Episode 301: Building Champion Teams - Connection Before Performance with Gaby Jordan
What separates a group of talented people from a truly great team?
In Episode 301 of Leaning Into Leadership, Darrin sits down with executive coach and global educator Gaby Jordan to explore what it takes to build what she calls champion teams—teams grounded in connection, honesty, trust, and a shared commitment to something bigger than themselves.
Gaby brings a unique perspective to leadership. After practicing law for 15 years in Midtown Manhattan, she transitioned into business, executive coaching, and eventually education. Today, her work spans corporate organizations and educational settings from K–12 schools to universities. Across all of those environments, she has discovered one important constant: leadership is always human work.
Darrin and Gaby dig into why relationships matter so much to team performance. High-performing teams don't have to be made up of best friends, but people do need to know one another, understand one another, and be willing to have honest conversations. Gaby shares how learning someone's origin story—and even acknowledging our own vulnerabilities and imperfections—can completely change the way a team works together.
They also explore one of the biggest threats to healthy teams: the stories we create in our own heads. Darrin shares a story from his school leadership days about a colleague whose "thinking face" he initially interpreted as frustration or disagreement. That simple misunderstanding becomes a powerful example of how easily assumptions can turn into narratives—and how those narratives can quietly damage relationships.
Gaby introduces the idea of Champion Conversations, intentional conversations designed to help people address unresolved issues rather than carrying old transgressions forward. She explains why teams sometimes need to clear the air before they can create a meaningful vision for the future.
The conversation also explores agency, vulnerability, silos, honesty, and why leaders can't simply pile a new strategy on top of unresolved team dysfunction. As Gaby puts it, you can't create a compelling future "on top of the muck."
If you lead a school, district, organization, department, or leadership team, this episode is an important reminder: the strength of your strategy will always be limited by the strength of the people trying to execute it together.
In this episode:
- Why leadership and teamwork are fundamentally human work
- What Gaby means by a "champion team"
- Why connection can improve team performance
- The danger of operating in silos
- How assumptions and made-up narratives damage relationships
- Why vulnerability matters on leadership teams
- How Champion Conversations help teams clear old baggage
- Helping people recognize their agency instead of operating from victimhood
- Why honesty is essential to solving the right problems
- Creating a shared vision after rebuilding connection and trust
- What Gaby is doing right now to lean into leadership
Connect with Gaby Jordan
Learn more about Gaby's education work through Human Better EDU. You can also find Gaby on LinkedIn and Instagram and learn more about her corporate leadership work through Source Elements Group.
This Episode Is Sponsored by HeyTutor
HeyTutor partners with schools and districts to provide high-impact, in-person tutoring in literacy and math, giving students targeted support alongside the work of classroom teachers.
Learn more about how HeyTutor can support student learning in your school or district at HeyTutor.com
Darrin Peppard (00:00)
Alright, my friends, welcome into episode 301 of the Leaning Into Leadership Podcast. What is it that makes a great team great? It isn't simply having the most talented people in the room, it isn't a strategic plan, the perfect organizational chart, or even everybody getting along all the time. Great teams are built when people know one another, trust one another.
And are willing to have the conversations that other teams avoid. My guest today, Gaby Jordan, calls these champion teams. Gaby is an executive coach and global educator whose work spans both the corporate and the education worlds. And throughout our conversation today, we keep coming back to something I believe very deeply. Leadership is human work. We're talking about the stories we make up.
About each other, the baggage teams sometimes carry for years, the conversations that need to happen and why you can't build a powerful vision for the future on top of unresolved dysfunction.
And yes, I even tell a story about a team member whose thinking face nearly convinced me that she hated every idea I brought to the table. There is a lot here for anyone who leads a team, but first, today's episode is sponsored by Hey Tutor.
HeyTutor partners with schools and districts to provide high impact in-person tutoring in literacy and math, giving students targeted support alongside the work of classroom teachers. If your school or district is looking for additional ways to help students get the support they need, check out Hey Tutor and learn more about how they can partner with your team. Go to Heytutor.com or even better, hit the show notes link. That'll let them know you heard about them here on.
