The Mentor Every School Leader Needs | Lessons from Dr. Phil Warrick - Ep 012

Hosts: Courtney Acosta & Mario Acosta  

Guest: Dr. Phil Warrick  

Podcast: The EdLeadership Pair – Unfiltered Conversations for Today’s School Leaders

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Episode Overview

In this special guest episode, Courtney and Mario sit down with Dr. Phil Warrick, a leader who helped launch both of their leadership journeys and whose influence still shapes how they think about schools, systems, and people. Phil reflects on the role of mentors in leadership, why great leaders must build future leaders rather than followers, and what schools get wrong when they chase too many initiatives instead of building coherent systems. He also shares lessons from his own leadership missteps, explains why new principals must slow down before making major decisions, and offers practical wisdom on strengths-based leadership, life priorities, and building legacy through the leaders who come after you. More than an interview, this conversation feels like a mentoring session for anyone trying to lead schools with clarity, purpose, and humility.

Big Ideas from the Conversation

Mentorship remains essential at every stage of leadership—no leader outgrows the need to learn from those who have walked ahead. The true role of a leader is to develop future leaders, not followers. 

Focus is critical. Schools lose effectiveness when they pursue too many initiatives at once, stretching staff capacity. 

New leaders often misjudge the shift from offering suggestions to making decisions. Leadership accelerates the pace of decision-making, but effective leaders resist reacting too quickly. 

Building strong teams requires self-awareness. Leaders must understand their own strengths, manage them effectively, and intentionally surround themselves with people whose strengths complement their own.

Ultimately, leadership must be purpose-driven. To sustain this, leaders must continually realign with their core priorities, ensuring leadership does not overtake what matters most.

Leadership Actions Recommended in This Episode

1. Build future leaders, not followers. Evaluate your leadership by looking at the people you are developing. 

2. Know what you believe. Write down the two or three core beliefs you hold about excellent schools and leadership. Use those beliefs to guide decisions and protect yourself from chasing every new initiative.

3. Slow down major decisions. When you are new to leadership, resist the urge to decide too quickly. Gather context, ask questions, and remember that a thoughtful decision is usually better than a fast one.

4. Know and manage your strengths. Use self-awareness tools and reflection to identify your natural strengths, and where overusing them could become a weakness.

5. Hire and develop complementary people. Build teams with people whose strengths differ from your own. Let them lead meaningful work so they grow into future leadership roles.

6. Practice honest, humane accountability. When someone is not the right fit, be direct and respectful. Treat people the way you would want to be treated and help them find a better path when needed.

7. Write out your life priorities. Create a clear list of your top personal priorities and revisit it when leadership starts to pull you off course. 

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▶️ YouTube: The EdLeadership Pair

🎥 TikTok: @theedleadershippair

🌐 Website & Newsletter: www.theedleadershippair.com

Join our growing community of school leaders navigating today’s challenges together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

No matter how long you've been in leadership, you never outgrow the need for great mentors. In fact, the longer you lead, the more important it becomes to learn from people who have been where you are and have done it at a high level. Today's episode is exactly that. This is more than a conversation, it's a mentoring session. Because today we're sitting down with a leader who has shaped both Courtney and I's journeys in a very real way. He's someone who not only has led at a very high level, but develops other leaders every single day. And if you're listening today, our hope is that you walk away feeling like you've just gained a mentor too.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

I'm Courtney.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

And I'm Mario.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And this is the Ed Leadership Pair Podcast. Before we introduce today's guest, Mario and I should probably tell you something. The reason we're sitting here today is because of one principal who took a chance on both of us.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Years ago, this man hired both of us into our first assistant principal jobs. We met actually while working for him, and that changed both our lives.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

So today's guest isn't just a national expert or our first guest. He's actually a part of our story.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Dr. Phil Warwick, thank you so much for joining us today, sir. Thank you for having me on. You are someone who has spent his entire career leading, learning, and developing others in this field of education. For our listeners, please know that Dr. Warwick has over 25 years of experience as a teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, and a superintendent. Along the way, Phil has been recognized as an outstanding educator. He was the new principal of the year in the state of Nebraska and was named as the high school principal of the year for his service at a high school in the state of Nebraska. He's been part of leadership institutes both at the state and national levels, including work with the Gallup Organization and the Texas Principals Visioning Institute, helping shape education and educational leaders across the country. Today he works with schools and leaders across the country as part of Marzano Resources, focusing on systems leadership through the High Reliability Schools Framework, instructional best practices, assessment practices, standards-based grading practices, and collaborative teams. He is an author or a co-author on 11 books, several of them bestsellers. And you speak at large, large conferences. You are one of the most well-known names in our field. So it's truly an honor that you were willing to join us today.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

He's super fancy, is what you're saying. He's he's bougie.

