Jan. 19, 2026
Episode 58: Dr. Danny Steele on Becoming an Instructional Leader: How Principals Reclaim Time, Support Staff, and Strengthen School Culture
Send us a text Feeling stretched thin by the demands of school leadership yet determined to move learning forward? We sit down with Dr. Danny Steele; teacher, AP, principal, and author of The Instructional Leader in You; to unpack the practical mindset shifts that turn busy administrators into true instructional leaders. Danny shares how his path from urban high school classrooms to award-winning principalship forged a central insight: to help students, you must first win the adults. He expl...
Feeling stretched thin by the demands of school leadership yet determined to move learning forward? We sit down with Dr. Danny Steele; teacher, AP, principal, and author of The Instructional Leader in You; to unpack the practical mindset shifts that turn busy administrators into true instructional leaders.
Danny shares how his path from urban high school classrooms to award-winning principalship forged a central insight: to help students, you must first win the adults. He explains the moment that transformed his leadership recognizing that principals are defined by their ability to support staff. From backing teachers in tough parent meetings to simplifying systems that steal time, he shows how culture becomes a daily practice that lifts both morale and outcomes.
We dive into three cornerstone strategies: lead with curiosity, operate with intentionality, and delegate with precision. Hear how asking better questions about curriculum, assessment, and schedules builds collective intelligence; how calendar discipline and focused agendas keep learning at the center; and how elevating teacher leaders accelerates change. Danny also tackles AI with nuance, why it won’t replace teachers, how it can reduce drudgery, and where human connection remains irreplaceable. Along the way, we discuss redesigning bell schedules to carve out intervention and enrichment time, building trust across departments, and combating passion drift with small daily wins.
If you’re ready to reclaim your time, strengthen your staff, and find joy in the work again, this conversation offers grounded strategies you can use tomorrow. Listen, share with your team, and leave a review to help other leaders discover the show. Then tell us: which leadership shift will you make first?
Connect with Danny Steele:
Email: danny@steelethoughts.com
Instagram: @steelethoughts
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00:00 - Meet Dr. Danny Steele
04:16 - Why Teach: Origins And Purpose
07:18 - Kids’ Common Needs Across Contexts
10:45 - Moving Toward Administration
14:48 - Hard Lessons From Assistant Principal Days
20:59 - The Paradigm Shift: Support The Adults
26:06 - Principalship And School Culture
33:22 - Advice For Aspiring Administrators
38:49 - AI, Technology, And Human Connection
44:47 - The New Book: Ten Strategies
WEBVTT
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Have you ever struggled with being an instructional leader?
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Have you sometimes wondered where the joy and the work is?
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You're not alone.
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In this episode, we learn from Dr.
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Danny Steele's educational journey that will provide insights to these questions we may have.
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For 31 years, Dr.
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Steele served as a teacher, coach, assistant principal, chief principal, and assistant professor of educational leadership.
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His work has earned statewide recognition.
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He was formerly the Alabama Assistant Principal of the Year in 2005 and Alabama Secondary Principal of the Year in 2016.
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He has authored six books, including two with Todd Whitaker, and he's become one of the most sought-after voices on school leadership, culture, and the human side of our work.
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Today we're diving into his leadership journey, the lessons he's learned across decades of service, and his newest book, The Educational Leader in You, Ten Strategies for School Leaders.
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Now let's get to the conversation with Dr.
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Danny Steele.
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Welcome back for another exciting episode of the Educational Leadership Podcast.
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Today I am so excited to bring in Dr.
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Danny Steele.
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Danny, welcome to the show.
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Jeff, I appreciate you having me.
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It's an honor to be with you guys.
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All right, Danny, I'm going to ask you the same question I ask every guest on this show.
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What inspired you to become an educator?
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When I first went to college in the fall of 1988, my major was sociology, and I was set on being a social worker of some sort.
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But fall of my sophomore year, I listened to a tape recording that my brother gave me.
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It was a tape recording of a guy giving a talk at a conference.
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And his name was Guy Dowd, and he was the 1986 National Teacher of the Year.
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He spoke about his experiences as a kid himself in school and teachers that really had a transformative impact on his own life.
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And then as a teacher, he talked about ways that he's built relationships with his own students and the difference he feels like that that has made.
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And just listening to the power of his experiences inspired me to want to be a teacher.
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And so I changed that semester, I changed my major to history and education so I could be a history teacher.
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And yeah, that's that's uh it was all about the the potential to make a difference for kids.