The Leaning Into Leadership Podcast. All right, it's that time. Let's lean into leadership with Gaby Jordan. I'll see you on the other side.
Darrin Peppard (00:00)
All right, everybody, welcome back into the show. Joining me in studio today, Gaby Jordan. Gaby, thanks so much for leaning into leadership with me.
Gaby Jordan (00:09)
Absolutely, my pleasure. One of my favorite things.
Darrin Peppard (00:13)
Love it so very much. Well, let's before we dive into our conversation, we're gonna talk about really building those champion level teams today. But before we do that, share a little bit about you, kind of orient our audience into the world of Gaby Jordan.
Gaby Jordan (00:29)
Okay, well my formal training is I'm a lawyer.
I practiced law for fifteen years in Midtown Manhattan. I live in New York City and I was in Midtown Manhattan. I actually came to New York to go to Columbia Law School and never left. and so I practiced law for fifteen years. I was a commercial civil litigator and a number of years ago now I transitioned first into something in the business world and then into coaching and executive coaching. And when I joined this executive coaching company back in 2006, they said, Would you also run our education?
Division. And that's how I really started. So that's how I started doing both. So I say, you know, I have both both both sides of the house in my head, right? So I work in businesses large and small on leadership, on individual leadership and team leadership, and then I work in the education space where we teach, it's essentially everything we do in the corporate space, but we also teach to students anywhere from kindergarten through postdocs. And then what we say is that we equip the students and
the ecosystems that support them with tools to have them live effectively and to actually have agency, to be resilient, to develop relationships, all of which is a crucial part of leadership. So that wouldn't we like to do that, we'd like to get them as young as possible because it gives
Darrin Peppard (01:46)
Absolutely.
Gaby Jordan (01:47)
us a better shot at success.
Darrin Peppard (01:49)
Absolutely. Yeah,
no, it makes perfect sense, right? So let's let's dig into that just a little bit more. So so coming from the non-educational side into education, because
Gaby Jordan (01:59)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (02:00)
a a decent portion of our audience are educators, and I'm sure they're kind of curious. So this'll take us a little bit off
Gaby Jordan (02:06)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (02:06)
topic, but I'm I'm really curious.
What were some of the things that you have noticed or learned about the educational side of the house compared to that that that law background, the corporate background, some of those kinds of things? Share some of your learning in that area.
Gaby Jordan (02:23)
Well the first thing I want to say is things that aren't that different is that people are involved. And so the work that we do both with children through postdocs deans, I coach deans, I coach chairs of departments, I coach entire departments
at the university level and then we've also done that at the district level, high school, a middle school in the South Bronx, right? So every the commonality is that it's all human beings, right? And the the name of our nonprofit is Human Better EDU, because we teach people to human better in the education space. And so the similarity is that people are involved. Some of the differences are in terms of the structures that people have to live in.
But then again, in a large corporate environment, you also have those. And then, depending on who you ask in academia, if you're at the university level, there is an interesting tension sometimes between administration and faculty. And then, you know, when you're dealing with school districts, there's you know a lot of bureaucracy that goes in. And so people really have to tap into what am I doing this for? Why I here? Not allowing the
Frustrations
to get to them, to have them be challenged, or just to remind themselves, because we all get frustrated. We all have challenges somewhere along the line. And so being able to overcome those challenges, being able to step beyond the frustration, being able to take care of yourself while you're doing the good work that you're doing in the education space. And what I always say is: you know, the people in the classroom on the our front.
line. They are the frontline leaders who are critical to the success of our children who are the future of our world. And so that is something that, you know, as I've of as I've gone from in both spaces, there is for me something that is so I don't want to say emotional, but there is a passion behind why people do what they do.
You do not necessarily get into education because you're going to be a gazillionaire. That is not the driver. Right? So there is a real passion, there's a commitment, there is a vision that happens when people actually step into that space.
