Compromising on Your Absolutes

My View

When I have the opportunity to speak with graduate school classes in administrator preparation, I like to challenge those considering school leadership to think about the importance of avoiding absolutes in education.

I ask them to reflect on two questions: What will you always do, and what will you never do as a school leader?

Then we engage in discussion about how, no matter what they answer, there will come a time when they will have to compromise on those absolutes, when they won’t be able to do what they think they will always do and when they will be forced to do what they think they never will do.

The point is this: When entering school leadership, understand that circumstances may very well cause you to set absolutes aside. When this happens, it signals growth in leadership, not a failing in one’s character.