"Stepping Up to the Plate: Unapologetically Leading Your Way"

Hundreds of thousands of books, podcasts, social media platforms, and field professional's have the magic wand for the perfect image of the public school and their administrators. Filled with tutorials, words of advice, and how too manuals researchers and field professionals provide advice promising to create the perfect school culture, high test scores, and equitable opportunities for students and staff.

Is there an image of the perfect school administrator? Suit and tie with matching shoes? A skirt or pants suit with matching accessories? Is looking the part really a thing? A big ring of keys and a walkie talkie? Are these the keys to the castle? A corner office with an administrative assistant? Does the space define the work? School districts grounded in educational research must be the answer to our struggles? Do these research based practices differ from the research based practices creating the current reality? Unapologetic leaders value driven, data informed leaders who are creative, innovative, and out of the box thinkers capable of moving K-12 education into a new era.

Leading Unapologetically---creates space for leaders and teachers to apply best practices within a framework of authenticity by releasing the handcuffs binding school administrators and teachers from using innovative and creative practices to move from building on a known system to building systems for the students who are really in our schools. While we recognize public education's struggles to secure and maintain a strong teaching workforce and ensure all our scholars excel --we continue using the same procedures, structures, systems, and protocols which lead to this situation---including in many cases building systems and structures on the same research having created our currently reality. Unapologetic school leadership--embraces personal and professional attributes--in building authentic unconventional leaders capable of guiding K-12 education into a new era.

Unapologetic Leadership: The 2.0 Leader

Unapologetic leaders are the 2.0 school leaders ---they are hardwired differently. 2.0 leaders are visionaries with a deep understanding who themselves as leaders. 2.0 leaders aspire to create a new educational system ---not programs, not courses, not rules or guidelines but new systems designed to meet the needs fo 2.0 teachers and 2.0 students. Unapologetic leaders ---never ask permission to lead---they ask the hard questions, challenge existing systems--and bring exciting, creative, and innovative ideas to the table and develop plans and systems for implementation. Unapologetically 2.0 leaders step out of the comfort zone pushing harder to break the ceiling that has stiffled educational systems.

With over 42% of school administrators planning to leave the profession within the next three to five years --2.0 Unapologetic leaders are internally motivationed to seek and implement new solutions to failing systems.

Preparation Does Not Guarantee Results

Collegiate coursework, practium hours, mentors, internships, and degrees are only the beginning to a career offering the most rewarding experience in education. The reality is not class, nor mentor, nor rule book can prepare you for the experiences and challenges administrators will face. There will be days when you may ask yourself "why" you listened when a mentor encouraged you by saying something like "be a school administrator, it will be fun--challenging and rewarding"---really, it will be fun they said! Fun wrapped in the form of 15-hour workdays, challenging conversations, no time to use the restroom, forgetting to eat lunch, students who have outgrown the 1950 structures and systems of schooling, and stakeholders who hold no bars in challenging trained educators.

Fun? Yes there is plenty of this too---seeing a student succeed in the classroom, on the court or field, in the visual and performing arts, getting into college, and all the othe ah-ha moments along the way. The students and families who will never forget your kindness, going the extra mile because it was the right thing to do---at the end of the day it is all worth it! Unapologetically, we find the best in each situation --we celebrate, we honor, and we recognize---the efforts of the village it takes for students to be successful.

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Unconditionally: It Just Feels Different

Unconditionally pursue the road less traveled! Be unconditionally committed to pursuing the "thing" students and teachers need --without regard for barriers, others opinions, or systems appearing to create red tape. The 2.0 leaders shift their mindset to be open to ideas----to embracing failure as the ultimate learning experience. Always getting an "A" means we stayed in the safe zone--and we already know what that looks like in education---the same educational endeavor our brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents experienced. An unconditional commitment to pursuing education with passion just feels different---be committed to unconditionally taking steps to move education into the current era.

Unchoreographed: Dance the Dance

Keep dancing whe the music stops! Dance the dance you were called to dance. If you are creative and innovative bring those skills to the dance and share your ideas and thoughts and do not be afraid to act on them because they are different. Remember before there were dances---movements were largely unchoreographed, unpolished, and untried. Then the next epic dance to become the hottest thing on TikTok got fine tuned over time and a success was born. 2.0 leaders understand ---to be great we have to be willing to dance unchoregraphed.

Unapologically: Do it Your Way

Unapoloigic leadership is the key to professional longevity, success, and finding ways to meet the needs of 2.0 students and teachers. There are multiple lenses through which to ensure student and teacher success. Narrowing the lense to a single right and wrong way takes the fun out of being a school administrator---moving us away from our authentic selves into a robotic single minded belief system. Do it your way, unapologically!