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Awesome.
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I mean, that you know, always we get inspired by some way, there's always interesting ways we all get into this profession.
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I know for me it was coaching, so that's what got me going to really start thinking about becoming an educator.
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So you're a history teacher, you're doing the work.
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What experiences do you have from being a teacher that informs your leadership today?
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I think, you know, I began my career in an urban high school in Birmingham, and there were a lot of challenges there.
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The students didn't have many opportunities.
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And after four years there, I went to teach at a very, very affluent suburban school where the kids had every advantage in the world.
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And I loved both experiences.
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One of the things that I learned in those eight years in the classroom is that kids have a lot more in common than they have different.
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They all want to feel respected, they all want to feel connected, they want to feel valued, they they want to feel normal, you know, in a certain way.
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And they all appreciate their teachers that take a genuine interest in them.
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And I think I think all of those realities transfer to when you're working with adults.
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Like every teacher wants to feel like the work they're doing matters.
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They want their professional judgment to be valued and respected.
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They want to feel like they are have a voice in the school, and they want their administration to be genuine, to be authentic about caring about the students and about supporting the staff.
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You really kind of touched things on there is no matter where you're at, kids are kids, right?
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They all want the same thing, they all want to be build a relationship with them, they want that you know, connection with their people so they can you know have a great experience in their school.
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So I really appreciate you bringing that out.
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So kind of been teaching for a while, have these great experiences.
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What inspires you to go from the classroom into administration?
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What was it a push, a nudge, like it was time, or was you uh inspired by somebody?
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I had the University of Alabama Birmingham had a program where if you already had a master's, and at the time I had a master's in history, you could do a year of classes and some 300 hours of internship and get your administrative add-on certificate.
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And and I had a couple colleagues at this school that had done that, and so they sort of planted that seed with me.
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At the same time, I was realizing that I just didn't like being confined to my classroom.
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Oftentimes on my planning period, like what I needed to do was just sit at my desk and grade papers or plan lessons, but I found myself getting up and walking the halls and poking my head in other doors.
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I checked my mailbox like five times in the teacher's lounge just because I liked being out and about.
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And so I decided to do this program.
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The very first course was on leadership and management.
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And it was it was a really good, good professor.
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And and I was so intrigued at the idea of the difference between leadership and management and seeing a bigger picture and thinking about the way I could potentially impact you know an entire school.
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And that that I just kind of during the course of that year and taking those classes, it really I got the itch.
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And so after that, as soon as I got my certificate, I was I applied to like 50 different schools to be an assistant principal.
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Awesome.
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So you moved into assistant principal role, what's his not easy, right?
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Because you deal with a lot of student discipline most of the time, and you may have some other things, but that's what people think of assistant principal, what they work through.
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So, what are some lessons that you have learned as an assistant principal that when it was time for you to become a principal, you were able to take away and and utilize in that position?
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Well, in a lot of ways, that's the million-dollar question for me.
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You know, certainly I was a I was an assistant principal for 10 years in in four different high schools.
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And most of that time I did discipline.
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And very, it was, it's hard to stress just how intense that discipline was.
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And so I saw a lot of kids that were misbehaving and disrespectful and defiant and given their teacher fits.
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And I also saw teachers that like would never send anybody to the office.
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And so I learned to sort of pay attention to what are the what are the dynamics in classrooms that that impact the extent to which students are more likely to get off task or more likely to be disrespectful.
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I experienced a lot of the drama that students are dealing with.
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You know, when students, it's been said that when a student acts out, it's often because of an unmet need.
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And so I I saw a lot of students in my office that were dealing with a lot of hard stuff.
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And it it makes your heart break.
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But it's important to be aware that the kids walk in our halls, the kids sitting in the lunchroom, the kids in the classrooms, they've got a home life sometimes that is a is a significant obstacle to them being successful in the school.
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So that that really hit home for me.
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And that's something that I always carried with me as a principal.
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But the other piece, the other piece is I really wanted to be a principal.
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And I had been an assistant principal for three years at this point when my principal was retiring.
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And so I thought, all right, I'm gonna get my shot.
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He's retiring.
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I've been an AP here for two years at this school, so I'm I'm next up, right?
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I got dibs on the spot.
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So I was very confident about my chances.
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And at one point in the application process in the spring, I was riding with my principal.
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We were in the car.
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And he said, Danny, I think some of the teachers at the school see you more as an advocate for students than for teachers.
