Cultivating Leadership Through Project-Based Learning and Coaching | E179

Are you ready to transform your school with visionary leadership? That's exactly the journey we take you on as we discuss the urgent need for strong leadership in schools. Unveiling the practical steps taken by schools like Dixie Elementary in Lexington, Kentucky, we showcase how project based learning (PBL) can revolutionize learning outcomes. From the initial needs assessment to crafting a robust three-year plan, this episode lays out a blueprint for fostering a sustainable PBL culture that not only galvanizes teachers but also leads to tangible improvements in attendance and test scores.

Venture into the world of leadership coaching with us as we highlight the game-changing program at the Doerr Institute at Rice University. Witness the profound effects of professional coaching on the leadership skills of college students. We dissect how cultivating collective leadership capacity is crucial for addressing the intricate challenges our future holds. Exploring the nuances between coaching and consulting, this episode inspires a new vision for leadership development in higher education, with potential ripple effects that could reshape society's approach to nurturing its young leaders.

Finally, let's celebrate the diverse spectrum of leadership. Join us for an inspiring tale of Dalton, a student who shatters the conventional leadership mold, proving that leaders come in all forms. This episode is an invitation to educators to look beyond the obvious and encourage every student to recognize and embrace their unique leadership qualities. By fostering an environment of recognition and opportunity, we can empower the next generation of leaders to step forward and make their mark on the world. Tune in for actionable strategies on how to identify and support the leadership potential that lies in every student.

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Transcript

Ryan Steuer: 0:00

Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and on this podcast we're helping you implement your project-based learning vision. That's right. It's not about me, it's not about us, it's about you. We're just the guide on the side trying to get you to achieve your vision. Some interesting research says that if you're a principal in a building, there's only an 11% chance that you're going to be at your building 10 years from now, which, if you think about change process and how long it takes to implement something, if you're going to take three years to listen to your people which is not a bad idea you should listen to your staff, listen to the school, figure out where you're at. But then, if you're going to take three years to formulate a plan and three years to implement it, you don't really get to live in your vision very long. So in some place there needs to be a sense of urgency. Right, we want you to fulfill your vision in your school, like right away, and we know how to do it. We've been down the path with so many leaders. At this point, we know exactly how to do this and again, it's not about us. We just know the process. We know that you want to start with a needs assessment, slash, asset mapping. What's really? What are the bright spots in your school? Where are the areas of growth? And now let's develop a plan, leadership plan three years out, of what it could look like. We call them design days. You and your leadership team figure out what the vision looks like. Now you're going to bring the vision, but you get to be a part of the leadership team during design days, which is important because you need momentum. The leadership team during design days, which is important because you need momentum. John Maxwell says that the big mo is one of the leader's biggest assets. You need momentum. You don't want to be pulling people the whole way. You want them to come along with you. And that's what design days do. They start to give you some momentum. You get some teacher leaders. You get your APs, you get coaches on board with project-based learning and they start to implement. And then you can start to get your entire staff on board because they've seen success at your school. So now you're going to run a jumpstart. You're going to go into deeper practice PBL advanced. You're going to get into certification.

Ryan Steuer: 1:54

After three years you have trained teachers in your building that can train your new hires. What's that mean? That means that your teachers are cultivating your culture, not just you, and don't get me wrong, it's still your job. We're going to help you with that. We do administrative coaching as well, and you're going to train your own folks.

Ryan Steuer: 2:13

You don't need magnified learning there, holding your hand for 10 years for your vision to come through, not even five years, not even four. In three years, we can get your vision up and running and, yes, we do customize it. I don't want my vision in your school. You want your vision in your school. As the leader, that's one of your biggest jobs is bringing vision. Yes, you have to manage the day-to-day. When somebody calls off, you need to get a sub and I know it's hard to get subs and, yes, you have a budget. You need to look at All those things that you need to manage throughout the day, yes, but you also need to lead right. That's why you got into this position, because you saw there was something in education that you could change, and that's what we do. We help innovative leaders find their vision, write down their vision, cultivate their vision, but get to implement their vision in a sustainable way.