SPEAKER_02 2:50

I love that. That happens to be two of you. And so the fact that I get to be your first guest is to me honestly a really dignified personal honor. And I thank you for that. I'm looking for this.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Thank you. We would not have it any other way. So you have coach leaders across the country. Obviously, you coached us. And before that, you were leading real schools with real kids and real teachers every day. And so when you look back at your time, we're going all the way back to principal days. What do you think you understood about leadership earlier than other people understand?

SPEAKER_02 3:32

Probably one of the most important things, and I got this note. You guys know how much I speak about. It's so important to have mentors, and it's important to learn from those you work with and pay that forward. Probably one of the most important lessons that I learned early on was that leaders' job is not to build followers. A leader's job is to build future leaders. And that is what always guided me and what I've always tried to do. My job wasn't to build people who were willing to follow. My job was to build bridges and get the right people in the spot to walk those bridges and support them and say, here, we're gonna work together for a while, but if I do my job to the way it should be done, you're gonna go forth and even do better things than what I gave you an opportunity to do. And I think that was from the very beginning. I really felt like, you know what, my job is to be a bridge builder and just build future leaders.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

I love that. And you know, that's so funny because we talk all the time about our leadership tree and people that have worked with us that then went on to other bigger and better jobs than what they had when they were working with us. And so it's funny because I don't even know that I realized that came from you, but it obviously did.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Listen, everything came from Phil the mainly or not.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

It's all it's all from Phil.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Phil. Yeah, yeah. Well, I got it from somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

So there's a wall of tree, right? There's a wall of tree. I love it. The truth of the matter is that if you want to judge somebody on their on their effectiveness as a leader, look at the wake they lead and how many knee leaders are in that wake. That's gonna tell you if they do their job.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Phil, that leads us into kind of one of the big topics we were wanting to get your expertise on today. We know that you are one of the uh leading experts in the country on systems leadership, specifically through the high reliability schools framework. But we wanted to kind of ask you this first question, which is that schools just chase initiatives instead of building systems. And so can you please help us understand what leaders need to know or think about when they're building systems? Um, and maybe in your experience, can you explain to us what is it that schools get wrong in how they chase initiatives versus build systems?

SPEAKER_02 5:49

Your staff and your school and your district only has so much capacity. It only has so much capacity as far as finances, as far as energy, as far as staffing. So you have to really be intentional about where do we place that capacity? What's that capacity going to be used to create and do? And what I think uh districts and schools get wrong is they chase so many different things and they wake up one day and they find themselves with 45 different initiatives, all of them drawing off of those resources. They don't know who they are as an organization. And what they really need is a framework to say, you know what? If we went back to what do highly successful schools need to truly think about, where do they need to invest their capacity? And they just took the time to say, if we got good at these types of things and gave our staff time to get good at it, you know, one thing I see is when we're changing initiatives like this, and every year it's three new things, then our teachers start to go, well, who are we? What is it you really expect me to be good at? And that is not how you win this game. You win this game of teaching learning by saying, you know what, this is who we are. This is what we're gonna be really good at. This is how I, as the leader, am going to support you in developing those skills. And we're gonna take a little bit of time to make sure that we do develop those skills. Be wise about where you invest the resources you have over time, do it at the right things and be really careful about getting drawn off course, or you're gonna wake up someday and go, we're trying to be all things to all people. And that's that's a failure for now.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

How do you do that? How do you, as a leader, how do you prioritize like this is who we are and this is the direction we're headed, and like stay in that direction? What does that look like in actual practice?