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It immediately like I whipped my head around like, yeah, the kids need me.
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Like the adults can take care of themselves.
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I'm here for the kids.
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I couldn't even believe that would be held against me.
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I thought it would be a badge of honor that I was still here for kids.
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Well, I didn't get the job, as you can imagine.
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And so that summer, I think it was the summer of 2004, I had this administrative paradigm shift.
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What I realized, this was a tough lesson for me to learn.
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I say it was a tough lesson because I think it cost me that first principalship.
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Is you know, when we become an educator, we become teachers for kids.
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Because we love kids, we want to create a brighter future for them, make a difference for them.
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Well, what I learned the hard way, and what I tell any young administrator, is that the moment you become an administrator, your focus has to change.
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Your new mission is to win over all of the adults, to make a difference for your teachers.
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Now, we still love the kids.
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We never stop loving on the students, we never stop doing what's right for them.
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But when you're an administrator, your job is to support your staff.
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And I actually tell, I tell young administrators this that you will be defined by your ability to support your staff.
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So that is without a doubt the biggest lesson I learned as a young AP that has been stuck with me now for over 20 years.
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Awesome.
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I love that story because you know, you don't really think about the different paradigm shifts you have to make from when you go from the classroom into the assistant principal, then the principal, then maybe district or cabinet, or maybe superintendent, there's always a shift because your view becomes bigger and wider than it does when you're in the classroom.
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So now you're thinking, oh, I have this, and then all these things work together.
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And so when you talk about taking care of your adults, I agree with that 100% because if you take care of the adults, they take care of the kids, and then everybody wins, right?
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Yeah, and that's how you, as a principal, take care of the students, is by making sure this staff is being taken care of.
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Because if they're taken care of, they'll take care of the kids, and then everybody wins in that situation.
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So I love that, just that story in general, and it's very powerful, you know, big takeaway for people on this show.
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So walk us through some different administrative roles.
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It seems like you've got quite a few.
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Kind of, you know, talk about each one.
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Do you have any stories or things that you've learned from each role?
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We just talked about the AP, you know, you have your principal.
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Just take us through what your administrative career looks like and what did you learn through that time?
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Well, the first six years as an AP, I did almost exclusively discipline.
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So I really learned a lot about kind of handling kids and handling the tough ones, and then what it means to support staff through the disciplinary process.
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Then my last four years as an assistant principal, I was in an academic and instructional role.
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So I was the coordinator of the AP program.
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I planned the master's schedule and and PD for the staff.
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I worked closely with our counselors.
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So if a if a teacher was, I'm sorry, if a parent was going to complain about a teacher, I was the administrator that it got routed to.
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So that was a process of me really learning what it meant to build good working relationships with my teachers, specifically the department heads.
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It was very significant to learn how to build the master schedule and what's involved in that.
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And so by the time I became principal in 2011, I really had, I basically had done everything I could do as an AP, I felt like.
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So I felt pretty prepared.
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Then as a principal, it is, you know, it's it's about trying to build the the best possible school culture where where kids thrive, where they want to come to school, where the adults like coming to work.
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It's it's about building relationships with kids, building relationships with staff, and you know, doing everything you can to ensure your teachers have the resources they need to get the job done and kind of get out of their way at that point, trying to trying to foster collaboration to where the adults are working together, not because they just have to be best friends, but because when the adults are collaborating, pulling when everyone's pulling the wagon in the same direction, it's best for kids.
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It's best for their learning.
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So, you know, I never worked in central office, so I can't really speak from the district level.
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I've worked with a lot of folks at the district level, and and so I know that the ones that I felt like are the most effective, the ones that principals really like working with, are the ones that view their role as a support to support the work that's going on in this school.
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So yeah, it's it's the best, the best administrative teams just view themselves as a supportive role.
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I mean, I've said at countless faculty meetings, there are two groups of people in a school building.
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I would even say there's two groups of people in an entire district whose job has inherent value, and that is the teachers and the CNP staff.
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Everyone else is really in a supportive role to help the teachers do their job more effectively.
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So certainly the best administrators, the best principals, they view themselves in a supportive role for the staff.
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Awesome.
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I love it.
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Danny, we have a lot of you know, people that are thinking about making the jump into administration.
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What advice?
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I think you kind of touched on it a little bit, but what advice would you give someone that's you know aspiring to be an administrator someday?
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Like you have to have you have to have the joy.
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You have to have joy in the job.
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And so you it has to be your passion.
