Episode 213: Culture Starts with Who You Hire: Insights from Todd Nesloney

Darrin Peppard (00:00)

All right, my friends, welcome into the Leaning into Leadership podcast. This is episode 213. I am really excited to bring to you today's conversation with somebody I have followed and respected for a long time. Todd Nesslone. Todd is the Director of Culture and Strategic Leadership for TPSA and is the author of several books, including Kids Deserve It and Building Authenticity. In our conversation, we talk about

building school culture through intentional hiring, onboarding, and retention. And Todd shares powerful stories and strategies that any leader can implement right now. He also opens up about leaning into discomfort, chasing passion, and amplifying the voices of others, something I know deeply resonates with many of you. And speaking of leadership growth, if you're feeling a little stuck, overwhelmed, or just ready to shift from reactive to proactive,

Maybe your team just needs a little bit of a jumpstart. Well, I'd love to support them. In a recent two-day leadership retreat I did in Virginia, a veteran administrator shared with me after our work. I really enjoyed this. I learned so much. This is on the list of my best PDs I have attended in my career. I walk away with a lot to think about. I am on full firefighter mode.

Partly because it's the nature of my job. People contact me when there's an issue with software or other platforms, but I would love to discuss doing a few things differently so I have more time to get out of my office and into the schools next year. You see, in this particular leadership workshop in Virginia, we were focusing deeply as a collective district leadership team on how do we intentionally dial in on

the important instructional leadership work that all of our school leaders want to do, but unfortunately end up putting to the side because so many other things get in the way. Folks, I've got great actionable strategies. We have a lot of fun. I'd love to bring this to your district and to your team. This is the work I love, helping schools and district leaders move from constantly putting out the fires to leading with clarity, purpose, and impact.

So if that's something you or your team is looking for, reach out. I'd love to bring this work to you. Now, let's get to this absolutely amazing conversation with Todd Nesloney.

Darrin Peppard (00:01)

All right, everybody, welcome back into the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Really excited today to welcome Todd Neslone onto the show. Todd is somebody that I've been connected with for a real long time, and yet somehow, until just a few days ago, we had never actually had a conversation with each other. So really excited, Todd, to welcome you into the podcast. So thanks so much for joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership.

Todd Nesloney (00:28)

Hey, I'm super excited to be having this conversation. So thank you for the invite.

Darrin Peppard (00:32)

Yeah, absolutely. So Todd, let's let's do this real quick. Just maybe kind of zoom out a little bit, give folks just a little orientation about yourself kind of, you know, a little bit of your journey as much or as little as you'd like to share.

Todd Nesloney (00:47)

Yeah, so I've served in a lot of different educational capacities. I started as an instructional aide while I was in college, and then I became a teacher, and then I became a principal, and now I get to work as the Director of Culture and Strategic Leadership for the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association. I've also had the extreme honor of getting to write a couple books. ⁓ I get to travel and present and work with different schools, districts, and organizations all across the world.

and so a lot of really cool experiences in my life but it has given me a lot of different perspectives on different roles in education and roles just as being trying to be a good leader and a good spouse and a good parent because I also am married to my wife Liz and we've got twin almost four-year-olds ⁓ so our time is very busy.

Darrin Peppard (01:38)

Yeah, I

can imagine. So I'm curious. You said there that you were an instructional aide during your time in college. When you headed off to college, I'm always curious about people's origin stories. Did you know from the word go you wanted to be a teacher or was it a different route? And then ultimately you got there. Just maybe share a little bit of how you found your way into education.

Todd Nesloney (02:01)

Yeah, you know, growing up, I knew I wanted to work with kids in some capacity. And for a while I thought it was going to be like in social work. cause I just really loved knowing that I could make an impact that way. And as I began to learn more and more about the work involved with the social worker's life, I realized I can't separate myself emotionally from that work. And so I started thinking, what other ways can I really work on impacting kids? And I thought, ⁓ maybe I could be a teacher because I had a great experience in education growing up.

I really was never in too much trouble. I got A's and B's so I kind of stayed off people's radar, but at the same time I didn't remember any of my teachers. I didn't remember any impact any of them ever had on me and so I thought you know this is a great opportunity for me to go into something to be that person for someone else that I didn't get myself. And so when I was in high school the state started this program called Ready Set Teach and our high school was one of the first high schools in the state to pick it up and what it is is if you thought you wanted to

be a teacher as a high school student. You could go to this class, learn all about being a teacher, start volunteering in classrooms, at other campuses.