Ryan Steuer: 3:03

So then, after three years. Guess what you get to live in your vision. Wouldn't that be awesome? A school where your learners are empowered, where they're learning how to read and write, do math. They're learning about the Punnett Square, but in a way that relates to the world. And guess what happens? Attendance goes up, discipline goes down, standardized test scores go up. We see it. We have model schools that show this right. Dixie Elementary in Lexington, kentucky, turned around from what would be considered a D school on standardized test to an A. Now were those teachers working really hard all throughout that? Of course they've got some rockstar teachers. They made some tweaks, they've got an innovative leader and we helped that vision come to fruition. Again, it's not about us, it's about them and they're doing amazing things for their learners. So how can we help you? Let's get you on the path.

Ryan Steuer: 3:54

The first step you want to do is go to whatispblcom. You go to whatispblcom and you're going to get some resources specifically for administrators to get you moving. It's your first step into project-based learning. You're going to have resources to give to your teachers. You're going to have resources for you to get caught up on PBL and see what your vision looks like If you're a high D on the desk and you're like well, that's too slow, ryan, I just want to meet with you. That's fine too. You'll have those resources in there too. Just do it.

Ryan Steuer: 4:22

But that's what we do here and that's why we have the podcast. That's why we have PBL showcases every second Wednesday, where you get to talk to a teacher in the classroom doing PBL right now. You get to hear what it's about so you can jump into the movement. You can get your movement started. The first and third Wednesdays I'm going to talk about a leadership tactic, some portion about project-based learning. Maybe it's community partner breakfasts, a couple podcasts to go. Maybe it's about cultivating your vision and getting it down on paper. Maybe it's about delegation talking to you as the leader. Today we bring in a leadership guest. So today we've got Walt Morgan on the podcast and we're going to bend his ear. He's got some really neat coaching opportunities that he's doing with college students and that just piqued my interest. You're going to hear me get really curious in this podcast interview, because that was really interesting.

Ryan Steuer: 5:13

I'm a huge fan of coaching. I do some high-level coaching with superintendents and principals. Take five clients a year and we do life and leadership coaching. It's all about, like, what's your mindset and what do you want to achieve and how do you get there. And I love it. It's some of the best work I do. My life has been changed by coaches. I love coaching others. So when Walt said, hey, I'm coaching college students, like my radar went up, because when I think about college students, maybe it was just me, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't have a passion, I was stalled. I did dumb things because I was stalled. And if I could have had a coach that said, hey, ryan, what do you really want to do with your life? I think it would have been a game changer for me. So I think about all the eighth graders that I've taught over the years right, I think a thousand plus right as they go into college, like what if they had a coach that really said, like, well, what's on your mind, what's in your heart that you really want to do? I feel like it'd be a game changer. So reached out to Walt as soon as I heard what he was doing and I think we had a great conversation and I think you're going to enjoy it.

Ryan Steuer: 6:23

Welcome to the PBL Simplified Podcast. I'm your host, ryan Stoyer, and this is a leadership episode. Today we have Walt Morgan, who's a professional, integral coach who partners with clients from all walks of life to achieve the personal and professional development goals that are most important to them. You've heard me talk a lot about coaching, and this isn't your football coach, your basketball coach. This is more of a life and leadership coach scenario. So Walt's an instructor at the University of Colorado.

Ryan Steuer: 6:47

He created a program beyond the classroom that offers life and leadership coaching to college students and as soon as I saw this, I reached out to Walt and I was like hey, walt, this is something that's really interesting. I'd love to have you on the podcast because, honestly, it's just a way for me to learn as well, right alongside you. Visionary Leader. So let me give you one more thing about Walt. He loves the work of coaching, I love the work of coaching and, as we were talking to kind of set up this interview, it turns out he gets a 75% discount on his coaching to teachers and first responders. I was like, ah, and he's one of us. So this is great, walt, thanks for being on the program today.

Walt Morgan: 7:23

Ryan, thank you so much for allowing me to join you in this conversation. Thank you for the important work that you do, and I also just want to offer my gratitude to your audience. My wife is a teacher. My only sibling is a teacher. Both my parents are teachers. I acknowledge the underappreciated and extraordinarily valuable work that our teachers, our principals, our staffs, everybody that is a trusted adult engaged in the development of our young people. It's such critical work and I am so humbled by it. I see it firsthand, and so just all of that to say thank you so much for everything that you do.

Ryan Steuer: 8:09

Well, there you go, we're off to a good start. That humble heart of a coach is why I wanted to introduce you to our audience and have you stay a little while. So the first question that everybody gets is what is your why for your work?