SPEAKER_02 7:45

Yeah, that beautiful court. I think that's the value of frameworks and the value of models, like we've built Nature S model. I'm not trying to do a commercial for that, but it was built from looking back at 50 years and going, what are the right things schools could do? So you have to take a little bit of learning from the past, right? We call that contextual thinking. And then you have to think about how's it apply to my situation? So that's that's the first part. But from the leadership standpoint, here's one of the most important things. And it goes with the question you asked me know what you truly believe as a leader. Know what you believe, know why you believe it, know how to speak to it, know how to build a vision towards it, know how to justify it when you have to. And I think one of the things that uh I've seen in a lot of leaders who are new is they don't know what they believe. And if you don't know what you believe, you become susceptible to being able to be pulled off course because every new little fancy thing. You know, like you guys, this isn't just practice. You can tell me, I believe in high quality instruction. If if you can build simple practices that offer high quality instruction, you have got a fabulous chance to be really good in this business. So leaders to do that court, they got to know what they believe. And I don't think a lot of them going into it have taken the time to say, what do I believe about a really good school? What are if if you had to boil it down a knee to the two or three core initiatives that we got to be good at, what do I believe? That that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah, yeah. And Phil, you know what? So few leaders have good mentors that teach them what to believe. So Courtney and I were blessed because I mean, gosh, we fell out of the tree and hit the best leader that we could find. I mean, we just were flat lucky that we got being a decent film someday. So, you know, for Courtney and I, our entire career was built off when you said passionately a moment ago, like leaders must know what they believe. Well, we had great leaders that showed us that. And so maybe you can just speak to leaders right now that have the opportunity to mentor leaders and maybe they're missing that opportunity. How do you how do you make sure that as a leader you don't miss that opportunity to help teach others around you what they should be believing or what they could be believing in?

SPEAKER_02 10:05

I think part of it starts with recognizing how important it is to ask questions. I don't need to tell you what you believe in, I need to ask you questions and let you come down that road with me, right? Now, there's a reason I fired the two of you. There's a lot, a lot of them, but I'm gonna tell you one of the big ones. I asked you questions because I really want to know what is it that you kind of believe right now, even though you may not have known yet it was a core belief of yours, and in both of you, you are so strong in your belief of core instruction that I was just like, yep, these are my people right here. This is exactly where I go. So I think leaders, Mario, have to ask the people whether they're on their leadership team or they're gonna be candidates, what do you believe? Where where are you at in this? What do you think really helps the school, helps the classroom be the most effective as can? And then as the person new to leadership, what that does for me, it causes me to think. It causes me to go back in my side outside myself and go, what do I believe? Because there's there's a lot of people that just are they're not asked to think in that way, right? And it doesn't mean there's wrong answers, there's not wrong answers. Yeah, sometimes there's no answers yet, and so I have to go back and go, you know what? I need to really decide what is it I believe. So I think part of it for mentors is asking the questions and not telling someone what they believe, but elicit it out of them, let them espouse to you.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

That's awesome. And Phil, I didn't have the right answers, but even back then, Courtney was giving me the right answers. So so between you and the yes, sir. That's like okay. That's the only way I'm still sitting here right now, all these years later, 25 years later, between the two of you, I'm able to make it make it work.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

You can make it through. You got it. Okay, so um when leaders, let's say somebody first stepping into the principalship, and there's always these hard lessons that you can only learn when you're in it, when you're sitting in that seat. And so, from your perspective, what are some of the realities of a principalship that people underestimate, that they don't really think about because they've never been in that seat before? But you're like, oh, I wish I could prepare someone for this because they they never know.

SPEAKER_03 12:26

I think one of the number of things are the little thing that is a big thing. There is a distinct difference between making a suggestion and making a decision. And when people are maybe in teacher leadership roles, maybe in assistant principal roles, you get to make suggestions.

SPEAKER_02 12:45

If you're included, you get to make suggestions. When you become a principal, you get to make a decision. And there's a definite, uh, a very big difference in making a suggestion, making decision.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

With that in mind, if I could give people advice on that, I would say this you don't always have to make a fast decision.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

One of the things I see new leaders get involved in is it's kind of like when you hear people level up in a sport, they go, boy, the game moves so much faster. Well, guess what? When you get in the principal seat, the game starts to move faster. And you got to really think about hey, take a deep breath, slow it down, and it's okay not to make staff decisions. That is a very hard lesson people learn because early on in their career they make staff decisions, as nice as they thought it wasn't the right decision, but they didn't slow the level down just a little bit to go, okay, um, rather than feel like I have to, I'm the principal and I'm supposed to have an answer for this right away. No, it's okay to say something like, you know what? I want to make a thoughtful decision, not a quick decision. It's okay to take two steps back to take 10 forward. I think of all the things that throw the curve ball at Pika early, it's how the game speeds up and tracks them into making quick decisions.

