I’m excited to see others join me in writing or revising their leadership manifestos. It is a great way to start the new year as it will help you clarify your bottom line. What is a good organizational fit? When should you stay and disrupt the status quo? When should you walk away and start fresh? When do you need to hold yourself accountable? Others? Why and how?

Our first step was to brainstorm a list of our leadership core values and the essential ways we show up in the work. Our next step is to clarify the meaning of our ideas in bullet points, phrases, and/or paragraphs, whichever works best. Sharing my thoughts.

1. Humanity – People matter. We care about their needs and well-being. We are invested in their professional growth. They will be valued and empowered. Their dignity matters. Their voice counts. They will not be treated like production peons who are only essential to achieving the bottom line.
2. Social justice – There will no oppression. Systemic dysfunction will be disrupted. We will consistently assess for marginalization and work to eradicate it. Nespotism, cronyism, and favoritism are not welcomed.
3. Courage – We will not let fear or opposition hold us back from making tough decisions. We will be bold and speak the truth to power when it is necessary.
4. Speaking the truth in love – We engage in difficult conversations with gentleness. We will not speak to harm or tear others down. We will share feedback in ways that do not damage people.
5. Compassion – We will build strong relationships through genuine care. We will share our heart to help people achieve their aspirations. When people are struggling personally, we will share professional resources that might help.
6. Psychological safety – Punishment or humiliation will not occur when people question or speak up. Retaliation will not be tolerated.
7. Clarity – Each team member will know what is expected. Policies, roles, goals, coaching, evaluation and professional behaviors will be clearly defined.
8. Fairness – We will build trust in our community through open dialogue. Decision – making will not be arbitrary. The environment will be collaborative and everyone will be equitably treated.
9. Learning orientation – Mistakes and risks are a part of learning. We will work as a community to deconstruct failure and reinvent what we think will work. We will focus on growth rather than faking perfection. We will not juke the stats to impress stakeholders.
10. Servanthood – There are no emperors in our house. We are not authoritarians who are building kingdoms unto ourselves. Our goal is not to make our name great. We will not crack the whip to control. We will foster a culture of trust and collaboration as we work smart to meet the needs of our teams.
11. Transparency -We will be honest and open about “the why” behind our actions. We will not break trust by making people feel we are continuously operating in the dark.
12. Communication – Will be open, transparent, and respectful.
13. Consistency – We will say what me mean and do what we say. We live out our core values.
14. Kinship and connectedness – In our people matter environment, we will be strategic about leadership actions that strengthen individual and team relationships.
15. High expectations and high support – We will operate from the belief that all students and adults can achieve challenging goals within a positive school culture that includes: ongoing quality feedback, needed instructional resources, compassion, professionally helpful relationships, respect, and psychological safety.
16. Credible evaluations of work – The evaluation system will be analyzed in an open – forum prior to the official beginning of work. Questions will be allowed and clarity provided. All necessary changes will be made prior to the start of the new academic year. No other changes will be made within the annual evaluation period. Feedback and ratings will be based on objective evidence, including classroom-based assessments of learning and teaching. Subjectivity and retaliation will not be tolerated.
17. Coach/coachability – We will be open to feedback and apply it in the best interest of student and professional growth.
18. Professionalism – Through collective efficacy, we will cultivate a positive school culture where the following is evident: a safe and inclusive environment, integrity, confidentiality, healthy interpersonal relationships, a passion for helping each student wholistically win, evidence – based decision – making, and all other organizational core values.
19. Ethical – We will build a trustworthy culture where our actions align with core values. Doing the right thing is expected.
20. Visionary – We will collaborate to create a compelling vision that will motivate our community to surpass expectations. We will use both quantitative and qualitative data to create this vision. We will engage in crucial conversations about our reality, blindspots, assumptions, biases and roadblocks.
21. Team player – We are not waiting for Superman. The wisdom is in the room. We will develop an Instructuctional Leadership Team (ILT) charter to clarify our collective norms, talent, growth areas, idiosyncracies, pain points and workplace love languages.
22. Strategist – We will unpack connections between our policies, practices, and results. We will utilize this analysis to enhance learning and teaching at both the school and district levels. We will include conversations about poverty, low performance, and the quality of teacher and student support. We will build on strengths and celebrate both small and big wins.
23. Knowledge and understanding of the work – We are committed to ongoing learning and continuous improvement through formal study, informal learning, in-depth analysis of student and teacher data, instructional coaching, lesson study, reading, writing, scholarly research, teaching, reflection, and adjustment.
24. High-quality experience – We believe job – embedded coaching and mentoring yields the highest gains in student and teacher proficiency. Teachers and leaders most in need of support will be developed by those who have demonstrated success.
25. Lessons learned from failure and success – We will get better faster by analyzing and applying learning from both pain points and strengths.
26. Ability to influence followers and develop other leaders – Highly effective leaders develop, retain, and promote talent. Hemorrhaging talented staff is often a sign of toxic culture and/or ineffective leadership. Staff turnover impacts student learning, their hope, and their spirit. We will model our values and invest in the aspirations of both teachers and students.
27. Meet and exceed expectations without breaking spirits – We will not be cruel to others. We will treat others with kindness and respect. We will not achieve results at the expense of human dignity and psychological safety.
28. Sustainability at scale – All allocated resources will align with our vision and mission. Our primary goal is to ensure that our community collaborates to sustain long-term changes that are effective, and that these changes will not be compromised by changes in leadership or funding sources.
29. Visibility and accessibility – Leaders are not simply data managers, schedulers, safety officers, hallway monitors, lunchroom supervisors, classroom observers and discipline officials. While school leaders often serve in these capacities, impactful visibilty and accessibility chiefly involves active partcipation in instructional team planning, ongoing coaching conversations with teachers, and being available to listen and respond to students.
30. Stay current in the practice – Lead the learning through demonstration. Teach a course, block, section, or series. Analyze standards and student work with teachers. Co – plan and co – teach. Try – on and model what is being asked of teachers. Be open to feedback. Bring scholarly research and scientifically – evidence – based practices to the planning table.

Reflection and Next steps

This process, of course, took more time than Step 1. Yet, it felt so good. It was like floating on my back and waving my arms in sun-kissed Caribbean waters, then going deep to experience the beauty of sea coral and exotic fish that made my pulse quicken.

Many comfortable memories came to mind while I was on the surface. The deep dive brought back riskier and sometimes damaging moments that have influenced my commitment to ensuring psychological safety in the workplace. Step into this process with courage and extend grace to yourself and others.