Walt Morgan: 8:31

your why for your work? Yeah, great question, thank you. My why is to raise our collective leadership capacity as a society so that we can address the real things, the important things, the right things, our priorities together and solve them together. And we can't do that unless we grow not just a few individuals here and there, but all of us grow in our understanding of what leadership is and maybe expand our understanding of leadership that we've inherited, and also begin to identify more strongly as leaders who are capable of making impact.

Ryan Steuer: 9:10

Yeah, great, and that's why we start the podcast this way, like with your, why I like in your, why, just to dig a little bit, even right there is, you know, talking about building leadership collectively so we can work on the right things. And I like leaving it right there as right things, because the right things might be different for that next generation, right? If we just name a specific thing there, we might be holding the next generation back.

Walt Morgan: 9:31

So I love it. Yeah, no, I think we can safely anticipate that the things that students will be grappling with very soon are unimagined to us right now, or completely unaddressed even if we have imagined them, I mean, they are getting a heaping serving of leadership opportunity.

Ryan Steuer: 10:02

Yeah, that's so good. It's a safe bet, isn't it All right? So, Walt, can you tell me a little bit more about this coaching program that you have for college students? Now I'm a certified life and leadership coach through 48 Days to Work. You Love Dan Miller's group, so I love true coaching. I kind of differentiate coaching and consulting. Often, right, Consulting is I'm going to bring you answers now, and then coaching I'm going to draw answers out of you, right, you know, for your benefit. So can you tell us a little bit more about this program that you're doing with college students?

Walt Morgan: 10:32

Yes, and I'll say off the bat, it's very much aligned with your approach to coaching right, in which the wisdom resides in the individual being coached and a creative partnership and exploration is being established in accessing that wisdom to expand the capabilities of that individual.

Walt Morgan: 10:56

So I feel like we're really aligned on our understanding of coaching. So it might be useful to provide a little history around how the program was established. And really I'd been in corporate. So I'm a retired Navy military, a retired Navy helicopter pilot that's my history and found a calling as I came out of that, something around leadership development. I've taught leadership classes at the University of Colorado now for 11 years, so I've been doing that work for a while and then I did the corporate leadership thing also.

Walt Morgan: 11:40

Meanwhile, back at the University of Colorado. I live here in Boulder, just a half mile from campus. Back here in Boulder there was a new organization being established under the little over two years old and still finding its way. But at the very genesis of that project the operations director for the project said hey, I would really like to pull you back from corporate America to a higher calling maybe and see if we can engage you in a role in the Center for Leadership and it's a non-paid position but also gets you connected back teaching.

Walt Morgan: 12:26

And that was kind of my break from corporate, which allowed me to set up my own coaching business and really also focus on supporting young people in the university. So that was my touch point was serving with the CU Center for Leadership, and then I read a book called Leadership Reckoning, which is about the efforts of the Doerr Institute at Rice, and as far as I can tell, they have unlimited funds to explore leadership. God bless them, and they are very, very good at introducing third-party research to really understand the efficacy of leadership programs. So the first thing they attacked, as I understood it in my reading, was every institution of higher learning says we're building leaders for the next generation. The research doesn't really support that, though.

Walt Morgan: 13:26

Nobody actually is right. We're kind of flatlining at university. We're certainly not outpacing anybody in our leadership development at that critical time, so we're not necessarily creating leaders in higher education. And so Rice set out to do that and as far as I can tell, they would start any program, they would test any program, they would research any program and if that program wasn't producing leadership results based on their parameters of leadership behaviors as well as leadership identification, then they would either scrap that program immediately or adjust it so it delivered something. Now there are some time-honored leadership traditions that aren't really making the cut and I won't get into that too much because some of it's a little heartbreaking.

Walt Morgan: 14:22

There's a lot of work and effort around those things, but a lot of things turn out to be feel-good programs that the students really love and they give five stars to and any number of thumbs up, but aren't necessarily moving the needle in a credible way in their leadership development. But what Rice University determined was that leadership coaching does Leadership coaching in higher education actually moves the needle around observable, recognizable leadership behaviors that create impact on teams and also leadership leadership identification. So what Rice University does is offers leadership coaching, professional leadership coaching, to any student who wants it at the university.

Ryan Steuer: 15:11

Yeah, it's awesome, so that was yeah, it's amazing.

Walt Morgan: 15:14

So kudos to Rice and to the Doer Institute. So I read that book and I said look, you know, I'm a professional professional coach. I'm here at the center for leadership for cu. This is something that I can offer. So I went to the, went to the university and said you know, I'd love to coach a student. So the dean of students came back to me and said well, how many, how much you are for in here?