Darrin Peppard (04:32)
I think that's a very accurate statement that certainly most educators that that's gonna resonate with that this is something the work that we in the education space do is very much passion based. And in most cases that passion is a passion for kids. In some cases it's a passion for a particular subject. you know, maybe I'm really passionate about chemistry, I'm really passionate about
English literature or or something along those lines, psychology. But either way, it is very much a passion-driven type of type of space. So I really like that you that you brought that forward. I I'm curious, let's let's transition because we we really we really want to talk about teams, the t the two of us.
Gaby Jordan (05:12)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (05:13)
It's it's an area the of of strong focus for you. It's a very strong focus area for me as well. So I've been looking forward to us having this conversation.
But I'm curious, again, with that background, what drove you to really focusing in on teams, development of teams, and as you call them, those champion teams?
Gaby Jordan (05:34)
Yes.
So
I recognize that no matter how good a leader is, they can't do it on their own. They can't do it alone. And as soon as you get two or more people together, you have the opportunity for challenges. You have the opportunity for people who are have a different perspective from yours. You have the opportunity for people operating in silos.
And if you really are committed to a long-term result, if you are committed to something beyond what is current, you have to pay attention to the most effective way to get there. And the most effective way to get there, I'm gonna say, is with Teams.
And w you know the the business about the champion teams that really does come from, you know, you could say business is a team sport, as one of my colleagues says. Same thing in the education. So I say organization. All of that organization is a team sport too. And one of the things we like to do when we lead our signature workshop, which is building champion teams, is that we get people on the same page, because often things people come into the space because
Because their challenges either with their business or they want to take it to the next level, or they want to not duplicate work, have people stop operating in silos. And so we get them connected in a different way than they have been before on a personal level, on an individual level, so they can get start to get to know each other as individuals. And you'd be surprised how much can come out of that type of environment where people don't know each other.
About each other, and when they start to know about each other, when they start to know about where they came from, what their struggles were, what they dealt with, they have a different way of relating. And when you establish that intimacy, one of the things that happens is production source. You start, you know, so I just this is an example not in the education space, but it translates. That there was a team that was a very large company, two billion dollar company, and they were 25% behind their target.
Target and they had four months to deliver on their target, and the sale price of the company was dependent on their success. And we went in and did a workshop with them, and we did not focus on their sales. We focused on who they were as individuals, and they accomplished it four months, $250,000, which was not going to happen.
It wasn't because it was because they were connecting to each other in a different way. Same thing in schools. I, you know, a a letter workshop for a the human resources division of a of a university. And a day and a half in, the leader of that division said
These are not the same people who started here the day before. And why is because they got connected in a different way from the way they were before. They could understand each other on a human level. And that lays a foundation for then looking at, okay, what's your vision for the team? Where do we say we want to go? And what do we need to do to get there? So it's giving them
Darrin Peppard (08:22)
Well, I think I think that human
peace is so critical with teams.
Gaby Jordan (08:26)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (08:26)
The the teams that I work with and support that are the most highly effective aren't necessarily all best friends and go hang out together and chum around together, but
Gaby Jordan (08:37)
Right. Yes.
Darrin Peppard (08:39)
they know each other. They rely on each other, they've built relationships, even even if it's only in that professional type of relationship, but
as a team, they're not sitting in silos. They're not, you know, carrying
Past transgressions forward. They're the
Gaby Jordan (08:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Darrin Peppard (08:59)
type of individuals who can work through normal human problems because we all have them. And
Gaby Jordan (09:05)
We do.
Darrin Peppard (09:06)
the more highly dysfunctional teams that I have worked with, the opposite remains true, that they're not investing in getting to know each other as human beings, understanding.
Gaby Jordan (09:18)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (09:20)
Maybe, maybe everybody's origin story of how is it that they came to be a part of this
Gaby Jordan (09:25)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (09:26)
particular organization or following this particular line of work, that in and of itself uncovers strengths and limitations and maybe vulnerabilities, right, that that others don't don't have. Go go ahead, run with that a little bit.
