The Exaggerator's Playbook | Summer Shorts Series - Ep 24

🎧 Episode Overview

Every leader has encountered it:

“Everyone is upset.”
“Nobody likes this.”
“The staff is furious.”

But what if “everyone” is actually three people?

In this episode of the Summer Shorts Series, Mario and Courtney unpack one of the most dangerous leadership traps in schools: the exaggerator.

Exaggerators aren’t always malicious. Often, they are simply emotional, frustrated, or advocating for their own perspective. But when leaders react too quickly without evidence, they can create bigger problems than the original complaint ever represented.

This episode is about slowing down, asking better questions, gathering real evidence, and building a leadership habit of detective work before decision-making.

Because strong leadership requires clarity—not emotional whiplash. 

💡 Big Ideas From This Episode

• “Everyone” often means a very small group.
 • Leaders must separate emotion from evidence.
 • Exaggerated feedback can distort decision-making.
 • Fast hallway conversations can lead to bad leadership moves.
 • Good leaders ask better follow-up questions.
 • Survey data helps neutralize exaggeration.
 • One complaint should not outweigh clear evidence.
 • Leaders must train their teams to bring specifics—not generalizations.
 • Not every concern is invalid—but every concern needs context.

🧠 Leadership Takeaways

1. Never react to vague language.

Words like:

✔ Everyone
 ✔ Nobody
 ✔ Always
 ✔ Never
 ✔ All the teachers
 ✔ Parents are furious

These should immediately trigger deeper questions.

Leadership requires precision.

2. Slow the conversation down.

Mario reflects on learning not to make decisions in hallways, during lunch, or in passing moments.

Instead:

Pause. Schedule it. Revisit it.

Urgency often fuels exaggeration.

Slowing down creates clarity. 

3. Ask the five detective questions.

Before acting, ask:

Who is saying this?
How many people?
How do we know?
Is this anecdotal or systematic?
What data supports it?

This is the leadership filter.

4. Context matters more than volume.

Three upset parents in a 2,000-student school?

That matters—but it does not represent the whole community.

Leaders must understand proportion.

Small complaints can be valid.

But they are not always universal.

5. Gather data before making changes.

Courtney emphasizes proactive survey collection.

Why?

Because if you gather the pulse first:

✔ You reduce exaggeration
 ✔ You know your real percentages
 ✔ You can respond confidently
 ✔ You can communicate transparently

Data helps leaders stay grounded.

6. One complaint still deserves consideration.

Important distinction:

This episode is not about ignoring concerns.

Even one voice matters.

But leaders must ask:

What can I learn from this without overcorrecting?

That’s mature leadership.

7. Train your team to stop exaggerating.

Your leadership team learns how to communicate based on what you tolerate.

Teach them:

Bring names.
 Bring numbers.
 Bring evidence.
 Bring patterns.

Not panic.

🔥 Powerful Quotes

“Every story I get is a piece of the real truth.”

“Who? How many? How do we know?”

“Don’t let the exaggerator drive the decision.”

“One complaint feels heavier than ten compliments.”

“Strong leaders do sleuthing before they solve.”

🛠 Practical Framework: The Anti-Exaggeration Filter

Step 1: Clarify the source

Who specifically is saying this?

Step 2: Clarify the scope

How many people actually feel this way?

Step 3: Clarify the evidence

Do we have:

✔ survey data
 ✔ emails
 ✔ patterns
 ✔ repeated concerns

Or is this informal chatter?

Step 4: Clarify the urgency

Does this require immediate action?

Or more investigation?

Step 5: Clarify the response

Do we:

• hold the line
 • tweak the plan
 • communicate more clearly
 • adjust the system

Not every concern requires a full pivot.

🎯 Final Thought

Leadership is not about reacting to volume. It’s about responding to truth.

The loudest voice in the room is not always the most accurate.

Before you change a system…
 Before you shift direction…
 Before you let panic spread…

Slow down.

Ask better questions.

Find the truth.

Then lead.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hey Mario.

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hey babe, what's up?