Walt Morgan: 15:38

yeah, I could maybe coach two students pro bono, right? And then I thought about that. I'm like that's just silly. I'm like let me get back to you. So I brought in a peer coach, a friend, and talked about this idea and this vision and she said, yeah, let me see if I can round up some coaches. 24 hours later, we had like 17 coaches volunteering their time. 24 hours later, we had like 17 coaches volunteering their time, professional, certified ICF coaches volunteering their time to coach college students pro bono.

Ryan Steuer: 16:10

Amazing, so that was Coaches are so generous, aren't?

Walt Morgan: 16:12

they yeah. Well, coaches are in it overwhelmingly. They're like teachers, right. Yeah, that's right. We're in it for impact, we're in it to make a difference. This matters, this is important, and so we turned this thing around really quickly.

Walt Morgan: 16:30

This whole vision started in maybe November of 2021, just two years ago, maybe this week and by December 7th we had all of our coaches in place in the first group of students for coaching in the spring 22 semester and then we did some very rudimentary qualitative research around it and almost all of the students involved I think we coached maybe 20 students that first iteration and most of them felt that they had a transformational experience in their leadership development. Whatever was important to them felt that they had a transformational experience in their leadership development. Whatever was important to them, whatever that was getting in their way, they felt they had more clarity and more efficacy and more capability to do things better as leaders than they could before. So, taking that qualitative research, we brought it back and was able to get a small pot of money to pay some coaches a little bit mostly an honorarium and we coached another cohort across the school across the school year. We did that last year, so that would have been the fall of 22 and spring of 23 and did some research around it.

Walt Morgan: 17:41

Now I would say from the outset I think where we could have done better is found students who are more willing. We're so excited about pushing this research. We're kind of pushing students begrudgingly into the program program and that ended up meaning that we had some really motivated students in both the coaching group and in the control group and we had some less willing students in both, which I think probably impacted the research around this coaching program a little bit. But I will read to you something from the key findings. So the key findings say the coaching study demonstrated a clear positive impact on the development of emotional intelligence, knowledge of strengths and weaknesses, happiness and reduced burnout. So that is what we found in the coached group. What we found also was there's such unwillingness in the control group that we can't necessarily do correlation to create as much impact around those results as we want. But guess what? We're doing it again this semester.

Ryan Steuer: 19:02

All right.

Walt Morgan: 19:02

So we're coaching 30 students currently. They're highly motivated and we're researching the impact of coaching on those students to check their growth and I'm really excited to learn what we learn around that.

Ryan Steuer: 19:22

Yeah, and I've noticed, as I'm maybe coaching principals or assistant superintendents, there's just a I mean I say ignorance, not in a negative way of what coaching is.

Ryan Steuer: 19:34

So if you say, hey, we've got free coaching, I can see people going, no, no, thanks, hold on, we've got free life coaching right, that can take you to the next level, right, whether it's whether it's free or paid. Uh, once people understand coaching, they and they feel coaching I. I see people coming back again and again, right, once they get it, especially maybe situational, I've got some principals will say, hey, I've got this coming up, can you coach me through it? Right, and they know that means I'm going to poke and prod and ask questions, so maybe even just people knowing a little bit more about it. But college seems like a great time to receive coaching because you've got all these big decisions ahead of you. So maybe out of that first cohort I know there's kind of some mixed results, but it sounds like there are still some findings that came out Do you have some success stories that you can share with us?

Walt Morgan: 20:32

Yeah, so I coach the students also, and for me it is such a powerful and rewarding event and this is what I would share. Most of my professional clients are executives in the 45 to 55-year-old range. That probably constitutes maybe 75% of my business. I will coach anybody who's willing. Right, that's my passion, but that's probably the bulk of my business and I love all of my clients. I believe that they all have transformational events in which they are able to embody a new way of being that allows them to create more impact through their lives. That's consistent. You talked about people who are coached come back again and again for coaching.

Walt Morgan: 21:20

Like I always have a coach, I always hire a coach because I personally witness in my own work, the power of coaching and therefore, as a coach, I also want to coach because I believe in it so much. Um, so now let's get to these, these young people. I have the honor of serving and coaching in their, in their journeys, and this is what I'm finding they are so agile in their learning and in their growth, their ability to connect the dots, the ability.

