300 Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind
•Do I know when I am listening and when I am thinking about what
I need to do as a principal, a coordinator, or a supervisor? Can I separate
my thinking and set that aside?
•Knowing that the personal can come before the positional in many
situations, do I know when those times are and ways that I can show this
“shift” to the person who is talking to me?
Communicating with Precision and Accuracy
We a l l k n ow t h e s a y i n g “ I t i s n ’ t w h a t y o u s a y ; i t ’s h ow y o u s a y i t ” — t h e
tone, the wording, the timing, the pacing, the intent behind the message.
The systems-savvy leader knows that precision and accuracy in all commu-
nications are essential.
A contemporary example of the importance of communicating accu-
rately is e-mail. E-mail is terrific because it can help us to communicate
at any hour and to anyone; but no doubt we all know a number of possible
communication snafus common to the medium: the e-mail that doesn’t
start with a “Hello” or end with a “Thank you” and gives off an air of rude-
ness; the message that is written in one long paragraph and consequently
results in the recipient overlooking precious information; the e-mail that
says simply, “Come see me Monday morning” and causes a new teacher
needless distress all weekend as she contemplates what the meeting will
be about; or the dismissive, hurriedly written e-mail that says, “We gave
that position to your colleague, John,” leaving the recipient far more hurt
than he would have been had a face-to-face encounter taken place. All of
these moments remind us that the ability to communicate with precision
and accuracy is indispensable to a systems-savvy leader.
As we roll out new initiatives, awareness of our audience and fore-
thought in communication are also vital. If we don’t think ahead of time,
we can put ourselves further behind in just a few sentences. Case in point:
In furthering an agenda related to closing the achievement gap, the direc-
tor of staff development has changed the job description for the new
teacher coaching position to include more work on equity. The training
has been put on the schedule, and it is mandatory. The trainer assertively
states, “We are doing this.” The coaches, accustomed for years to doing
work a certain way, feel resistance and communicate it in many ways.