SPEAKER_00 14:08

That is such a great point. And it it feels like you're right. It feels like you have to have all the answers, like you're the one that's supposed to have them, and you feel pressures that may or may not really exist that feel like it has to, you it has to be made quickly. That's such a good thing.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

It's so easy to do. Yeah, I mean, right, because people don't realize, but the minute you're in the leadership position and you're in the office, boy, that game speeds up.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

And Phil, I think this is a great spot that we we should share one of your philisms with with all of our listeners. No, because right here, what you taught me, and I kept this for years, I kept it, I mean, all the way through, you know, my leadership career. And you used to tell us the analogy that the big possum walks late, right? And when we we all said, What, Phil? What does that mean? Look, we're not gonna go running out there and make stupid decisions. We don't have to be first. We're gonna be intentional, we're gonna be strategic. Leadership, you you're right. The game speeds up, you're like, Oh crap, I gotta be first, it's gotta look prettiest up front. Nope, we're gonna sit here and we're gonna study and we're gonna make it right. And then when we move, everybody's gonna go, okay, there, there it is.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

That's right. Yeah, big possum walks late. That is so true, right? All the other little possums, they've already gone, they've already now our turn to go, and then we'll show here the food is. So that's exactly exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Yeah, yep. And Phil is famous for his Philisms, much like Big Possum Walks Walks Late.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Phil joined us. We're Texans, and Phil is a Nebraskan, as you know, born and raised. And so when Phil moved to Texas, there was just some culture, he brought his culture down to Austin, and and we had to all kind of meet in the middle and figure out what he was saying.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

I had to learn to speak this guy and loved it. Well, I appreciate that, but you know what? You guys adapting quickly. I learned a lot from you.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Hey, will you do us a favor? Could you just tell us, just tell us one story if you can remember back to you're talking about things leaders get wrong. Tell us just a quick story about something you remember where you said, Look, this is I didn't do this very well. And and maybe so that people understand that even great leaders that stand on big stages and write big books that hey, there were bumps in the road for you as well.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Well, let's talk about why I know the big possum walks late. Um, I was a new assistant principal. I had a great mentor, Dr. Brian Maher, who's still one of my dear friends today, and in fact, is now the state commissioner of education for the state of Nebraska. Oh, wow. So, you know, I I had the opportunity to work with some some people who taught me a lot of things. One of the things he did for me, like I've talked about, is he empowered me. He said, Look, this is gonna be your part of the operation. You know, I trust if you run it, check in with me if you need to, but it's your part of the operation. So one of the things I was in charge of and oversaw as assistant principal were our our activities program. And we had a thing that was just kind of a draw off of our school calendar. It's called Activity Day. I'm a new assistant principal here, right? And I'm just like, man, this activity day just takes a ton of our time away from our assistant day or from our school calendar. Really kind of handcuffs us at times. So I just thought, we're gonna move forward when I have my meeting with the activity sponsors, I'm gonna tell me oh it worked. It's it's probably time to get rid of activity day.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Oh you know how when you say something in a room and the tension immediately changes and you feel like a thunderstorm just rolled in. Oh yeah. So here I am. Mr. Know It All New Assistant Principal. Hey guys, a couple of things. Let's start with this. You know what? I didn't look into the calendar. I think we're gonna get rid of activity day. Um it's probably a good thing I'm still alive. What I hadn't done anything is go back and understand why is it even here? What's important? Why do we work around it? Well, long story short, we had a school district that ran 15 bus routes. For our activities to meet after school now on a regular basis was was really gonna put a hampering on probably a third to half of our students participating in activities. Trust me, that's when I learned right away the big possum walks late. You slow your roll, you do your investigation, you talk to the right people, you understand it completely before you just go make a decision. So, oh yeah, I screwed that one up pretty well. That was about uh a month into the job.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

And you know, you asked me, can you remember back? You don't forget those.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

No, stays with you forever.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Yeah, because then the other thing I did, and this is important for leaders to know, I also went in and apologized to them for that later. You have to, you you you know, an old adage is you never offer an excuse when it's an apology that's necessary. And so I went into them later at their meeting, and I said, Look, you guys, first of all, I owe you a huge apology. Apologize to them, told them what I did wrong, and they forgave me. And you know what? We move forward in quite a successful fashion after that.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Oh, those apologies go a long way. And that can you say that again?

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, never offer an excuse when it's an apology that's necessary.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

And that is probably also how you have stayed married to your boss lady of a wife, Tori, for so many years, because you know that fact.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Yeah, you know, I'm actually here's a secret of our marriage, and I really believe this, and it's also a secret to leadership, I think is important. But you have to also recognize if two people always agree, one of them isn't necessary. It's okay to not always agree. And you know, as leaders, we gotta understand that hey, it uh if we always agree, I'm not learning. You know, in our team, we didn't always agree. No, we didn't at our meetings, we had some really good discussions, we had discourse. We had to talk about how some things are done. But the ability to understand that two people always agree one of those is necessary helps you understand, you know what? I'm gonna learn something through this discourse that's gonna keep me from making a mistake.