Walt Morgan: 21:58

And I just sit and wonder, like sometimes we'll be 20 minutes into a conversation with one of my student clients and it'll occur to me like man, this young person, this 22 year old, just did more work in 20 minutes than one of my executives typically does in an hour and a half. And it's not to take away from the beautiful work that my executives do, but my college students feel so unencumbered, right, they don't have like 30 years of professional experience like weighing down on them and all the expectations around that. And also I think there's a lot of neurological pathways that remain more open for the college students that become closed as we grow older and they're able to move through those more ably. But the results come really, really quickly. In my observation, I can't speak from a statistically significant standpoint because I've only.

Walt Morgan: 23:05

I can't speak from a, you know, a statistically significant standpoint because I've only coached a few of these personally. But every single time I'm just blown away by how quickly they absorb it and how quickly they make powerful changes in their lives through the embodiment of truly bringing in a new way. It doesn't happen just in the head space, it happens in the heart space and in the body space that just make these beautiful changes. And so, anecdotally, ryan, that's led me to the conclusion that if my why is around growing our collective leadership capacity, this really begins with young people.

Ryan Steuer: 23:50

Yeah, that's so good.

Walt Morgan: 23:52

Yeah, and helping them identify as leaders, helping them understand leadership differently. I feel like we've all maybe inherited maybe a couple centuries of bad ideas or limited not bad, but limited ideas around what leadership is, and I feel it's really time to grow beyond that kind of single story of leadership that we grew up with.

Ryan Steuer: 24:17

Yeah, this intersection that you're at of college students, where they've got so many opportunities ahead of them, they haven't had six bosses that they've been under to maybe limit their leadership, their idea of leadership and I think there's one piece that comes out in project-based learning is just the authenticity of the work, and in college I just feel like you've got someone that you're coaching that this is a super authentic relationship for them. They want to know where do I want to go and they probably authentically don't know what am I going to do. They have no idea. So when somebody comes in and they're not telling them you should do this, but it's more pulling out of them. What is it that you think you're made to do? What do you want to do? I imagine it's very refreshing for them too, and they just lean in even more.

Walt Morgan: 25:12

That's really a great point. Contextually, they're in a really, really ripe place to learn lessons, even if they're just doing a project. Right, really ripe place to learn lessons. And even if they're just doing a project, right. Pbl simplified. So now they're doing a project and strictly through a leadership lens.

Walt Morgan: 25:36

Well, how did you show up? How did you show up in that project? Where else do you show up around? You know, where else do you show up in that project? Where else do you show up around? Where else do you show up like that? What does that mean for you as a leader? Where does that create opportunity for you as a leader? Where does that limit you as a leader? Where are your opportunities to grow beyond how you show up? What would it look like to show up a new way, right? So there's all these opportunities around projects, there's social development. But, yeah, the context is really beautiful for them to explore their leadership if they're intentional around it, around it, and it's very rare that they are Extracting these amazing leadership lessons that they're a part of every day. They just don't have an opportunity or they don't choose to, or they don't know how to reflect meaningfully on them and then intentionally grow into the leader that they want to be, so that they can make the impact that they want to make.

Ryan Steuer: 26:49

So reflection is a big part of project-based learning. In the six steps that I outlined in PBL Simplified the book, the last one is reflection. So I lean on this quote from John Maxwell. He says experience is not the best leader. Evaluated experience is the best leader. So it's not just getting our kids experiences, it's walking them through. What did you just go through your questions are beautiful to do that? How did you show up for this project? That's such a great question. What do you think that this could look like in a K-12 environment? Does that fit? And let's just go there real quick. What do you think that could look like?

Ryan Steuer: 27:30

We'll get back to the episode in just a minute, but I wanted you to know about Magnify Learning Design Days. Design Days is a two-day workshop held at one of our PBL model schools, so a school or a district that's operating a really high level with project-based learning. Now we're going to take you and your leadership team, a group of 10 or less made up of you, assistant principals, coaches, teachers that are all starting to plan out the next three years of PBL implementation. If you just start and hope it's going to work, it's probably going to fizzle. So what about a three-year plan where you think about all the different stakeholders, we think about the values, we think about the rollout, think about which teachers on your leadership team could start to implement and start to have your own local success stories around PBL that you can share with your staff. That goes a really long way and you're going to do it at one of our model schools, so you and your team get to ask questions of that local principal, the teachers, the learners that are in the classroom. You get to go see it and then we pull you back out and one of our facilitators helps you and your team plan.