Gaby Jordan (09:34)
Absolutely. Absolutely. So there's
so there's the origin story, that's one. And I'm just thinking I was I was leading for it was this again, this is a corporate thing, but it was medical, so it's similar in terms of the passion part of it. And
When you heard stories from around the room about where how people got there, where why they were there in that parti it wasn't about the job, it wasn't about the work. It was because they were committed to improving the system. It's very similar in that way.
And the thing that the other thing that I would say is so there's the origin story, but there's also you mentioned what people's vulnerabilities are, what people's foibles are, what's not so great about them, or something that we like to say. Also, my colleagues started this is what sucks about me, right? So you actually have that conversation, and when you have that conversation, people start to get an appreciation of each other's humanity.
And the funny thing is, you know, the thing about what sucks about me is like people around you know, right? You might not know that people know.
Darrin Peppard (10:41)
Yeah. They
may appreciate that you actually do know that that's what sucks about you. But they also might be like, wow, you think that's what sucks about you? no, wait a minute, let me tell you something else. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Gaby Jordan (10:45)
Exactly. Exactly. Well that's another thing.
That's another thing. We actually do have people do exercises on, you know, go interview p the people around you and find out what things they don't think are so great about you. Right? And
Darrin Peppard (11:02)
Yeah.
Gaby Jordan (11:02)
and make sure they know you're not in trouble by telling you them that. Right? But that just opens up so much.
You know, and when people can get past like, I'll be vulnerable if I do that, the it just opens up so much and they just start to work together in a different way. And then
Darrin Peppard (11:19)
It may
Gaby Jordan (11:19)
the thing you said about the old transgressions, that's a critical piece as well. So we have a framework that we call champion conversations.
And we actually teach people to have those because what you said about not carrying those things are s is so critical. Because what happens is people walk around and people have worked together for years and then they have you know, something happened, somebody looked at them crossways, it's like crosslights in a meeting, and they're like forevermore, they're not gonna talk to that person. Not realizing the person had a bad pastrami sandwich, had nothing to do with them.
Darrin Peppard (11:51)
Exactly.
It's it's those made up narratives in our head that will then take root and
Gaby Jordan (11:56)
That's right.
Darrin Peppard (11:57)
we'll never let go of. that
Gaby Jordan (11:58)
That's right.
Darrin Peppard (11:59)
I I say the transgressions things very specifically because there have been a few teams that I've worked with that just were so stuck. And it wasn't that the people weren't talented, it was, you know, this person
I heard they said this three years ago. I mean just like junior high kind of behavior almost, but
Gaby Jordan (12:17)
Yes, yes, yes.
Darrin Peppard (12:18)
but we're human, right? And that's
Gaby Jordan (12:20)
Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (12:20)
I think I think in junior high is where that all starts to take root and then we just can't
Gaby Jordan (12:23)
All right.
Darrin Peppard (12:23)
let go of it. But being able to find a way to move past that, whether that's just simply okay, I'm just gonna let that go, or actually addressing it.
Gaby Jordan (12:32)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (12:32)
and
bringing something up because you're right. I mean like the bad spastrami sandwich is a is a funny analogy, but at the same time, like, you know, here I am thinking this person, you know, felt this when in reality, I I'll I'll tell this as a quick aside. When in this was in my school building level leadership role, I had a another leader on my team, one of my department leads that
in meetings sometimes would get this stink face and
Gaby Jordan (13:03)
Hey
Darrin Peppard (13:03)
and it was it frustrated me and I was kind of the leader of that group and I was starting
Gaby Jordan (13:07)
Yes. Yes.
Darrin Peppard (13:09)
to take it personal and spoke with a a member who had who had been on the team previously in my role who had moved on somewhere else and he told me he's like that's her thinking face. Like that's all that is and
Gaby Jordan (13:22)
Right right.
Darrin Peppard (13:24)
you know
Had I not asked, I would have assumed this person every time I
Gaby Jordan (13:27)
That's right.
Darrin Peppard (13:28)
brought up an idea was just like, well, that's terrible or no, she was simply thinking that just how it happened to manifest on her face.