SPEAKER_00 20:22

So, Phil, you've worked with a lot of leaders over the years. You travel now and you work with leaders across the country, like more than the leaders that you served with in schools. But when you look at principals and you're like, that's one that is really making a difference. What are the personal qualities that separate them from the rest?

SPEAKER_02 20:43

They understand that they have a purpose greater than self. Their purpose is not about, oh, I gotta be the principal. Their purpose is about really taking their organization and doing the right things. And as part of that purpose greater than self, they understand that I'm not always gonna be the principal here. Someday I'm gonna hand this off to somebody else. And my responsibility is to hand off something that is worth handing off so that the person who follows me comes in and says, Wow, thank you for leaving this in the shape you left it in. The the people who are doing the work the best that I see, that's the underlying quality right now that I see in them. It's beyond you. You just happen to be in charge of it right now. You know, you got in this little segment of opportunity and what you do with it is important, but it's it's got to be driven by a purpose greater than self.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

I love it. And one of the um, one of the keynotes you gave, I remember. So I love the way in your keynotes, a lot of people will have a bunch of words on their screen and what you'll just have a picture and you can talk about a picture for 10, 15, 20 minutes, and it has no notes on it, it has nothing else. And it you're such a great storyteller that people are just all in on what you're saying. And I remember. You had a picture and it was kind of a forest, and there was a path in the forest, and you were talking about walking that path, and there's a path behind you. And can you kind of talk speak to that a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah, that was, you know, the big path from the 30,000-foot view is represent the life of the school or district. It was here before you, it's gonna be here after you. And then the second picture is just what you see when the trees are all around you, but see the path going forward. And the metaphor for that is you're in charge of this part of the path. It might be five years, it might be two years, it might be 10 years. It's not gonna be the whole path. What you do with your part of the path is absolutely vital. And really, what I ask him to think about there is perhaps just a little bit of legacy building. What are you what are you gonna hand off to the person that that takes this next? Because it's not it's not your path to own for a life. Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Yeah, and listeners, if you've never seen Phil Warwick speak at an event, you gotta make that put that on your list. And and you know, I'm fortunate that I also get to join him at at events now, and he he just puts one slide up with one picture, and you're just sitting leaned in, like, oh my god, it's amazing. And then I'll ask Phil, how'd you do that? And he's like, I'm just Phil Warwick, I just do it.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

No I am the master of woo.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

They have a name for people like that. No, you know what, Rank uh knows about you. If that picture represents something you truly believe in, you could speak to it. One of my really good mentors, Dr. Don Christensen, who when I was in the Ministry of Nebraska, he was the commissioner of education and and he was it's just okay, it's just wise. He told me one day something that I've never forgotten. I've proven it to be true. He said, you know what? When soul enters the conversation, people listen. Now, what that means is when you speak from your innermost being, when you speak for something you truly believe people know it.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, so that that kind of we had a question that we wanted to ask you, and you just led right into it. If you could give one piece of advice to a brand new principal who, you know, maybe I just got hired or I'm about to get hired and I'm gonna start in in the fall, what's that one piece of advice that you would tell them? Whether like start doing this, stop doing that, you know, it's kind of give some coaching to somebody who might be walking into this principalship for the very first time.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Well, but earlier on, you know, we talked about know what you believe. I I think that's absolutely valuable. You you've gotta know, hey, as I go and take over this opportunity to leave for however long I'm the leader, what do I believe? However, the most important piece of advice I would give a new leader is you gotta be able to manage yourself before you can lead others. And what I mean by that is you have to know your strengths. You have to know who you are as a person, and then understand how do I leverage those strengths to help lead others. And part of that means I need people around me with strengths different than me. I need people around me that bring things that maybe aren't a natural strength of mine so that I can leverage one of my strengths to have them leverage one of their strengths so that we as a team are really good. You guys know I'm a huge believer in the Galud strength finder. Yeah, I just remember we did that as a team when we knew who each other were. We knew who each other were, and for me that was really valuable because then I could look across you guys and go, when we have a project moving forward, here's a natural, really good leadership team. If this person and this person are together, they bring 10 different strengths to that project. So I think the number one piece of advice is know who you are, know how to manage yourself because that'll empower you to manage other people.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Phil, what was your what was your number one strength? I know we both know what it is, but I just want you to tell everybody else because it's my favorite.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

It's called woo, winning others over. Yeah, that that was my number, and so you know, you gotta leverage that.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Man, and you did. Like, I don't know that I've ever met someone that had that is more woo than you are, and it is phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