Ryan Steuer: 28:34

As the leader, you get to be a part of the planning process, not just driving it home or pulling people along. You're going to leave those two days with a grassroots movement. You're going to leave with momentum for your PBL vision. This is the way to start. We've done it a lot of different ways. We've seen other groups do it. We've been doing this for a decade. Those schools that start with design days and keep those going implement strong and a lot of times faster than you might otherwise, because you have more people moving in the right direction and they know what the goal is. So look in the description, get it, get an overview of our magnified learning design days. Schedule a call, let's jump in and partner.

Walt Morgan: 29:15

Now back to the episode I was actually thinking about that before this podcast. My my wife's a kindergarten teacher. About that before this podcast.

Ryan Steuer: 29:30

My wife's a kindergarten teacher, so I'm just so, in such admiration of her skill set, complete awe of kindergarten teachers so amazing, so beautiful, and I listened to her stories.

Walt Morgan: 29:41

Around there they have a Lego table and so much of kindergarten is socialization and and even simple questions around. Well, what did you want to happen, did you want? What did you want to happen when you were in that, in that group? What did you want to happen when you were working on that project? What did you hope to happen? Like, oh, how did you make that happen?

Walt Morgan: 30:09

And just bringing that correlation, even at that very young age, of their ability to imagine the results and then do something that creates them and it can be in a social environment, can be in a project environment. I mean, those things show up just as readily in kindergarten as they do in the rest of our lives. So just simple questions throughout the day and then, of course, the conversations evolve as they work their way. You know I have an eighth grader, my son's an eighth grader and my, my daughter, is a sophomore right now in high school, and so so that evolves. And then we get to have more nuanced or sophisticated conversations around the impact of that they want to make through whatever they're doing, and just inviting them to think about those experience through the leadership lens. I don't know how often that's engaged in our learning.

Ryan Steuer: 31:22

Yeah, I think you're right. I started to laugh because if your dad's a coach, then you answer a lot of questions throughout the day. I'm guessing, right, like, my kids get a lot of questions as well, because we know the power of questions, right? So is there? I'm going a couple of different directions in my head now. Is there a way to scale this right? So if I'm an eighth grade teacher, I've got 25 kids in my third period class, I'm probably seeing 125 kids one day, right, as I go through my different sections. You know, is it something I can adjust in, like the essay questions that I ask? Or, you know, maybe some group prompts? What do you think that could look like?

Walt Morgan: 32:05

I think. I think it can look like a lot of things. Let's already examine what we're hoping to accomplish in our essays or in our projects and through our reflections, which, like what lessons are we trying to tease out? If I can back up a little bit, I think a really good starting point, Ryan, is for each of us to know what leadership is. So often I'll ask somebody what their personal definition of leadership is and almost nobody knows. They think they'll know it when they see it, but I think there's a very good chance that they see it all the time and don't recognize it because it sits outside of maybe a single story.

Walt Morgan: 32:57

I update my own personal definition of leadership. It probably changes about every three years or so as I evolve as a leader or as I evolve in my understanding of leadership. That just keeps changing. So, if it's okay, I'll share my current definition and this doesn't have to be anybody else's definition. I really do believe in the power of our own personal definition of leadership so that when we're talking about leadership, we can say, yes, this is what I'm talking about. So my current definition of leadership is the process of turning our best intentions into impact.

Walt Morgan: 33:34

Can you say it again.

Ryan Steuer: 33:37

Walt.

Walt Morgan: 33:37

Yes, the process of turning our best intentions into impact. And to me that's really how we measure leadership. Like, did that come from a good place? Did that come from a place of wanting to make positive change, to make a difference? So it kind of starts with us. I think leadership always starts within us and then the impact is then okay. Well, the process is all right. The intentionality around making that happen and bringing all the tools and the skills that we have, whether we're just modeling it or if we're engaging others or if we're on an all-out media blitz, whatever it is. There's virtually an infinite number of tools that we can engage in the process. But how it's measured is kind of the impact, the alignment of those intentions and the impact that comes out of it.