And so was one of the first kids in the whole state to be in Ready, 2 my senior year, which is kind of like a methods class. I I spent time every single week in the same classroom working with that teacher teaching lessons. And I was like, yep, this is what I want to do. And so when I graduated high school and went to college to go get that degree, my community that I had graduated from said, hey, we're starting a program called Grow Your Own, where we want to hire you as an instructional aide while you go to college. And then our hopes is that you love working here so much

Then when you graduate, we're going to have a spot ready for you to plug you in because we want to grow our own people and kind of have that. So I spent my entire four years of college was I had ⁓ every single day a time at the school where I was an instructional aide. Whenever I wasn't in class, I was probably at the school at work. ⁓ And then, yeah, then just graduated and went straight into teaching and loved every minute of it.

Darrin Peppard (04:04)

That's awesome. Were you I mean, I know eventually you became a principal and folks we do have a topic today, but this is just an awesome conference. Awesome opportunity to just just sit and talk a little bit with with Todd. We're actually going to talk about about hiring about retention and about about some of those those things that are so important for principals. But I'm curious as you transition from classroom teacher to principal was that was still within that same district or did you end up leaving that district to take your first principleship?

Todd Nesloney (04:34)

Well, you know, it's so funny. I didn't actually end up working in the district that I was in the Grow Your Own program with. When I was in my senior year of college, there was a teacher who had, they had said, yes, she's going to be leaving. Her husband got a job somewhere else and you're going to be filling that position. ⁓ And then a couple of months before school ended, her husband didn't end up getting the job. And so she didn't end up leaving and there were no open positions for me to take in. And so I went to a job fair at a neighboring district, got hired on the spot.

And so ended up working there for seven years. ⁓ And then I got my master's degree while I was there because that district had this new partnership they were working with the university where it like, hey teachers, you can go get your master's in school administration or in curriculum and instruction. And so my whole fifth grade team, we all were like, yeah, let's all get our master's. Cause I was like, dang, if I don't go back now, I ain't never going to go back to school. So I got a team to work with me on this. I got to do this. And secretly I really wanted to be the first person in my fam.

Darrin Peppard (05:28)

Right.

Todd Nesloney (05:34)

with a master's. So that's kind of like the only reason I was doing it. I had no plans to become an administrator, but I was like that's the degree I want so I'm just gonna go for that. Graduated, got my degree, and was like great now I have it. I'm happy. I'm not gonna do anything else. And I was teaching for years after I got my degree and then one day I got a direct message on Twitter, now X, that just said hey love to see the work you're doing. We've got an opening for a principalship here. Would you be interested? And I was like no.

Like what a way to reach out to somebody. I'm happy with what I'm doing. Like I have no interest at all. And they were like, well, you know, this position would be you'd get to hire your whole staff. You'd get to start a campus from the ground up. And I was like, well.

come and entertain the conversation because that was like a dream thing of like well you get to do all of that and like they came to search me out and so I went ⁓ and spoke with them and fell in love with them did the whole interview process and Ended up being a principal there for another five years and loved it before I took on this role that I'm in now and so I kind of always lived under the mindset of When I'm feeling really good at what I'm doing and I'm feeling really

comfortable, that's the time I need to try something else because I like that feeling of...

Stress, I guess. I don't know that feeling of uncomfortableness of you know, I've done really well at this So I don't want to rest on my laurels I don't want to I don't want to not do my best because I've got into a good rhythm of things like I want to be challenged and growing and doing new things all the time and that's kind of what I feel like I kind of live my life as and it's why people say like Todd What's your five-year plan and I never have had a five-year plan? ⁓ I'm very much a live-in-the-moment commit to what I'm doing right now

Darrin Peppard (06:59)

Yeah.

Todd Nesloney (07:26)

I'm all in, but I also chase my passions. And so I believe that as people, as humans, we have to go after what we're passionate for. And it's okay when our passions change. At one point, I never wanted to be anything other than a teacher. I was 100 % passionate about that. And guess what? I could still go back today and be a teacher and love it. But at some point, that little bug of, ooh, maybe I'm getting a passion towards adult leadership. Let me go into this as a principal. And then it was kind of like, what about if I, I'm kind of

getting drawn towards this now. And so it's never an avenue of I don't love what I didn't love what I was doing. That's never been the case for me. It's a, Ooh, this is a new interest of mine, an area I'm not a hundred percent if I'm going to be great at it. So let me dive into it and try it and grow myself in this new area. And that's what I encourage others to do all the time now to an education. Cause sometimes we can look at people and go, you got out of teaching, like what happened? Would you ever go back? And it's like, you know, I can leave.

something I love to go pursue something else I love. Like I'm a human who has varied interests that I have and sometimes I just want to grow in new ways and new areas.

