Tempers are High!

Peace leadership. I recently read a blog by my professor, Dr. Allan Mucerino about peace leadership. You can find it here, which includes resources and research. He did such a wonderful job, I highly recommend the quick read. What I do want to speak about is how I resonated with the post because it is powerful and a necessary element in the field of education.

What are we afraid of? Practice and process are so personal in education because we are all passionate about what we do and how we do it. So it is inevitable that we’re going to have our feelings hurt when others don’t give a resounding “yes!” whenever we make a decision/change. I can now recognize the anxiety and where it comes from. How can we make transformational change when we’re in constant battles with colleagues?

Acknowledge it and face the conflict head on. Because the conversations are hard is exactly why we need them. We can’t avoid collaboration based on fear or since we do not have the tools to deal with conflict. Further, we need to build our own personal and organizational capacity to have difficult conversations that lead to compromise. Let go of being right. Let go of winning. And listen. LISTEN. LISTEN.

Recently, my organization completed a Birkman personality study on each of employee and I found out eye-opening information about myself. I have things to work on. I’m glad I understand my competitiveness because now I’m catching myself before I let conversations get personal. I’m listening more and giving myself time to process information.

Everyone has a co-worker that has to be right, to the point of making everyone uncomfortable. I hope I stopped myself from being that person ever (or any longer).

Have fun learning who you are and changing the world!