On The Group Project Podcast I interview school leaders from around the country. One of my favorite parts of the interview is asking guests to share their biggest mistake as a beginning school leader.
Quite often I get the same answer: Always Being The Expert
On Episode #87 I interviewed Brent Barry who is the Superintendent of Phoenix-Talent School District in Oregon. In our interview, he reflected on his early struggles as a principal.
“My first year as an elementary principal, I felt like I had to be the expert in everything,” said Barry, the Oregon Superintendent of the Year in 2022. “I quickly learned that I was wrong.”
“People were getting too dependent on me,” Barry explained. “I couldn’t possibly be the fixer of all problems. It was exhausting! After a while, I started thinking, ‘Am I really the person who needs to solve that question? Or, do we have other people with more expertise who can solve that question?’”
“New leaders believe they have to be the go-to of knowledge on everything education. That’s just not possible; you can’t possibly know everything about every subject area and every grade level.”
“Don’t put the pressure on yourself to be the expert,” Barry stressed. “You may think you need to be, but your staff doesn’t expect that out of you.”
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