Darrin Peppard (08:39)

Yeah, no, that's very true. And I think sometimes we do kind of get a little bit pigeonholed and people think, well, this is just the, that's the one thing that, you know, that you're known for. And therefore that must be what you're doing. ⁓ you know, another one of those things, I mean, I don't know about your experience on this. I'm kind of curious. I mean, obviously you've done a couple of books and one of my favorites, ⁓ one of my favorite books I've ever read, Kids Deserve It, the one you did with Adam. Welcome.

I know when I wrote my first book, I had just finished my dissertation like six months before. I thought I will never write anything ever again the rest of my life. What led you, you just kind of talked about like this, know, hey, there's this new thing that I wanna, you know, hey, I wanna try this, I wanna take this on. What led you to saying, you know what, hey, I do wanna do a book and then I wanna do another book and all the rest of it.

Todd Nesloney (09:36)

What?

Again, it was not something I was seeking out. I loved writing like blogs and stuff for myself. It was never something that I was really adamant about sharing with others or really comfortable with. But I had fallen in love with this book when I was teaching called Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess. And I had grown a friendship with him and we had stayed in touch about a lot of different things. And one day he reached out to me and was like, hey, I'm starting a publishing company. I really love the work you're doing. I think you've got a book within you.

Would you ever consider writing one?" And I said, no, I don't know how to write a book. I don't know what that looks like. Just hearing that gives me anxiety. Like, my goodness, that's like in print, permanent for people to have access to. Like, no way. And I told him no. And he said, well, I'm going to keep pestering you, but I totally respect that. So just know that I think you have something and I think you will realize it one day. And so I remember being at the NAESP conference and meeting Adam Welch.

Darrin Peppard (10:12)

Hahaha.

Todd Nesloney (10:36)

in person and we had been talking about some different things and in our conversation the words kids deserve it came up and both of us were like

that sounds really good, like that really sounds like a lot of these things that we're dreaming of and we're talking about really come back to the reason why is because kids deserve this from us. And so I was like, let's put a blog post together. And he's like, okay. So we wrote it and I was like, that was really easy to write that with someone else. I hadn't experienced that before. And so we started writing a couple other things together. And throughout that process, I thought,

Maybe I could write a book with someone else. And so I brought the idea up to him. He liked it. We went and pitched it to Dave. Dave was like, my gosh, kids deserve it. I love the idea. Like get all this stuff to me. ⁓ and so I poured my heart and soul into that and put it out there and it took off way better than our goals had ever been. ⁓ it's definitely been a blessing in my life. And then from that, after writing that, said, done, I'm never writing anything again. Like that was everything that took it all out of me. I am never.

Darrin Peppard (11:36)

Yeah.

Todd Nesloney (11:38)

writing a game because I'm also the kind of person where if I'm gonna put effort into creating something I want it to be different than other things I've seen out there. I don't want to be part of the noise I want to stand out from what's there and so at that time I was like well I I don't really have anything to say that I feel is unique enough or stand out enough that isn't being said by other people which is also an ignorant line of thought because everybody has something to say and every one of us has a purpose to say it but anyway that's where my head

wasn't due to this constant comparison thief thing. It's always there anyway. ⁓ But I remember I just, I was like, okay, follow your passions, take advice. And Jimmy Casas, a good friend of mine, gave me some amazing advice one time when I was even considering becoming an administrator and I was starting to get some notoriety on social media for the stuff that I was doing. And he said, Todd, here's one thing I want you to remember. And I said, what is that? And he said, Todd, I want you to always make sure no matter how big you get,

Darrin Peppard (12:13)

Yeah.

Todd Nesloney (12:38)

that you amplify the voices of others louder than you amplify your own.

And that has been a guiding light for me and such a focus in the work that I do. Just to make sure that any opportunity that I'm given, any platform that I have, that I also make sure that I'm utilizing the voices of others to bring them into that space too, when they may not have been there. And so I remember sitting with my staff and having a conversation with them one day, just sitting there going, God, these people are brilliant. Like, but nobody knows that they're brilliant because they're not on social

media, they're not writing a book, they're not doing a podcast, they're not doing all these things except just putting their nose to the ground and doing the work. And I'm like, I have a platform. How can I amplify them? And I thought, I don't know of any books out there where an administrator writes a book with their team.