It's so important for learners to know their strengths because there is a dangerous moment for leaders, and that is if your strengths go hyper, meaning you try and overuse them, they can quickly become a weakness. And so you have to know how to manage them and get to the point where you go, okay, I've my strengths have taken me to this point now. It's time for other things to kick in. So hiring that team and knowing the strengths of your other folks, it's really important.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

It's really interesting that you say that because I think I have worked for I am my current boss and my previous, when I was a principal and he was my supervisor. I think all three of you are probably they are also higher in Woo. And I'm very activator achiever. Yep. And I work very well with the woo people because I'm not trying to out woo you. I don't need to out woo you. I'm the okay, let me do my part now and let's dive in and start getting to work and do the things.

unknown 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

And so you know, one thing I always loved about you, Court, when we'd finish our meetings and we all had our notes in our journal and we knew where we're headed next. You would always say, I guess, one or two questions. Okay, let me make sure I this is where we're going. Yep. Then, yep, got it. You'd close that book and you'd go out that door, and here's what I knew. That's gonna be great. She is she is gonna go take this thing and whip it. She is absolutely on.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

But I did need someone, I did need someone like a Dina Schaefer that would sometimes slow me down because sometimes I could move too fast. And Dina was good about okay, wait, let's consider all the different angles. And then we got this guy over here who was like, let's just win. We just got to win custard competition.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

Oh, I was gonna say, you think? Well, that's one of the things I recognized in Mario early on, and that's why I was so so, you know, when Mario is an instructional coach, he and I had the opportunity every once in a while to just talk about instruction. That he's like, I thought I knew, dang, like here's what I thought. I I think I know instruction, he knows instruction better than I know instruction. I need to get him on my team because I'm gonna learn more instruction from him, and we're gonna have a great collaborative opportunity. But the other thing I thought is that guy's a competitor. Yes, he's coming with me because here's what I knew about Mario helping helping run that school. If we use the metaphor of walking down a dark alley, if the two of us walk down a dark alley together, either we're both coming out the other end or neither of us is coming out the other end. And that's what I loved about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

Yeah, and Phil, that's it, man. And and we say that to this day. Sometimes we're walking in North Carolina and we're in a dark alley by accident, and we're like, well, we're about to put this to the test because we're he doesn't that.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Well, I do hey, I know who I'm with. We don't have the need of us or coming out.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

And and for those of you who don't know Phil and I in person, Phil is you know a tall man, and I am not, and so I told Phil, I don't don't get confused. I I can I can bite, I can scratch, like I'm gonna do my part. I got your back, I'll do my part. I knew that, buddy. I knew that. Well, we appreciate that. When you hired future leaders, or if you today were sitting down saying, okay, I'm gonna hire leaders or sit on a committee to help hire future leaders, what is it that you're looking for in somebody who says, Hey, I'm ready, I want to be a leader. You know, I know you probably you work in schools all over the country, people probably walk up to you and say, How do I do what you do, or how do I become a leader? So, what is it that in your mind that you're looking for in somebody who thinks they're ready, but you're like, Okay, I'm checking. Do you have these particular things if you really are ready?

SPEAKER_02 30:01

The first thing I think I look for, honestly, is how do they interact with people? Because problems start when you can't interact with people. And it doesn't mean that everybody has to interact the same, but you gotta know how you interact with people. Um, here's my number one right, wrong, or difference, just how I operate. I'm gonna watch how well they listen. But I wanna know if somebody's speaking to them, if I'm speaking, if they're talking to someone else, how well do they listen? Because when I see people that don't listen well, but they just listen superficially, that's gonna come back to haunt them in short order. But when they listen well, I think that's important. Then I want to know a little bit about what they see in their future. For the two of you, one of the things that I appreciated I knew that you were never gonna be settled being an assistant principal, and that was what I wanted. I didn't want somebody that said, Oh, I want to be a career assistant principal. There is anything wrong with that, and I know some people that are really good with that, but at that time we did not need that. Yeah, at that time to do what we had to do with that school. I needed people that I could say, oh yeah, every one of these folks would be willing to take my job in the next four or five years because I was gonna empower you to do some things and say, take this, take that, take that. If you remember, I didn't think I might permanent much. Um Mari, I'm gonna use you as a great example. Remember when we started the freshman house? And I came to you and I said, buddy, this is your you are gonna be the first principal of the freshman house, and you're gonna run this as your school. And you did, and you did a great job, and you made decisions over there that you guys did things I did. Okay, I gave it to you to run. I'm here to support you. You you're gonna do it your way. But the reason I had confidence in doing that is because I knew you saw beyond being the assistant principal, so I knew you were gonna do that to build yourself as a future principal.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