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Have you ever had someone walk into your office and say everyone is upset about this? Only to find out later that it was actually only two or three people. Everyone's upset. No. Courtney.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

And I'm Monday.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

And this is the Ed Leadership Pair Podcast, now brought to you by Marzano Resources and Solution Tree. And we're in our summer shorts.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Summer shorts series.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Summer shorts series. If you're watching on the YouTubes, you can see that we have our summer gear on, sporting our alumni networks.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

That's right. The University of Texas at Austin Longhorn, that's me.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Hey, and the fighting Texas Aggies, Texas AM University, would be me.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

So yeah, you're hearing that, right? We are a house divided, and our children are in those two school systems as well. That is accurate. So we've got our entire family split up between the Texas AM system and the University of Texas.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

It makes November for a real fun time.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yeah, it's fun because the Longhorns typically.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

All right. We're moving on.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

All right. Today's episode, we are talking about Speak of the Devil, the Exaggerators Playbook. Just like the Longhorns.

unknown 1:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

All right. So we know we all have on our crickets.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

She deserves crickets for that comment. She doesn't know what she's talking about.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Look, the educators want to hear content.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Okay. Let's get back to work. Get back to work. Some are shorts. Some are shorts.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

Some are shorts. Okay. So common phrases that we hear when we're thinking about people in our organizations, because surely we didn't hire people on our teams that are exaggerators, but common phrases that you might hear that let you know, okay, this person might possibly need to be labeled an exaggerator. So number one, everyone is unhappy. You hear that?

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Yeah, heard that for sure.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

How about this one? Nobody likes this.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Nobody likes this. Everybody hates this. I think I lead somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I don't think that's how it goes, but close enough.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Something like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

Something like that. Um, here's another one. All the teachers are talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

All the teachers. All of them. Yeah, in my little group of upset teachers. Right. All three of us.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

And parents are furious. The students hate it. We are losing people because of this. And this is a huge problem. So these are all things that might indicate that an exaggerator is in your midst. Right?

SPEAKER_01 2:57

That's fair. Yeah. And I mean, the dangerous part about being a principal, uh, an executive director, the superintendent, the leader. The leader, we always say the tip of the spear leader, the person who has to make that decision, is that people are always bringing you their perspective on what they want you to do or what they want you to think, or you know what I mean? So it's really different. I found it, it was probably the thing I had to grow into the most is every single conversation you're having, almost, maybe not unilaterally, but many of the conversations you're having with people are slanted from what it is they're trying to get you to understand so that they get what they need out of things, right? And it doesn't mean that you've got nasty people around you, that's just human nature. So as a leader, I had to learn really, really early, and and I had to figure that out. That like every story I get is a piece of the real truth. And then I have to be able to like sift through and put the pieces together to decide what the right, yeah. It's really tough. Every, everybody, almost everybody, is coming at you with what they want you to think about what they need.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

That's exactly right. And it usually starts with knock knock knock. Hey, do you have two minutes?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Do you have a minute?

SPEAKER_02 4:05

I see that you're eating, but I see that this is the one 45-second time period in your day that you have to actually scarf something down. Can I just talk at you while you eat?

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yeah, yeah. I think I feel like as principals, we get good at eating with people talking at us. I used to be like, you say whatever you want. I'm not stopping though. I'm gonna be shoving food in my mouth. Because, like you said, this is my one three-minute window to that's right, put some sustenance in my body. You know what else I did right here, Court? I got in the habit of when people used to catch me that really would get me this way was when I was in hallways, when I was when I was out in the building. Yes, and you're moving from one place to the next, or you're, you know, you're you're because it's easy for people to walk and talk with you, which is fine, but then I am not in a space to really know or really make decisions or really ask good questions. So I really got better about stopping, not the conversations. I would never let myself make a decision in that environment. I learned my lesson the hard way. Oh, everybody's upset about the new PLC form. Hey, I appreciate you bringing that up. Here's what I'm gonna do right now. I'm gonna open my phone. Let's set a quick meeting. When are you next off? I want to sit and talk about this. So instead of when I was younger, I would have taken that to heart. Oh man, I just bumped into Mr. So-and-so in the hallway and he just told me how upset they are about the new form. Let's change it. So I realized when I'm not sitting and thinking, I can't let myself get bought into even good things, right? Like I didn't let myself make quick snap judgments or quick decisions, and I got in a good habit of like, we're gonna have to come back to this at a time that I can actually sit and think about this or listen to the whole story or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

It's so valuable, so valuable to not get caught up in that. So let's talk about a few examples. Let's say someone comes into your office and they say, let's let's get a parent complaint. Parents are furious about the new cell phone possi policy. Okay. All right. So, what are some things that you could respond with that are not like they come and they have a meeting with you and it's it's like a scheduled time?