Gaby Jordan (13:33)
Yes. Yes.
Exac that's such a perfect example because we do it all the time. All the time. We do it in our personal life, we do it in our b professional life. And if it's exp it's expensive. It's expensive not to go find out.
And thank God that you managed to ask the question. And if you hadn't asked that person you might have ultimately asked her. And, you know, she might have been completely surprised. What do you mean? D
Darrin Peppard (13:58)
Yeah.
Gaby Jordan (13:58)
not recognizing that she had this mug on, right? Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (14:01)
Right.
Gaby Jordan (14:03)
So good. So good.
Darrin Peppard (14:04)
Yeah,
absolutely. Well, I think I think so many times those those narratives that we create will will cause these divisions in teams and they'll they'll push them apart. And we kind of talked about, you know, some of the transgressions or or whatever it is. But I'm curious, you know, you mentioned the the univer or the human resources group that you worked with,
Gaby Jordan (14:24)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (14:24)
and the person said it, you know, day and a half later, wow, this isn't the same group of people. So I
What are some ways that that you would advise people or that you use when there are those heavy amounts of baggage that come in the room with a
Gaby Jordan (14:37)
Yes. Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (14:38)
team to start to move forward?
Gaby Jordan (14:41)
So when we do the work that we do in that particular workshop and understand that team they weren't
Problems in that team, it the whole reason that we were doing it was because it was a new leader. I had actually worked with her at another university and she moved there, and she wanted to align her team, but people weren't connected, and some of them had been sort of hurt by they tried to implement a big change throughout the university and they were sort of felt beaten up. Okay? And so she really was trying to just solidify them. And so what I what we did and what I recommend to people
People is that you start to get people connected on an individual level and you don't start with the bad stuff, right? You start with having people recognize their own power. You start with having people recognize where in their life they've made something amazing happen because they said they were gonna do it. Even if they didn't know how, they were committed to a vision and they made it happen. And when you start from there, you start with them seeing, I guess I actually can make things happen.
Because so often people live in the victim mentality. So we have another sort of funny thing that we do. You also have to have a sense of humor in the work that we do, okay? So we say that, you know, the obstacles
Darrin Peppard (15:52)
Of course.
Gaby Jordan (15:55)
to really getting what you want, you know, there are three voices that are in your way. One is fear, which we call the mouse. The second is entitlement or yep stubbornness. We call that the tantruming toddler. And then the third is the reporter.
You're just reporting on life as if it's the weather and there's nothing you can do about it. Okay? So when you get people to start to see, okay, here I've made something happen and here I've told myself that I can't, they start to get to see their own agency and they start to get to see that they have choices. And with that as a backdrop, you can then have delve into giving them I do some work on relationship hierarchy and how people come into conversations with just those assumptions there.
And then looking at, okay, you haven't had these conversations maybe because you haven't known how to have them. Here's a way to have them. And then actually have people go off and have them so they clear the air, so they clear the things. Because if you don't do that first, you can't have them create a vision or future on top of the muck. And so that's
Darrin Peppard (16:58)
Yeah.
Gaby Jordan (16:58)
what I would say in terms of how people can move something forward.
Darrin Peppard (17:01)
Yeah. I think
that's really powerful and certainly putting them in a position to go have those conversations instead of like putting it in front of the entire group, like, okay, you know, let's let's
Gaby Jordan (17:11)
right.
Darrin Peppard (17:11)
have the two of you go off and have this conversation or
Gaby Jordan (17:13)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (17:13)
the three of you or whatever whatever the dynamic might be in there, I think is is certainly really, really important. So you've
Gaby Jordan (17:20)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (17:21)
you've referred to champion teams multiple times. I'm curious, is there a definition or something you would say?
to really describe what is a champion team?