And I thought, let me do that. So I pitched it to Dave. He loved it. And that's where stories from Webb, my second book and secretly the book I'm most proud of to this day ⁓ was I wrote it just like kids deserve it. It's short chapters with all these inspiration ideas and resources, but every single chapter features an insert or a story from somebody on staff, from the maintenance guy all the way up to the assistant superintendent. And so it was my opportunity to really

make all those people publish authors. And we brought in a ⁓ photographer to do all their headshots professionally. we did brought in this big group and we threw a book release party and we donated all proceeds from every single sale back to the school. Like we did all these things that had I not been given the platform I was given, I wouldn't have been able to do. And so that's, and then every book I've written from then on out has just been an opportunity of me saying, I have no interest in writing another book, but at some point someone I'm

working with I'm like ⁓ my god this is awesome like this is something I totally love let's put it in writing form that's where sparks in the dark when kids lead all these things came from and like if you ask me now I will tell you I'm done like I ain't writing no more books there ain't nothing else in me but then my Y-fall was always reminds me you just wait till you hear something amazing that just starts that fire again then you're gonna be wanting to write another book I'm like I know but right now I'm doing all these other things I love so that's not even in my mindset but yeah that's kind of how

Darrin Peppard (14:35)

Yeah.

Right.

Todd Nesloney (15:00)

that whole long answer, but how it all kind of worked for me.

Darrin Peppard (15:04)

Yeah, no, I love that man. That's that is awesome. I think I think there's a lot there's so much in there to unpack and I really do want to get to our topic. So sorry, folks. I know we're like 15 minutes into the show. We haven't even got to to what I really want to get to. But I think that's that's a really important piece. And I love that you won that you brought up something that actually Jimmy has said has said to me as well, you know, just about how important it is to continue to amplify the voices of others.

Todd Nesloney (15:13)

I'm

Darrin Peppard (15:33)

And then also too, just seeing how that passion comes out of you when you talk about each of those different projects and how those things came about. I think it's a big thing for listeners and viewers to remember that, hey, when there is something that you're passionate about, chase it, pursue it, go do that because great things are gonna come from that. So, okay, so Todd, here's what I really wanna get into. This is I really wanna ask you about. I read something that you had written not too long ago.

about hiring and training and retaining. I know a lot of the work that you do with TESPA now, especially, you know, with that kind of that culture lens is working with school leaders and supervisors and helping them to shape that culture. So in this particular episode, that's a topic I really want to get to. I want leaders to be able to come away with something that they can say, hey, you know,

that really resonated with me because one of the things I think is most important for the culture of our organization is how we hire, how we onboard and how we get people to feel like they're really part of our community. So I guess maybe my first thing won't even be a question. I'm just gonna maybe float that out there for you to maybe talk a little bit about hiring.

What are some tips and insights that you would share with school leaders?

Todd Nesloney (17:03)

You know, this entire...

conversation of mine of thinking about this process came about when I started working at tepsa and I started really kind of going through this mindset of what are things that we assume people know how to do that in reality we need somebody to train us on and so I started thinking about my own experiences and so two of the topics that I really spent a lot of time diving into and talking to other people one of them was how to have a difficult conversation and the other one was how do we hire

and

retain the right people because people think, well, you can have difficult conversations because you're an adult. You've had to do that your whole life and people had to do that with you. And you can hire people because you've been in an interview before, right? So just replicate that and do it. And you know how to train people, right? You've been trained. And you know when you stayed somewhere what you liked about it. So just do those things and you're good to go. And the reality is, no, I don't know what I'm doing. I was on this side and I didn't hear that and I didn't hear the planning and the thought process and I didn't know the people then and all.

Darrin Peppard (18:01)

Right.