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

What are some responses that are gonna help you in your detective work as you're trying to really put together a whole picture?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, I mean, I think the first question is like for me, as you said that to me, is who who who's which parent? What who tell me who who is saying this? And maybe with maybe the teacher's like, I don't want to tell you which parent. That's fine. Give me a give profile this for me. You know, is this a kinder parent? Was this a fifth grade parent? Was this a ninth grade parent? Is this a senior parent?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Who who is are you the parent that you're talking about?

unknown 6:34

Is it you?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

And sometimes people bringing you information want to keep confidential where where they heard it, or you know, that kind of thing, which is fine. But I need a profile because I need to understand again who it is. Um, you say this all the time. I hear you talk about it. Like, how many parents are we talking about? I want a number. So maybe you can't tell me, you know, the Joneses and the Smiths and the Gonzales's are the ones. Maybe you don't want to do that, but I want to know, oh, you heard from three parents, three kinder parents, three ninth grade parents. That starts to help me, right? The more I know the profile and the and the volume, I think.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

And I would want to know, like to put that into perspective, let's say it's three parents and you've got a school of 2,000 kids. Okay, it's three upset parents that you have heard about out of 2,000. That's right. Like, what is the actual percentage?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

197 happy parents. I'll take the three.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

It might that might be. It might be like, yeah, it's not we're never gonna get 100% of folks happy.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

So yeah, I and I remember what were we talking? At any point in time, with any decision you make, there may be 10% that are unhappy about what you're doing. And like you kind of set this threshold of what am I okay with in terms of people not being okay happy with this, and then what's the threshold that tips it where I'm like, oh, I probably should make some changes.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah, I I attribute that back to Dr. Steve Flotison. It was one of his books. He was a it was our superintendent and he loved book studies. And I can't remember if it was the obstacle is the way or one of those books, but it was it's called the 90-10 rule. Where if you kind of feel like, hey, I got about 90% of people on board or things are going about 90% the way we need, you're always gonna have that 10, those shadowy behaviors that we talk about from the schools our students deserve. You're always gonna get some shadowy pushback. But if you're in that 90-10 rule, he used to tell me at at my middle school at Hernandez Middle School, hey, if you've got 90% of the people on board and you're moving, you're good. Don't don't let those 10% push you off. And I think this is where that exaggerator falls in. Like, yeah, sometimes the 10%ers don't want to do what you're doing, so they're gonna try and build up a case for resistance that it that may be uh an exaggerated case. Yeah, everybody's unhappy. Not it's you and your and your uh hallway mate that are unhappy because you don't like what we're doing here.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Yeah, if it's a cell phone policy, it could be I don't like the teacher doesn't want to reinforce whatever the policy is.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

And some parents with cell phones, that's a whole specific one because they're like, I gotta be able to get in touch with my kid. And so yeah, but then you go, like, there are other ways we can do this, so you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

Yeah. And considering in your detective work, these may be policies that are legal obligations that you have as a school where it's like I'm gonna sucks that they're upset, but like, eh, I can't, I can't change that. This maybe the way that we do it or whatever, if even appropriate, but that's part of your detective work you gotta do.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

I like it. Sleuthing, you gotta do some leadership sleuthing, some super sleuthing.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

All right. Then we've got the whole um example of teacher morale. And this is one that that my boss, Dr. Hockey, gets real animated about. If you come to him and you say the staff is really unhappy about fill in the blank, he it is like you can see him tense up online, like the Zoom call is about to explode because he immediately is like, who? Who is saying this? Give me names, give me names. You cannot go to him and say thus, you cannot make any generalizations about the staff because he wants to know names and numbers. And is this a department? Is this a grade level? Is this reflected in some survey data somewhere? Like, are you getting emails about this or is this just conversation? He wants details. And it's funny because there we um the people he supports, my team, there's three of us, and one is new. And the two of us that have been working with him for four years now, we've been trained. You know, don't say we're gonna be able to do it. We do not, yeah, we do not come to him with any kind of the staff or the teachers or blah, blah, blah. It is, hey, I got four entries in the digital suggestion box that say the same theme, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever it is. Or I got three emails from teachers concerned about this film.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

So you guys are, I love that you have a digital suggestion box. I think it's a great feedback loop system. But you are an ed tech company, so everybody's working.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Remotely. You're remote. So everybody's remote, so we can't have a little conversation.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah. But I was gonna, it made me think of the an office episode where Michael Scott has his suggestion box. And one of the suggestions was he he his breath smells like coffee. He's got coffee breath. It's got coffee breath. So I was just curious, has Dr. Cocky ever gotten that you have coffee breath?