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I mean, you know, it's a stressful job, just like teaching is a stressful job.
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And if you're not passionate about teaching, then it will wear on your last nerve.
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And and you're gonna want to switch careers.
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If you're passionate about leading a school, about being an administrator, you're gonna love it.
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It's an amazing career.
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I was a school building administrator for 22 years and I loved it.
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And so, you know the term light bulb moment, right?
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For teachers.
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Like the light bulb moment is this gratifying moment for a teacher when they're teaching a lesson and the kids' eyes light up like a light bulb because they're getting the lesson.
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They're they're having this insight.
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And it's such a rewarding moment for educators.
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Well, I had some stress early on as an administrator because, you know, I don't have those light bulb moments as an administrator because we're not teaching the kids, right?
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So, what was important for me, an important kind of aha moment, is when I learn to redefine my light bulb moments.
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And so for me, a light bulb moment now is anytime I can make a teacher's job a little bit easier.
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If I can help a teacher with a challenging kid, if I can help a teacher with a high maintenance parent, if I can help them write an email, if they have their back in a tough parent conference, if I can help them move their filing cabinet across their room on their planning period, if you you know this, when you walk the halls, if you have your head on a swivel, light bulb moments are all around you.
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And so it is a great, great career and just unbelievably rewarding if you're always looking out for ways to make a difference for the adults in the building.
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We still love on the kids.
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You never stop loving on the kids, eat with them at lunch, talk to them at carpool.
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When you're making a difference for the teachers, for the staff, and having fun doing it, you know, cut goofing off with your secretaries, playing practical jokes on custodians, whatever it is, have fun.
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Have fun, and it's a great career.
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Yeah, I love it.
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I love that you talked about finding the joy.
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Yes, you have to be passionate about it.
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I'll be honest, I was a math teacher for 11 years before becoming a principal, and I was a small rules principal at first, so I was doing the discipline and the building level stuff kind of all at the same time, but now I'm uh a building principal at a larger district where I can really focus on the adults and the vision of the building, where I have a system principal that helped me out.
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We we just make sure we're consistent on everything.
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And it's got to be a pretty big issue if I'm involved with some of that because my system principals are amazing, do a great job with that.
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But I love finding the joy, and then you're right, those light bulb moments are when you're helping those adults and things are clicking, things are moving in the right direction.
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And like you said, if you take the time to see it, it's there.
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And you just sometimes when you're down and out in this job and you feel like, oh man, I'm just getting beat up today.
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Stop, look for the joy because there it's there, you just got to find it and be intentional about it, and that gives you that motivation to continue on.
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And so uh that's kind of my experience, but I really appreciate you kind of pointing that out.
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You hear a lot about negative things in the media about education, but I want to kind of talk about something a little bit different.
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What gets you excited about the future of education?
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Because there are a lot of exciting things that are gonna get ready to happen for education.
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What's something that excites you about it?
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Well, I think what's exciting, it's the same thing that makes a lot of people uneasy right now.
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It's that, you know, technology, AI, it's it's causing us to really reevaluate what we're doing and why we're doing it.
00:20:28.339 --> 00:20:30.979
I think it it could change the landscape.
00:20:30.979 --> 00:20:32.339
We don't know.
00:20:32.339 --> 00:20:34.979
There's nobody knows exactly what the future is gonna be like.
00:20:34.979 --> 00:20:37.699
And so we're preparing kids for an uncertain time.
00:20:37.699 --> 00:20:39.939
I think that's exciting.
00:20:39.939 --> 00:20:50.099
I mean, it's it's stressful in a lot of ways, but it's important that educators have have the courage to just jump in and say, okay, we're gonna figure this out.
00:20:50.099 --> 00:21:07.699
We're gonna figure out how to work with our kids, we're gonna look to see how we can use AI to be more effective as educators, as leaders, and we're gonna look to see how to teach our kids to thrive in a world that's in so many ways now gonna be dominated by AI.
00:21:07.699 --> 00:21:12.819
But one thing that's never gonna change is the is the personal relationships, those personal connections.
00:21:12.819 --> 00:21:21.619
I mean, I know that there's Chat GPT can simulate in so many ways a relationship, but it's you know, it's scary what it can do.
00:21:21.619 --> 00:21:26.659
But I I still think nothing is going to replace you know, people having personal connections.
00:21:26.659 --> 00:21:31.939
And so, you know, educators with their heart in the game, they're gonna continue to make a difference for kids.
