A Vicious Cycle: Rethinking How Principals Spend Their Time “On”
It is a Friday morning; you arrive at the office only to find you are short two teachers and four support staff members without substitutes. You work quickly to arrange the necessary coverages, often even involving yourself. You quickly scan your email and realize quite a few people are waiting for you to get back to them when you realize there were two incidents from the day before that you still needed to wrap up. You walk out of your office to be met by a teacher who asks if you have a minute. You say yes and invite the teacher into your office. While you are in the office, your administrative assistant lets you know a parent called and wants to speak with you immediately. As you meet with the teacher, you realize there is an IEP meeting you are supposed to be attending in the conference room. After meeting with the teacher, you arrive at the IEP meeting and apologize for being a couple of minutes late. As you sit in the IEP meeting, you do your best to focus and be present with all involved, but your mind is pulled in a thousand different directions as the day gets up and running:
I need to check and make sure the cafeteria is covered at that time
I need to call that parent back this afternoon; that’s going to be a difficult conversation
I need to follow up with that student from yesterday’s incident and call their family again
I need to touch base with that teacher regarding a parent's concern
The faculty meeting is coming up, I need to start getting the agenda together
I’m way behind on walkthroughs and observations; I need to really get going on those
I need to make that support staff schedule change, which should have happened weeks ago
Wow, three evening events next week, if I just had the time…
And the mind begins to go on and on...
Most of us have been there; a morning like this is the norm. I didn’t even mention that you were up until midnight the night before planning for two upcoming meetings and finishing a teacher post-observation. You are tired, working long hours, and looking forward to the weekend or an upcoming break. You start to think all you need to do is make it to the weekend or a holiday break, and you will be able to regroup and be good to go. To be quite honest, one of the reasons many are looking forward to the weekend is for the opportunity to have some uninterrupted time to work. You enjoy your weekend break or an extended holiday break, take some time for self-care, get “caught up” with your work, and the week starts again. You go into the week thinking you are refreshed and ready to go when the day-to-day hits you all over again, and by 10 A.M., you feel like there was no time off at all.
Reflect on Your Current Pace
I recently listened to a podcast where Carey Neuhoff, author of At Your Best: How to Get Time, Energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor, shared that “Time off won’t heal you when the problem is how you spend your time on.” According to the Center for Creative Leadership, “Eighty-eight percent of leaders report that work is a primary source of stress in their lives and that having a leadership role increases the level of stress (2020).” We see it all too often in principals, working at an unsustainable pace just trying to make it to the next break. We make it to the break and think we are refreshed, only to feel like there was no break at all as we fall back into our familiar habits. Neuhoff goes on to say, “A sustainable pace is the cure for an unsustainable pace. Not time off.” I recently went home absolutely exhausted, realizing I had missed getting home for dinner with my family six out of the past eight days. Three of those days were entirely in my control. I began to notice the detrimental effects at home as I felt exhausted and unfocused. I was also not as sharp in my conversations and decision-making at school. I rationalized by saying there was an upcoming extended break, and I would have some quality time off. However, the extended break would not change anything unless I changed how I spend my time “on.” I had been there numerous times in the past as well, and knew my unsustainable pace needed to change for me, my family, and the entire staff.
Self-Care is More than Time Off
From talking to school leaders, many are tired of hearing about “self-care” and what they can do with their time off to refresh and rejuvenate for their time “on.” Additionally, the Center for Creative Leadership found that “more than 90 percent of leaders cite they manage stress by temporarily removing themselves, either physically or mentally, from the source of their stress” (2020). The temporary removal from stressful situations through self-care is essential, but it will not have a significant, long-term impact on the health and longevity of principals. It is time for principals to seriously reflect on how they spend their time “on” throughout the day-to-day and week-to-week. Self-care not only involves much-needed time off, but more importantly, self-care also involves revamping what time “on” looks like. Many principals are working at an unsustainable pace that has and will ultimately have a detrimental impact on themselves, their families, students, staff, and schools.
So What Can We Do?
The process of obtaining a sustainable pace begins with honest self-reflection. During the unsustainable pace, principals are often unable to stop the “doing” long enough to do the “thinking.” I have included five actionable tips with self-reflection questions for principals to examine how they can improve the way they spend their time “on.” By controlling his/her own pace, principals will have a greater capacity to work with the faculty to control their pace.
Reflect- How are you spending your time “on?” Spend some time documenting your day-to-day and week-to-week schedule. What patterns do you pick up on? When are you most productive or least productive? Do your days align with your vision and mission, or have they become a never-ending to-do list with no clear focus? Lastly, how do you feel physically, mentally, and emotionally?
Look and Listen- What are teachers and staff saying? What is your family saying? How are they feeling? What trends do you pick up on? What is the current culture of the building? How about the culture at home? Ask some of those close to you to provide you with honest feedback.
Simplify- Are you trying to do too much? Are you trying to do too much at the wrong times? What are your district/building priorities? How can you simplify those priorities to a few focus areas? What can be removed from your plate?
Empower- Are there areas you can empower others through delegation by putting others in their strength zones to allow you and others to work at your absolute best?
Control the Controllables - What areas are you trying to control that are not within your control? Have you found these areas draining your mental and physical energy?
It’s Time
It is time for principals to move out of the vicious burnout cycle. The current pace for many principals is not sustainable. The Learning Policy Institute noted, “Nationally, the average tenure of a principal is about four years, and nearly one in five principals, approximately 18 percent, turn over annually” (2019). As building leaders, it is time to set the example of self-care through not only how we spend our time off, but how we spend our time “on.” It is essential to take time to reflect on what we are asking of ourselves and of others. First and foremost, we are in the business of people, and we need to take care of ourselves to best take care of all of those around us. If not, we will continue to fall into that vicious cycle of exhausting ourselves towards a break, spending the time off trying to recover, only to exhaust ourselves once again.
Works Cited:
Understanding and addressing principal turnover: A review of the research. Learning Policy Institute. (2019). Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/nassp-understanding-addressing-principal-turnover-review-research-report.
What Drives Leadership Stress — and How to Deal. (2020). CCL. https://www.ccl.org/articles/leading-effectively-articles/stress-of-leadership/
What Happens to Leaders Under Stress, and How to Ensure Other People Stop Hijacking Your Priorities. (2021). https://Careynieuwhof.Com/Episode442/.