SPEAKER_02 11:29

No, we haven't. Nope, nope, we have not gotten that one yet. So we'll see. We'll see. Maybe one day.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

No, but I get I think it's right. His right, your point is especially when you're dealing with staff, and you said teacher morale, and I know our teachers never have low morale, obviously, gently joking that that's something teachers fight hard, you know, because their jobs are hard. And so it is it's so dangerous. Like the teachers are upset, the teachers hate this, the teachers are ready to quit. Like, who? How many? And you know, you kind of made me think of like, how do we know? How do you know? Right, did you hear it? Have you taken a pulse? Like you sat in the teacher's lounge with them and they were honest with you. You got invited to a party on Saturday night where all the teachers were there and they were like, We're coming for everybody. Like pitchforks, right? I love that question. Who is it? How many? And how did you how do we know this? Where, yeah, how is this coming from? Because so we know that schools have this sort of like informal communication channels that live, and the it's a gossip center sometimes, and I'm not knocking schools, it's just that's a feature of schools because it's people with people, and and so word can spread, and it's like, wait, wait, where did that come from? How do we have credibility behind this? And it doesn't mean, listen, I don't think I'm saying or I don't think you're saying we should dismiss these things, but it is before you jump as the leader to these exaggerated statements, is do some sleuthing, do some leadership sleuthing to get to the bottom of, right? Like, what is really going on here? Because I've seen leaders react to the exaggerator and break more things.

SPEAKER_02 13:02

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

And now you're in bigger trouble because you've created problems where there really weren't what, like you said, there were three parents complaining and you react, and now you got the other 1900 complaining and you're like, oh God, I should have left it alone with the three. You gotta be really careful.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

And you know what else would, as you're saying that, it made me think of heading it off at the past, like before it even gets to that point. If you've implemented something new or you've changed something, whatever it is, if you are collecting survey data afterwards, then you can head it off at the pass and be like, cool. I know that 10 people or 10% don't like this, but I'm also aware that 90% are fine.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

And you say 90% are fine, and you say it actually, hey guys, really great thing. That's right. We surveyed you guys, and this is what we got back.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

90% of us are on board with this. So hey, we're gonna go.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

And the the 10% that didn't like it, here's even I was sure. Here's the things they didn't like about it. Here's why we can't change those things, or here's what we can do about it. Maybe maybe there is something we can do about it.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

But here's how we can meet you in the middle and sleuth gap.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Yeah, I totally just come out and call it, but you can't call it if you don't gather the data, if you don't do your sleuthing on the front end, gotta sleut. You can't support that's right, your your calls in the end.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, yeah. I think that's really wise. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

I like that. So then we've got um student feedback. So you've got kids hate the new schedule, same thing. Which students, how many? Did we actually ask them? Or are these just rumors from teachers? Like we're how many Kevin Bacons removed are you from the actual kid that said the thing?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Yeah, because that that's what happens in schools for sure. It's that's the deal.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Yeah, and sometimes the kids that are most who most dislike the change, they're the ones that are motivated to talk to you about it. If kids are cool with it, it's not like they're gonna come in your office and be like, hey, great job, I'm a-okay with the schedule change, don't really care. Like nobody's announcing that.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

And same thing with teachers, sure, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

They're not gonna come and you typically hear from the ones that that are happy.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

B plus on this, I'm fine, everything's okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Yeah, I think you're right. It it some pre-sleuthing when, especially when you're talking about new initiatives or things you're trying to change. It's really important that you get that voice in ahead of the changes so that you can either know, yeah, I've got good momentum going here, or I maybe need to pause because I don't have that 90-10. I'm at 50-50 or something like that. Then you gotta, then you gotta sort of look at the plan and say, look, I can't have half the staff resisting this or half the student body coming at me, or half the parent base. That's a different scenario. Yeah, I didn't sell it. That's right, or or just things that aren't right in here, and we just gotta go back to the drawing board. So you're right, when it comes to new initiatives or change, there's some conversations that should happen ahead of time before before you make the change. But then again, when you're listening, when you're listening and you want to just guard against these exaggerators, everybody is unhappy. How about the other side of it? What about the people who tell you everybody loves it? Oh, oh I think, you know, does the same apply as leaders? Should we be as cautious when hey, everybody loves this? Yeah. Who? Who who loves it? Who was not where the remote prove yourself? Yeah, right. I I wondered I do those questions apply. Who who says they love it? And how do you know they're saying that? Where are you getting that from? I mean, I wonder it. I think it kind of flips in reverse.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