Gaby Jordan (17:29)
So one
of the places that this came from is the one of the sports one of the most successful sports teams and this is ironic because I am not a sports human, so I you know, I will get all of my analogies backwards and whatever. But this is a very so the the I don't know if you know this, but the most successful sports team, New New Zealand all blacks.
have so and there's a book called Legacy that talks about the the rules they had, internal rules that they had. You know, there are certain rules that they had and if you didn't abide by the rules you didn't play. And the point of it was they were a team. You you could be running down the field and you didn't need to look left to know whether your teammate was there 'cause you could rely on it. And they had an eighty seven percent win rate over a twenty year period.
And so that is really what so building that type of camaraderie, that type of unity with a team, doesn't have to be best buddies again, just as you said, but building that kind of really does create champion teams. Or another one, The Boys of Thirty Six, which is there's a you know, the there is a move there was a documentary and now there's a movie based on the book of the the team that won the Ol Olympic, you know, the the Roe
Team that won the Olympics in 1936. And these were boys that were, you know, not from wealthy families, that were scrappy, that were hungry, that were, you know, and the University of Washington and what they needed to do to be a team. So that's another thing sometimes when we do a workshop, we'll actually show that movie so that people can see what's the difference between that team and our team. And you start to get people in the mindset of who do we need to be with one another in order to have.
that success. So that's sort of where the the underlying conversation for that came.
Darrin Peppard (19:20)
Yeah.
I like that because it goes much more again at the true sense of teamwork as opposed to just looking at some, you know, particular, you know
outcome or or you know deliverable or or something like that you're even just a data set. This is this is much more like let's look at at this individual group and and as we've been talking it's there's just so many yeah Boys in the boat was one that was in my
Gaby Jordan (19:47)
Yeah.
Darrin Peppard (19:48)
head and I'm glad you brought that one up. I was thinking about
When Alan Malale took over at Ford, the number one thing he did was lean into his team. He didn't worry about product. He didn't worry about
Gaby Jordan (19:57)
Mm. Mm.
Darrin Peppard (19:59)
pricing. He said, This executive leadership team has got to start being honest with each other and and stop working
Gaby Jordan (20:04)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (20:05)
in silos. And the transition that he made there, he did it at Boeing before he before he was at Ford.
Gaby Jordan (20:10)
Mm-hmm.
Darrin Peppard (20:12)
just being able to focus on
those interpersonal relationships, the professional
Gaby Jordan (20:16)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (20:17)
relationships, the trust, the collaboration, the the truly being able to work together really
Gaby Jordan (20:21)
Yes. Yes.
Darrin Peppard (20:24)
I I think ties in so well with with what you're talking about.
Gaby Jordan (20:27)
It's it's critical.
It's critical. Because if people aren't honest with each other then they can't fix whatever the issue is because you don't even really know what it is. And so there's just a pretense on top of it, which is not powerful.
Darrin Peppard (20:40)
That's very true. Well, and and it's so oftentimes and this kind of goes back also to that, you know, creating the the narrative in our own heads, but if we're trying to solve a problem that we think is the problem when in reality it isn't, we're working on completely different things. Yeah.
Gaby Jordan (20:53)
Right. You you could
be d if going back to your example, you could be doing a tap dance, a comedy routine when you're presenting an idea thinking it'll make her happier and she's over there scowling and you're like, But she's got no sense of humor, right? Because you didn't know.
Darrin Peppard (21:07)
Exactly.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Gaby Jordan (21:08)
It's such a great example because people don't
even recognize, right? And then she can be responsible. Like that's one of the things like when people interview each other, then that person can be responsible for how they show up. She can go into a meeting
Darrin Peppard (21:20)
Mm-hmm.
Gaby Jordan (21:21)
and say, by the way, I do this thing when I think, and it goes looks like this. And so just don't even think of anything, right? But that
Darrin Peppard (21:28)
Yeah.
Gaby Jordan (21:28)
solves the whole thing.
Darrin Peppard (21:30)
Yeah. it became a like almost a celebration for me when I got that that face. I'm like, ooh,
Gaby Jordan (21:34)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (21:35)
yeah, I've really got her thinking and I love that.
Gaby Jordan (21:37)
Ha ha.
