61. Kind vs. Nice in your School Culture

Want to be a great school leader? Stop being nice. Being nice works well with strangers, but leaders who care about the long-term growth of their teams are not nice. They are kind. Niceness is the short game. And when you're a leader, you're always playing the long-term vision game. 

 

Today's episode is a conversation that I had with Lori Buxton, who's the Managing Director at Association for Early Learning Leaders. Lori and I have monthly conversations on leadership on our social channels. And I felt that this conversation was really important and needed to be brought onto the podcast as well. Besides being a great conversation with a lot of strategies, it is one that will incite great conversations among your leadership team members.

 

In this episode we talk about:

 

• The difference between being nice and being kind.
• Why there’s so much more niceness and people-pleasing among leaders.
• Why you should choose temporary discomfort over long-term resentment.
• How to hold your staff accountable and still be kind.
• Steps for leaders that are looking to start shifting from being the nice leader to the claimed leader.

… and so much more! 

 

Resources and links mentioned in this episode:

Sign up for the Summit of Excellence: https://schoolsofexcellence.com/summit

 

More about the show:

If you are an Early Childhood director or owner, prepare to transform your school and life with the Schools of Excellence podcast. Tune in each week to learn from Chanie Wilschanski, the founder and host of the Schools of Excellence Podcast and a mom of 4 little kids. Each episode will be packed with tools and strategies – equipping you to build schools with higher staff retention, teacher motivation, parent partnership, collaborative culture, and a beautiful quality of life. 

 

Every week, Chanie shares the truth about the journey to excellence, the strategies that are working TODAY, and the mindset about the critical decisions and choices that you make every day which impact yourself, your teachers, parents, family, and children who you serve every day.