And Phil, I would say to you, um, I don't know that we've ever directly talked about this, that I don't think I knew it. I was pretty young at that point in my leadership, so I don't know that I had enough cognition to know it. But that opportunity to run that faculty, you let me be a mini principal. My career went on to be luckily good. I like you say sometimes, like, you know, uh God takes care of dummies sometimes, and I fall into that category as well. You know, led successful schools for a very long time. But I think that was the the beginning of it, that you trusted me enough that let me cut my teeth. And I think what you're saying that I resonate so much with is you know, there were eight of us on your team or seven, I can't remember. Every single person that was your assistant principal became a principal and more. Um, and Cordy and I have talked about that in some of our previous episodes about how our trees are also big like that. So, you know, it and I think you like you're saying, as a a great leader should be able to look and say, I left I left leaders behind me because I fostered that leadership.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Absolutely. I mean, that that's the purpose for myself, right? Am I creating the opportunity for others to become leaders? If I am, okay, correct. That's that's why you do this thing. But you know, you talk about what I look, I want to know somebody can listen. Because that's that's uh a little bit of a lost art sometimes. And then I want somebody that sees down the road their future in leadership because they're gonna use that to be good now.

SPEAKER_00 33:47

I would love to hear from you, because I know it's not possible that you always had amazing teams and and every person on it was incredible and built for that next level and that next step. And so, how did you handle it when you had leaders on your team that you were supporting that maybe didn't have what it took or didn't have that drive or the commitment to always try to be better? What did you do as a leader to support them, work with them? What did that look like?

SPEAKER_02 34:21

This this might sound a little bit funny, but I'm really serious on this. I think when you get in that situation, you got to practice the golden rule. Okay. Now, golden rule is treat others as you want to be treated. I I think that's such a thing to live by. So, how would I want to be treated beside that person? Well, I'd want a couple things. I'd want someone to be honest with me, to let me know, hey, this is this is where I really would like you to go, but I'm not seeing that. But I'd also want them to give me an opportunity to see if I could go there. Um, so I was always honest with people, um, teachers, principals, whoever, if they weren't doing it. And to me, during those conversations, I also back her golden rule, I'm gonna treat them the way I'd want to be treated in that conversation. It was never about attack, it was never about personal, it was about look, I can remember saying to uh one person in particular, you know, right now I think I see more potential in you than you're seeing in yourself. So let's talk about what I see, and then I want to know what you see, and then let's talk about how you get there. And I want you to think about is this something I can do? And if it's not, that's okay. But this is what I need you to be able to do here. So it sounds kind of simple, but I do believe it's true. You practice the golden rule, which is treat him like you want to be treated, which is through honesty, through genuineness, through giving them opportunity. But at some point in time, then that will lead to people making a decision. This is or isn't the place for me. And if you do it that way, a lot of times those aren't even hard conversations. They're just mutual agreements that you know what, thanks for the opportunity, but I'm gonna go for something else.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Yeah, I have heard you say before, let me help you find somewhere that is a better fit for you. And that that really was the first time I heard that, where it wasn't about, I'm getting you off my team, I'm getting you off my campus, out of my classrooms, whatever, whatever it was. It was, you know what, we're not in alignment. Let me find a better fit for you and I'll help you get there. And you did that for people. And I think there were times that you legitimately did find a better fit for them than where they were gonna be on your team.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Absolutely. That's I'm I appreciate the fact that you recognize that. Yeah, that was always how I approached it because I want to know look, this isn't a personal deal. I I do think there's a place for you, and I'll be willing to help you. It just isn't gonna be here. And I yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Well, Phil, as we come to a close with our time with you today, I think we just wanted to ask you a couple a few more questions just to get as much out of you as you're willing to share with our with our listeners. So um, if you could give one piece of advice to every school leader, and that with that could be campus leaders, superintendents, whoever, if you could give one piece of advice to school leaders who are listening right now, what would that be?

SPEAKER_02 37:16

Make sure you have your life priorities ordered correctly. This profession is amazing, right? It's the most valuable profession in the world, in my opinion. But if you don't have a rightly ordered life, it can eat you. So I would make sure that you have your life priorities ordered correctly and sit down and write them out. Sit down and say what what's the first most important priority for me? What's second, what's third? And you know, work is gonna not probably be at the top, it's gonna fall somewhere probably in the middle. And the reason I think that's so important for all leaders is there are gonna be times when you just gotta come back to that list and recalibrate and find your true north again. That's okay. That that's what happens in this business. Um, it's not wrong to get pulled off true north, but you gotta be able to come back to it and go, you know what? At the end of the day, here's who I am as a person, and that helps you come back to true north. It helps you deal with the harder situations, it helps you deal with the successes as well. And just remember that at the end of the day, you know, if you have your life ordered rightly, your priorities ordered rightly, you're gonna thrive in this business. And there's times you're just gonna have to kind of, you know, get your compass back on true north.