00:21:32.259 --> 00:21:36.899
And I really appreciate that point because AI is not here to replay.
00:21:36.899 --> 00:21:38.339
Teachers, right?
00:21:38.339 --> 00:21:44.339
If you utilize it as a tool, like the calculator or like any other technology, like the internet, right?
00:21:44.339 --> 00:21:51.539
When it first came out, people were having the same issues with those technologies as AI today.
00:21:51.539 --> 00:22:11.459
But if we learn how to use it appropriately and we utilize it as a tool, and as a teacher, it could actually help you become a better teacher because it's going to be able to differentiate the information you already have and you already know in ways that's going to be much quicker than you can personally do it.
00:22:11.459 --> 00:22:14.899
You're the one guiding it, you're the one prompting it.
00:22:14.899 --> 00:22:16.739
AI can't do it without you.
00:22:16.739 --> 00:22:18.499
So that's what people got to realize.
00:22:18.499 --> 00:22:22.739
AI can't work itself, it has to be prompted.
00:22:22.739 --> 00:22:45.379
You know, we have to utilize it in a way that, in my way, way of using it, our building is we use it with through Magic School AI, which is an educational platform to where teachers can use it to help them differentiate instruction, but also come up with fresh ideas that they would spend lots of time doing on their own.
00:22:45.379 --> 00:22:48.979
At a teacher that's an English teacher able to differentiate instruction.
00:22:48.979 --> 00:22:54.579
And they said, Man, this saves me hours, hours of time.
00:22:54.579 --> 00:23:00.179
And now I have more time to do these other things, and I'm becoming a better teacher because of it.
00:23:00.179 --> 00:23:06.739
And I think that's what other people, you know, need to realize if you learn how to usalize it right, it can be a big help.
00:23:06.739 --> 00:23:11.059
I use it, and I know there's a lot of things with the environment, won't get into that.
00:23:11.059 --> 00:23:19.539
I use it to help streamline some of the things I do so I can spend more time on the things that matter most, and I'm not stuck in all these mundane stuff.
00:23:19.539 --> 00:23:22.499
And so that's kind of how I look at it or view it.
00:23:22.499 --> 00:23:24.259
And some people may agree or disagree.
00:23:24.259 --> 00:23:26.899
If you disagree with me or agree with me, I'd like to hear from you.
00:23:26.899 --> 00:23:29.459
Hit in the comments, love to hear those things.
00:23:29.459 --> 00:23:37.939
But coming down to it, I had a guest on the show that said he heard someone say, AI is not gonna take your job.
00:23:37.939 --> 00:23:40.579
The people that know how to use AI is gonna take your job.
00:23:40.579 --> 00:23:43.379
So I think that's something to kind of remember as well.
00:23:43.379 --> 00:23:51.379
And then I saw an article where it talks about like AI is gonna replace all the teachers by 2036.
00:23:51.379 --> 00:23:53.299
And I was like, You're an idiot.
00:23:53.299 --> 00:23:59.459
It's like, no, it won't, it won't replace the human connection people gotta have to learn.
00:23:59.459 --> 00:24:03.859
That is why in-person learning is so much better than virtual.
00:24:03.859 --> 00:24:06.419
Remember COVID when we were doing virtual?
00:24:06.419 --> 00:24:08.099
It wasn't the same.
00:24:08.099 --> 00:24:10.259
You gotta have those human connections.
00:24:10.259 --> 00:24:24.419
Learning is better because you had a lot of learning loss during that COVID time with the virtual learning, but human connection is so key when it comes down to just learning and having those experiences that you just can't get sitting at a computer screen.
00:24:24.419 --> 00:24:26.179
So there, I'm off my tirade.
00:24:26.179 --> 00:24:28.499
Sorry, Danny, took over a little bit there.
00:24:28.499 --> 00:24:30.819
Let's get into your book, right?
00:24:30.819 --> 00:24:37.539
You have a new book titled The Instructional Leader in You: 10 Strategies for School Leaders.
00:24:37.539 --> 00:24:41.219
So, what inspired you to write the book?
00:24:41.539 --> 00:24:51.299
So I was working a year and a half ago, I was doing some coaching with a couple young principals, and the superintendent said, these guys are young, they were coaches, you know, one of them was a PE teacher.
00:24:51.299 --> 00:24:54.339
They don't really have any instructional leadership capacity.
00:24:54.339 --> 00:24:56.339
So that's what I really want you to work with them on.
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