Todd Nesloney (18:06)

the places and there's so many idiosyncrasies that go into the hiring process and the training process and retaining people that there is no one size fits all and so for me when I start having these conversations with others about how to hire and how to train and retain them I really think about you know what are some of the big overarching thought processes that we need to go through that then you can fix to fit you and what you're doing because for me I had to learn it all on the

I was a baby principal. I did not serve as an assistant principal. I went straight from teacher to principal So there was a lot of a learning curve that needed to take place Which means that and I'm fine with owning this there were a lot of mistakes that happened and my team will gladly tell you that as well as a lot of us were learning on the fly and I would never recommend that for anyone and so now my goal is to kind of help guide that conversation and Really start thinking about what what do you

before you have the interview, what do do during the interview, what do you do after the interview, who comes into the interview, whose opinion do you ask, and does every opinion matter, and then once you think you like somebody, what do do next? And so a lot of my processing when I come and have these conversations with just individuals and not in a like session or keynote setting is very questioning because I think that sometimes we give people the answers and instead you need to think about what you're doing.

that fits you and your personality and the school and the culture you already have built. And so when I'm talking one-on-one with somebody or in a small group, I'll say, okay, tell me why you do this. Okay, what happens if this happens?

Well, who comes into this? And some of that stuff that we just haven't thought about because we're literally thinking of a thousand different things all the time. And so that's not a diss to anybody. It's just a fact, the matter of our jobs have us doing a lot of roles and all the time, and it doesn't really give us time to grow in those. And so sometimes we have to just sit back and question why we're doing things and is it the best?

Darrin Peppard (20:13)

Yeah, no, I really value that. It was taking me to a conversation I had with one of the school districts I support. And we were talking through it specifically at their high school and the need for very soon. And actually, I think as we're recording right now, they are interviewing for an assistant principal position on their team. And the superintendent had asked me about it first and then ultimately the principal as well. The system they were using.

was just something they'd always done. And somebody asked the question in the meeting we were having of, why do we use these same old questions for literally every job? They don't get us where we're trying to go. I mean, what are we trying to accomplish? And I shared within the system that I didn't create, I added to it, but that I eventually was taught of how to go about assembling the team at the table.

you know, how do you want to screen candidates? What questions do you want to ask? And how do you make those questions actually help you learn what you're trying to get at? Do they fit the needs that you think you have and so forth? So I think that's great. think developing systems that work for you are really important. Let's maybe stay on the hiring process specifically.

Todd Nesloney (21:40)

Yeah, because

I want to dive in here and say and type you just said too and that is

Darrin Peppard (21:42)

No, go ahead.

Todd Nesloney (21:45)

doing an interview for someone leading that interview requires way more prep work than you're thinking because, that's kind of why this training has to take place because as somebody who has been in interviews and being the one being interviewed, that does not mean I have any idea of any planning that took place, which is why it's so frustrating to me that people assume, well, you've been in interviews, you know how to lead one. And it's like, no, I went to the interview. I didn't know who they met with before, what questions they talked about,

Darrin Peppard (21:52)

yeah.

Right. I flew on a plane,

therefore I should be able to fly it, right? I mean, it's like the same thing, right? I'm not sitting in the same chair.

Todd Nesloney (22:17)

Exactly.

And that's one of the biggest things that I had to learn was, ⁓ my gosh, there's a lot of prep work that goes into me. And we would get on these like interview ⁓ marathons where we would interview like six or seven people in a row. But before that even happened, we had to have all these things in place so that we could try to find the best candidate possible and

Darrin Peppard (22:26)

Yeah.

Todd Nesloney (22:44)

Also knowing for anybody listening today, I will say this now before I forget to say it, you can have every single process in place and still hire a crazy person. So just know that they still, there are professional interviewers who are the best interviewers. They have their, ⁓ they're lined up recommendations from people that they trust will lie about them and they get through the cracks and then you're like, ⁓ my gosh, we're going to be on national news. Thanks to this person I hired. So don't think that you're not a good interviewer.

Darrin Peppard (22:54)

yeah, you can still whiff.

⁓ yeah.

Todd Nesloney (23:14)

just because you may have hired some people who weren't quite a fit for what you were trying to do.

Darrin Peppard (23:19)

But you know, that brings up something really interesting. When I was hired for my superintendent position, was really, kudos to the district that hired me for what their interview process was, specifically how the board developed this. And I think they got some support from the Colorado School Board Association, but they didn't call the people I listed as references. They didn't call the people that wrote me letters of recommendation. They already had that.

Todd Nesloney (23:43)

Yeah.

Darrin Peppard (23:48)

So they just started to do their homework. And as it turned out, there were a couple of them who knew some people who knew some people who knew me. And that's how they went and did their homework. you know, when, when actually when I was offered the position and I told my superintendent, she's like, what? They haven't even called me. I'm like, I haven't gotten a reference call. Like, well, you wrote a letter of recommend. They don't, they don't need to talk to you. They've already seen that. I think that that work that,

Todd Nesloney (23:49)

huh.