Walt Morgan: 34:34

So now, if we're carrying whatever your definition is, how do we, how do we invite consideration and reflection and discussion around that so that the word leadership begins to mean something to young people, because right now I think it's a little bit of a throwaway word. So how do we bring meaning back to it in our classrooms? And it might be as simple as let's have a class discussion and it doesn't have to take too much time around what leadership is? What do you guys think leadership is? Do you think that you're a leader? Well, let's explore ways you might be a leader, right, depending on whatever definition that you come up with as a group or as as an educator, like maybe maybe you are a leader on the margins and you haven't even honored or recognized yourself for being a leader. So where are the places in your life that you are a leader? Let's find those, so now they can start seeing themselves in that leadership light and then maybe understand what's next. I don't think that takes a lot of time.

Ryan Steuer: 35:52

I agree, I don't know that it has to take a lot of time, but it seems super worthwhile to me to say that leadership is not extrovert versus introvert and there's different levels.

Ryan Steuer: 36:03

I think I've got one student story that I tell where Dalton was what I call leadership 101 in middle school, which means that he got the project done. He was in a group of four. His intent, if you will, was to make sure everybody got the project done and mostly he would just do it all. And we said, oh, dalton's a great leader. And we said, well, dalton, what if he did leadership 201 and you actually helped your team get better using the skills that they have, or maybe changing his intent of just getting it done to investing in his team members? And that was probably a five-minute conversation with him. So I wonder what it looks like for the introverted kid, maybe in the back of the classroom, to realize that she is a leader when she goes, sits with someone in the lunchroom that doesn't have anyone to sit by them, right, there's this intention of good and for impact, right, and now everybody's got this little bit of leadership that they can be a part of.

Walt Morgan: 37:01

Yeah, I love your approach on that and especially that's the one that shows up so often even in my college, like in there, in there, in there, kind of final what did I learn? Checkout. So often it'll come out that, oh, I'm an introvert and I can be a leader. Yeah, it's like even even at that stage, they're still grappling with the single story of leadership. That it's somebody who's a powerful public speaker and and is barking orders and telling people what to do and people follow. When the spectrum of leadership, our ability to create impact through our processes that spring from our best intentions, that can look like anything and it usually looks like something that's deeply real and truthful to us.

Walt Morgan: 37:52

So, how do we find that thing and allow it to create impact, good impact, the right impact, to have the right conversations and to engage others? And so we all have it. We're all, we all have capacity to lead, and we don't always feel ready or invited, I don't think, to step into it, and so I think that could be work at the younger age. Obviously, I'm focused on the college students, on the college students, yeah, but to all of our teachers and educators you know our teachers and administrators and staff out there I trust your amazing skill sets and, and maybe, and, and, and this is my invitation to all of you, if you're not already doing it how do you invite the leaders and all of us to emerge in your work, and what does that look like?

Ryan Steuer: 38:52

Yeah, you use this phrase that sometimes we don't feel ready or invited to lead, and I wonder if that's some of the success with your college students is you're inviting them into leadership? What do you think needs to come first? Do I need to be ready for leadership or do I need to be invited into leadership? Or maybe it's not one before the other, it might not be binary either.

Walt Morgan: 39:17

Yeah, it just is. There will always be a few that feel confident in taking that step. I tend to be suspicious of them, but that might be my own issues.

Walt Morgan: 39:32

I love a reluctant leader, I really do. And then when they find the power of them and then focus that on something that's important, I love that. So what comes first? The invitation or the capability, I think I mean that really gets into it gets into a kind of a broader societal discussion, because our society actually invites certain people to lead and creates a story around certain people as leaders. So I think I've mentioned it a couple of times but just challenging the single story of leadership I'm going back to, of course, the DG Ted talk that is so popular, where she talks about the single story. But just taking that idea of the single story around leadership alone, what would that look like? Who is telling the single story? Who benefits from the single story? Like, why is there a single story? Like, what is the unfold story around leadership? And then once we start kind of widening the aperture of what leadership is, I think that in itself creates an invitation.

Ryan Steuer: 41:08

Yeah, I like that. In itself creates an invitation. Yeah, I like that. I also think some of the secret sauce of teaching and the impact of teachers and principals as you're listening, is that we can offer this invitation to leadership right that maybe hasn't been offered to a child in any other sphere that they interact with right, and we can invite them and say you know, you are a leader and in this classroom at least your leadership has a place, so you are invited and now you can practice right, so you can be ready. So, walt, as we kind of come to a close here and I love this conversation can you give our visionary leaders maybe a tip, one or two tips that they can either use with their staff or their students, whichever direction you want to go, to kind of move towards this bit of coaching, to either to bring it into their school so that they are inviting more leaders.

