Pull up the last update you sent your boss. Count the “we.” Now count the “I.” If your numbers look like mine used to, “we” won by a landslide. Maybe “I” never showed up at all. In 2022, six years into leading technology for my district, I sat down to write our application for the…
I started my conference session with a quick question for a room full of technology leaders. How many of you have an email address, a social media handle, or some other identity online with your organization or your job title in it? Almost every hand went up. Then I asked them to do something that…
And why that invisibility is actually a leadership risk Last week was spring break. Which means this week, every system gets tested. Devices reconnect. Passwords are forgotten. Tickets spike. The quiet hum of operations either holds…or it doesn’t. And most senior leaders don’t realize: When everything works, no one notices. When one thing breaks, everyone…
There’s a moment every leader recognizes, even if we don’t always name it.A question gets asked. A concern surfaces. A shift is happening. And instead of responding, we pause.We wait for more information.We wait for the right time.We wait until we can say it perfectly.And in that space, we tell ourselves: It’s better to say…
Strong systems do not automatically produce strong public understanding. That’s one of the most counterintuitive leadership lessons I’ve encountered, and one I’ve watched play out in districts across the country. Some of the best-run schools I’ve seen are also some of the least visible. The assumption underneath that invisibility is almost always the same: If…
There’s a moment I still think about. I was standing in front of our school board. Slides ready. Data polished. Language precise. Huge, impactful initiative ready to share. I said the word interoperability, and I watched the room go still. Not confused. Disconnected. In that moment, I realized something uncomfortable: It wasn’t that they disagreed…
There is a moment in almost every leadership day when you realize: The work itself isn’t the hardest part. The explaining is. And explaining poorly is expensive. I felt this acutely when I discovered one of our coaches had created a “rogue” Facebook page because he was frustrated that practice schedules weren’t getting posted quickly…
Next Friday, I’ll facilitate three AI-focused workshops as part of our district professional development day. We’ve done the technical groundwork and policy work needed to support AI responsibly. The infrastructure is in place. But infrastructure alone doesn’t create change. The tool doesn’t fail. The trust does. That’s the part I’ve been thinking about most as…
I’ve sat in a lot of keynote rooms over the years. Some left me energized, and a few left me emotional. But the ones that actually changed how I showed up back at work, the ones that stayed with me, all had something in common. They weren’t built to make me feel good for just…
I didn’t set out to write a book about marketing. I set out to write a book about survival. Long before I sat in cabinet meetings or analyzed enrollment reports, I learned a lesson no teacher prep program ever mentions: when you teach an elective, your job security is directly tied to enrollment. No butts…