SPEAKER_00 38:48

Did you or do you journal? Like, were there times that you literally would sit and write those things down?

SPEAKER_02 38:55

I still have court. I could go over to that. You guys can't see it in my office, but oh, ground table. I can pull out of there a uh sheet from a yellow notepad that years ago I sat down and I wrote the top five priorities in my life and why. And I've never strayed from that. I have it still. That thing is probably God, I don't know how old it is.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

But it's better not to say Phil. Just don't say how old it is.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

Yeah, that's probably true. I hope there's no maker's mark on it that gives a date, but uh and I pull it out every once in a while still. Uh and yeah, do I journal? You bet I journal. I love just to write little notes and just think, you know, you know, writing is a way of thinking. I think that's so important. And also on one of your guys' earlier podcasts that I listened to, you were talking about books that you've read and you know, just the importance of reading, which I so appreciated you doing that. I still read, I had you know, uh uh because I still um love to be a learner, and you know, I introduced Mario to this book not long ago, Legacy about New Zealand all blacks. And that's where I just continued to deepen my understanding of systems leadership and the power of it. So do I still write and read? I absolutely do.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

When you when you think about the leaders that you've developed over the years, what makes that work meaningful to you? What do you take away from that?

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Oh man. Well, when I see their successes and I and I really feel like, and you two are great examples of this, they're better than I ever was, right? When I uh have had any part in building the on-rap to get somebody on the interstate for leadership, and then I see them go do bigger, better, smarter things. I'm like, I had a little bit of I had a little pinch of salt in that recipe, and um yeah, and I feel like that's kind of what we're supposed to do. This is you know, this is a business that uh and here's why you know life builds leaders on its own, but collaboration builds leaders faster. And so if I was able to build and collaborate and do anything to build, I just I feel like that's kind of what I was put on this earth to do. I've kind of delivered that's that's kind of what this satisfaction I get out of it.

SPEAKER_00 41:35

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

Well, and and I think that's perfect because we both have to say this publicly to you, which is that I mean, you literally were the leader who gave us both the opportunities to become leaders. And so uh whether you realized it or not at the time, but by hiring the two of us, you basically started this podcast.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

You know, like I mentioned the field game because my wife was the first one to listen to it and told me it was fantastic. I know so yeah, no, honestly, I I appreciate you guys saying that, you know. Um, honestly, I'm so proud of you. And I do listen, your podcast listen every episode, it's one of my playing podcasts, and I I really like I said earlier, I appreciate the themes you're exploring. Um, anyway, I I I'm honored to have been on and uh had a a little piece in who you two have become. And you know what? Uh look forward to our future together. And also, I think when you go through the leadership, you know, battles together, you also become friends, and I think that is one of the most important things, you know. You you measure your life, but then if the last full measure of your life is here's the people I worked with, and by the way, we're still damn good friends. Then he's probably done it right.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Well, Dr. Warc, thank you so much for joining us. And to all who are listening or watching, if you enjoyed today's conversation, please share this episode with a school leader who is trying to get better every day because I had a year with Dr. Warwick, you had multiple years with Dr. Warwick, but still that the learning we had from you just lives on and on and on. And we pass it on to people that we've supported. And so we can't thank you enough. And of course, we love you and know that you are fabulous.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

I love you too as well. I appreciate this time. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Uh I love that guy. He's the best.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Yeah, what a great interaction, right? He's just so full of knowledge, so full of wisdom and experience.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

Every time, every time I talk to him, I feel like I learn something new and different, or it solidifies something in my head. I don't know. He's just he's such a great leader and was so great to work for.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Right. Which is a great leader, great mentor for both of us. So I think it's what a treat for you and I to be able to have our very first guest be the man who kind of kicked it all off. And all these years later, and we've known him so long, and he says things, and you're like, God dang, I've never ever done that before. He he He's just a dynamic leader and somebody that's uh cool to be our friend, but also that we're lucky to be around such a to have access to such a great leader.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Yep, absolutely. Well, all right. I'm Courtney.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Well, I'm Mario. Thanks for listening.