Walt Morgan: 42:05

Yeah. So the actionable thing that just came up for me when you were talking is looking for those leadership behaviors. One, so I would really I'll use the word invite again but invite our principals and our teachers and our staff to really connect with what they believe leadership is. It doesn't have to be my definition right, it's your definition but then when they see students behaving in that way or when they see peers behaving in that way, call it out. I see your leadership, I see you showing up as a leader. That was leadership right there. And hopefully, in many cases, when you say that it one is in an unexpected way to that student, like oh, oh, I didn't know that was leadership, but now it's being reinforced as leadership. So, one, it's unexpected. And two begins to build that identity. Oh, I'm somebody who can be a leader. I'm somebody who can create impact through my life and through my choices. I am somebody who can make a difference in this world because I'm a leader.

Ryan Steuer: 43:22

Yeah, that's super good. I love that. I love that invitation that we're giving to the adults to invite students or to invite their staff, even the teacher that doesn't always speak up, you know, let's identify those leadership behaviors and call them out. Excellent, Excellent call to action. Thank you, Walt. So well, I think we'll probably have to have you back on after you take the second cohort of college students through. I'd love to hear how that research kind of what that end result is and some more of those stories. What's another way that our audience can reach out and hear more about your work or maybe work with you?

Walt Morgan: 43:57

Yeah, so you can reach out to me directly. My name is Walt and my email address is at T lift coaching comm. That's Walt at the letter T li ft coaching comm, and there. So that's my email address. My website is just T lift coaching comm. If you want to explore a little bit. There's a contact button there and I offer this burnout.

Walt Morgan: 44:26

So I watched my wife um two two school years ago. She had 28 kindergartners. She didn't have a teaching partner, so she was alone with 28 kindergartners and these were like COVID kindergartners, right. None of them had been to preschool, or most of them hadn't. And so I watched that. I mean, I'm kind of chuckling as I say it, but it wasn't funny, it was painful. It's painful to watch as her husband who loves her. It was painful for the family because we felt like we lost a critical family member for a year and beyond because it just took so much from her.

Walt Morgan: 45:06

And so I offer a burnout package for anybody, but there is a 75% discount for teachers and the idea is it's a one-year package and the first six months are just about stabilizing. Like, what are the simple? Like what is one simple thing that you can do between now and the next time we meet, that will bring something to your life. And then, after about six months, when you feel a little stabilized, then we're going to go deep and explore the root of your burnout, because we all burn out for different reasons, but I can guarantee you that there is a belief system that lies underneath your burnout and it's just going to come back if it remains unaddressed. So I would love to serve a couple members of your audience with that burnout package if they're feeling that kind of pain, and I assure you I will show up compassionately for what you're going through and work around your schedule to support you and to serve you on that journey.

Ryan Steuer: 46:14

So good, awesome. Well, thank you for that work, walt, and thank you for being on the podcast today. I appreciate it.

Walt Morgan: 46:20

Ryan, thanks for all your great questions and your partnership. I've truly enjoyed our conversation.

Ryan Steuer: 46:24

All right, visionary Learners. You just heard a little bit about coaching college students, but I think there are a whole bunch of takeaways that you can take for your staff and your staff can trickle down to their students about asking great questions to build leadership in your building and in those people that are in your building more importantly. So take Walt up on his offer of some coaching. You know that I believe heavily in coaching and in masterminds as ways to increase your impact, but, as Walt's also mentioning, we're just opening up our mind to some things where hey, where's that burnout come from? Let's lift up the rock and look at the squiggly things and talk about those and let a professional lead you through that. I have a coach, I believe in coaching, so I'm happy to talk through that some more if you want to do that before you talk to Walt. So, however, you want to do that, we'll have all of his information in the show notes. But make sure that as you go out back to your schools, that you are finding a way to build leadership within your buildings as a visionary leader. You cannot do it your own, on your own. You can't just keep pulling people. You need to build momentum and capacity and as you do that, you're going to find out that you do, in fact, lead inspired.

Ryan Steuer: 47:37

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the PBL Simplified podcast. I appreciate you and honor that you tune in each week. Would you please take two minutes to leave a rating and a review? When you leave a review, it lets the next person know that this is a podcast worth listening to. When they go into their player and search project-based learning, and PBL Simplified popped up. When they see those reviews, they know that high quality, visionary leaders are listening, so they tune in too and they can find their way into the PBL journey. Thank you so much for leaving a review. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate you.