And why do they love it? What do they like about it? I would want to know that because then as you're making changes in the future, as if there's something you can replicate about how it was rolled out or whatever, it's just good information to have in general. I did wait, I did something right. I did I definitely had those moments where something would go well. Yeah. And I okay, wait, what did we do? Wait a minute, what is it? What is it? It has to be exactly the same every time from here on out. What is that playbook and how do we make sure it happens that way in the future? But I just wonder, why is it, what is it about our nature as leaders? So often you see that one complaint feels heavier than 10 compliments. Even if you do get compliments, like you can get one complaint. One I've I've heard you talk before. You may be in a room and you have had 2,000 people fill out surveys on your keynote or your presentation or whatever, and you literally will fixate on 10 that were upset about the fact that you said the word crap or something like that. I don't know. You'll you'll fixate on the 10. And I'm like, do you know what a small percentage that is?

SPEAKER_01 17:42

And it's not even 10. Yeah, you're right. I mean, like, I'm thinking back to my last biggest one. I it went really well. And yeah, I mean, it was about 1,800 people. And I think I got two comments about one of the ways I did the presentation.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

And you have to be careful because I like to take those people who were unhappy, but see, this is a little different because these are individual people telling you their opinion. So now I don't let it change my entire approach, but I ask myself, if that's how one person felt, what might I tweak without losing what we accomplished, without losing who I am, but what might I tweak so that in the future, if a person like that, how can I help them feel better about what happens? So it's not, I think it's important.

SPEAKER_02 18:24

And that's not fixating, no, not fixating, but that is something you've grown into.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

And I think that's the same for leaders when you get this like everybody's upset. Even if it is the one person coming at you, I think that's how you got to think of them is even if it's just you, what can I consider to try and help you feel better or help you understand it better or help you get on board more or feel make you feel more supported? Right. I so I I think the lesson is you don't want to go jumping into giant decisions based off the exaggerator, but at the same time, consider the exaggerator, even if it is just that one person, and ask yourself, what might I do to head this off? Or how do I make a person like that feel better or more supported or more heard, whatever it happens to be?

SPEAKER_02 19:09

And how do you how do you train your people not to come to you with this exaggerated vocabulary?

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Yeah, that's good. I mean, you tell your assistant person.

SPEAKER_02 19:17

My boss trained me. That's right, and trained my teammate. Well, and then the new ball coming in, I think I think she's learned by now.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Don't don't do that.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Yeah, and she I have seen her do it where she just was reporting something that her direct reports said. Said to her, yeah. Yeah, and then but his and his immediate response back is okay, well tell me who. And she's like, Oh, I didn't, I didn't have that information.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

But that's him training her, right? It's like, hey, before you bring this to us, have these questions. So I think we've talked about a few. Let's just name them because I think this is important. Do it if I'm the principal and I'm trying to train my administrative team, if I'm the uh vice president of instruction and I've got to train my direct reports, whatever your whatever your role is. I think it we said, who is it? How many? How do we know this? Where did you get it from? Was this anecdotal or is this systematic? Is it coming from like a broken system where we have data that's showing us, or is this just somebody said it to you in the hallway or on the way out to the parking lot? Absolutely. And then what data supports it? So again, who is it? How many? How do we know? Is it anecdotal or systematic? And what data backs it up? I think if if you can train people to come to you with the answers to those questions, then I think you've got an opportunity to have less people running at you with, oh my god, the sky is falling, chicken littling it. Yeah, but you say, okay, there are 27 out of 40 teachers who have in the last survey expressed that this isn't working and have pinpointed that it's because of the way this is happening. Okay, then I need to darn sure listen to that. We need to go to work.