Darrin Peppard (21:37)
That's that's where we were trying to go today. That's that's a win. So
Gaby Jordan (21:40)
it's good.
Darrin Peppard (21:42)
yeah, awesome stuff, baby. I love that so much. So let's do this. We're we're at that point in the show where
Gaby Jordan (21:47)
Sure.
Darrin Peppard (21:48)
I'm gonna ask you the same question I ask everybody. this is the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. So what are you
Gaby Jordan (21:50)
Okay. Yes.
Darrin Peppard (21:53)
doing right now to lean into leadership?
Gaby Jordan (21:56)
I am so I'm building I'm building a team and I'm building a team in the in Human Better EDU that is really committed to impacting education and supporting people in their lives. And that you know, obviously coaching, executive coaching, I'm saying I'm executive coach and a global educator. It's all about really building out what's possible. Expanding.
I I say legacy, but that's a little bit even a little a little bit big word even for me. But I'm just expanding out what's possible.
And having more and more people being on podcasts, letting people know what we do, being more visible, that's all a part of leaning into leadership. Because it really is, we do believe we're on a mission, Human Better EDU, we've got intention of reaching a million participants. We got a little way to go. But that's okay, 'cause there's plenty. There's plenty to do.
Darrin Peppard (22:48)
Lofty goals, nothing wrong with that at all. That's how you go and achieve incredible things is by having lofty goals. I love that. So
Gaby Jordan (22:54)
Yes.
Darrin Peppard (22:55)
people are gonna want to check you out further, check out human better ed you and so forth. So how how do they find you? How do they get in touch?
Gaby Jordan (23:04)
So
I'm easy to find. So if for human better edu it it really is humanbetteredu.org and so Gaby, G A B Y, that's like baby with a G, Gaby at humanbetteredu.org, that's my email. But you can find me on LinkedIn, Gaby Jordan, you can find me on Instagram, the Gaby Jordan. you can find me on Facebook, and then and then the on the corporate side there it's Source Elements Group is the name of my company there. So any of those ways.
Darrin Peppard (23:32)
Outstanding. appreciate it so much. This has been so much fun. Thank you for joining me here on the Leaning and to Leadership Podcast.
Gaby Jordan (23:37)
Thank you so much. Well it was definitely a lot of fun.
Man, what an awesome conversation. Again, I really appreciate Gaby joining me here on the show. Just some incredible words of wisdom. Make sure you get down there in the show notes and follow her. Get connected with her. It is time for a pep talk. Now, on the pep talk today, I want to share a quick story with you. I was in
Nevada earlier this past week, spending some time supporting a handful of schools that I've been working with for a couple of years. One of my conversations with one of the principals actually went to some pieces that directly related to the pyramid of interventions. Now, I wrote an entire blog post on this, and I'll link I'll link it down there in the show notes for you. So so please go check it out. But essentially the story is this: this particular leader felt like she was constantly having to have.
Two different conversations when it came to interventions. One about students who were on an IEP and had special education supports. And then another conversation with students who needed supports but weren't necessarily identified as having an IEP. And she felt like this just isn't right. We should be talking about these students collectively, not individual groups like we are. And it led me to ask her a question.
About what level of understanding her staff really had about the pyramid of interventions and about tier one, tier two, and tier three instruction. Where I want to go with that here in the pep talk is often we will assume that our staff knows what we are talking about because we've said it to them once. Now, that is not a practice you want your teachers using in their classroom. So why would you do that with your staff?
Instead, take a step back this week. Find one thing that you're saying repeatedly, but that maybe your staff doesn't fully understand. Now think about what is it that you really believe they need to know. Then go be intentional. Teach that, model that, share that with them, check in with them, find out truly what their level of proficiency is, and continue to support.
When you do that, when you share with them the things that you genuinely believe are important and need to be done, that's when you can really move them forward. Hey, that's what I've got for you this week, folks. Thank you so much for joining me here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. As always, rate, review, subscribe, and share this episode with someone else who might enjoy leaning into leadership. Get out there, folks. Have a road to awesome week.
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