It is not uncommon for school leaders to be sabotaged by parents, students, teachers and board members. In fact, it’s inevitable if one is truly leading. People in school communities sabotage their leaders for all kinds of reasons, from the petty to the serious. Sabotage by a Board or Board member is the most dangerous sabotage of all for a school leader.
Speaking of petty, I once jokingly suggested in a board meeting during Fannie Mae’s financial crisis that we should consider getting some accounting advice from Fannie Mae. I thought our Treasurer, a Fannie Mae employee, would take my comment in the good-spirited jest in which it was intended. God knows, the conversation needed to be lightened up a bit. Sadly, he felt offended and would not accept my apology. In the following months, he sabotaged my leadership, Finance Committee meetings and Board decisions with disastrous results for the school and the education of our students.
As I reflect on that period of time and my Treasurer’s destructive behavior, I realize that I or my Board Chair should have taken action to address the sabotage. Actually, we should have worked together collaboratively to terminate it immediately.
Frankly, I just didn’t know what to do. The situation was extremely complex. The politics on the board were brutal. I felt that I couldn’t discuss it with my Board Chair, given the close relationship between him and the Treasurer. Essentially, a rogue board member was acting with impunity because of a personal relationship with the Board Chair.
Hindsight is better than foresight.
I realize now that I could have taken constructive action to address the sabotage. In fact, the knowledge and ability to take the necessary actions were right there within me. I just couldn’t access them. I didn’t need someone to teach, train or advise me. I just needed someone to talk to in confidence, to acknowledge my strengths and my pain, to ask the right questions and to help me strategize about the best way to deal with the problem.
That’s what a professional coach does. That’s what I do now as a leadership coach. I help school leaders figure out how to handle thorny problems and sensitive issues successfully in their schools. As the Irish proverb says, “The waves have some mercy, at least, but the rocks have no mercy at all.” There is no shortage of high winds and buffeting waves in the open seas of school leadership.
Get a coach to help you ride the waves before you end up on the rocks! As Edwin Friedman writes in “A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix”, dealing skillfully with sabotage “may be the most important aspect of leadership. It is literally the key to the kingdom.”
Contact us by email at jdhollinger@hollinger-international.com or telephone at 202.841.0583 to arrange coaching or find out more about our coaching services.