which behavior escalates, reactions intensify, and eventually someone gives in just to make the moment stop. In school leadership, this can happen between administrators and teachers, ce

We Were Warned, Then We Were Blamed In 1983, the United States was handed a warning label. The report was called A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform. It was written by the National Commission on Excellence in Education, a commission created by U.S. Secretary of Education Terrel H. Bell and chaired by David Pierpont Gardner. The commission was directed to examine the quality of American education and report its findings to the Secretary and the American peo

The first day of school feels different depending on where you’re standing. For a brand-new teacher, Year 1 is a leap into the unknown...