SPEAKER_02 20:58

Right. Yeah, then you have the evidence.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

I got the evidence. We got a critical mass of people that we're worried about, we've got specifics as to what's wrong. Yeah, if you don't react to that, what are you doing? Right. But that's different than all the teachers are pissed off. Yeah, no, start over. Daryl, Daryl tells Michael Scott, start start over.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Uh yeah, I like that. So, and I I think the point is also valid that you're not ignoring the concerns. Like if somebody comes to you with a concern, you're not ignoring it, but you're not letting something unverified force you into driving your decisions and making changes and pushing something back that you had put into place or your team had put into place. And obviously, I know we're being very jokey about it, but you would want to be respectful as you're asking these questions. And now, if you have somebody that's doing this over and over and over again, then we gotta address that. You gotta, yeah, you gotta address. It. Like I'm I'm seeing a trend in this behavior, and it I need you to stop coming to me with this without some of the data because I can't make good decisions as a leader and I don't want to put it in front of our team to make changes and decisions unless we have valid data to base those things off of.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

That's really powerful. And if I am working for you and you start to teach me that type of thinking, what a great model you are for me as I move up in my career. Right. That's a that type of I loved when the leaders that we worked for as we were coming up, where they would empty their leadership thinking and give us the why behind the things they were asking us for.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Because when they would tell us this is why I need you to do this, that stayed with us forever and it helped us become good leaders ourselves. So I think this is one of many, many opportunities. If you're a leader and you're trying to train your team on something, tell them why. Tell them why I need it to look like this. This is why we have to do it because you are now building capacity in future leaders so that they function at a high level.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

Yeah, and it really got you out of the emotional part of your brain in decision making and into a very logical place that was based on the facts and the data and the information that was valid in front of you instead of this emotional feeling that's like circling in the air. And not that the emotions are not important. And if you have a lot of people with a really big emotions about a thing, certainly it needs to be considered and addressed as appropriate to that situation. But I think you have to be really careful about purely making decisions based on emotion. And I always loved when I had leaders that could step back away from that. And that was always really impressive, especially when somebody was coming at you emotionally. Yes. Yes. And and they could still not respond in an emotional way, but in a logical way. And the only way I think you can get to that is by practicing it.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

That's it. Some people do it more naturally. Like you, I watched you do that our whole career. You are way better at staying level when people are coming at you. I had to, I took me a long time. That was my my easiest weakness or like my most glaring weakness was trying to keep that. And I I got much better at it as my career went on. It didn't mean I didn't have slip-ups, but that is key when you can kind of keep level in those tough in those tough spots there.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah, and I I mean, I know we didn't really intend to go there, but I I think too, as a female in leadership roles, a lot of times people may assume that you're going to get emotional or you're gonna side with the emotional side of things. And so I was always really guarded about that because I was constantly kind of internally fighting this battle of I don't want them to think I'm making decisions based off emotion. So I was very aware of what energy I was putting out there, and especially with my teams and how I was making decisions. And even more so, when I had young female administrators on my team, I needed them to get that energy from me and see that like this is how you do this. Is one way, not how, but this is one way that you can do that is just stopping to slow down and ask the questions. So thanks for that though.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, no, and you were the best at it and still are, because you still lead as of today, right now. And I'm married to you, and you have to stay calm with me all the time. Yeah, it's fair when your football team loses as much as y'all.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

See, you're not staying level now. I'm just testing you. You're trying to try to keep you calm.

SPEAKER_02 25:42

So we're gonna move on from here in a logical way. Because that's not what this episode is based on.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Hey, summer shorts, another one in the can. Hey, leaders, we're just trying to give you some, you know, little brainstarters. We know all summer long, while it is summer, leaders are in strategic planning mode. So we're just gonna drop you these little summer nuggets, things that can roll around in your brain. Summer nuggets, summer nugs to help you out. Also, Court, just a friendly reminder for all of our listeners that coming up on June the 30th at 3 p.m. Central Standard Time, we will be hosting the first ever live event for the Ed Leadership Pair. We are going to have six principals on the live leadership pair panel where we're just gonna kind of pick their brains, get their opinions, get their thoughts, and just kind of, you know, let's hear from people doing the job June 30th, 3 p.m. We're gonna run our first live event. We'll have that out on our social media platforms as well. We appreciate your listenership. We continue to provide resources and guidance over the summer to those who have joined our community at www.theedleadershippair.com. And we want to say thank you to Marzano Resources and Solution Tree for their partnership. We sign off. I am Mario.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

I'm Courtney, and this is the Ed Leadership Pair Podcast. Thanks for listening to the