Uh-huh.

Darrin Peppard (24:18)

that you do the prep work. And I'm curious how you approach this as an administrator. I did it two different ways and I became much more enamored with doing my reference calls before they even sat at the table, then waiting until after. I did it early on where, hey, once we said this is our top candidate, then I'll make the reference calls. But I kind of looked at it, and maybe this is a bad way to, a bad analogy at least, but

But if I'm going to go buy a car, I want to know what I'm willing to pay now. I don't want to get there and go, OK, let's see what this is going to take. When I've got people that I'm in charge of the hire, and this was after many years of actually being in charge of the hire, I wanted to know before they got to the table what's there. And so I'm just curious. How did you approach that? And what are some of the conversations maybe you've had with folks about?

like the actual reach out and how you go learn about that person because you're right. Some people will come to the table and they are BS artists. They will sell themselves knowing full well they're not going to do what they say they're going to.

Todd Nesloney (25:31)

Yeah.

Well, there's a couple of things when we, so I never called ahead of time. I love that idea. I think sometimes we were in the midst of hiring so many people that I was like, my gosh, like I just need to get down to the top three and then I'll call that because it's like, I, I sometimes one of my struggles, cause I'm a people pleaser is having 10 applicants apply.

and wanting to interview all 10 if their resumes at least start there and go, okay, well these resumes, like I want to give them a chance. Like don't want to miss somebody because I judged ahead of time. So that often led to me going, okay, I 10 interviews. I would have loved to call the references ahead because I never even thought of that about that, but I love that. But for me, it's more of a, I love to look at their references and figure out who is not listed.

Darrin Peppard (26:02)

Yeah.

Todd Nesloney (26:18)

That's my first thing. I'm be like, ⁓ you didn't list your principal. Why not? And you didn't list this person. And then that's I'll be like, okay, before I call any other reference, that's who I'm calling first. Knowing, knowing that they may have not listed them because they're-

Darrin Peppard (26:19)

Yeah.

100%.

Todd Nesloney (26:36)

principal may be a jerk and they may have never had a good relationship and that doesn't mean that they're a bad teacher but I still want to hear the perspective and I still want to see and do all that and so my other thing is is when we because I never did interviews by myself I always had a committee that I worked with of teachers on staff and so one of the things I would say is as soon we find someone we love like okay everybody google them let's see what we can find and this may be

Darrin Peppard (26:44)

Right?

Todd Nesloney (27:03)

Not a great judgment, but when we're googling them and everything is set to private...

my first reaction is always like, what are you hiding? Like what? I get some people really respect their privacy and it doesn't mean I didn't hire them because they had their Facebook account to private. I'm not saying that for those listening right now. What I'm saying is it was just another piece of the deciding puzzle to go, okay, what do they have on social media? What do they have? What have they been recognized for anything? Were they in any articles? Did their former district ever write about them? Like all these things. But if when I Google somebody, I can't find

Darrin Peppard (27:13)

Yeah.

Todd Nesloney (27:39)

anything, that's a little bit of a red flag in the year that we live in. Because I'm like, you should have some kind of social media presence. And so I know, like I said, that's not my sole deciding factor, but it's a piece into our puzzle. I want a really well-rounded individual who's got some experiences in life, not necessarily just in teaching, who brings the kind of energy that we're looking for, who can teach and be a learner.

Darrin Peppard (27:44)

Right.

Todd Nesloney (28:08)

at the same time because one of the my favorite things to do is when we have an applicant that we love and everybody around the table is like ⁓ my gosh this person right away I say okay we do not offer them the position what we're going to do is we have a little bit of time we were ahead of the game with this so I'm going to invite them to come teach a lesson at our school.

because that's where I get to really see. And when I call that applicant, I'm like, hey, we loved your interview. We loved that you had to bring to the table. We really would like to consider you for the next step, but we need you to come teach a lesson at our school. Can you let me know when you've got 30 minutes to come teach a lesson and you can pick the grade, you can pick the subject. Like I want you to be at your A game. So I'm going to let you decide all this. They let me know, they pick all their stuff. We schedule it in and then I schedule them with a

teacher I really trust. And what that teacher does is when that person comes in to teach the lesson, that teacher stays in the room. I'm not there. I don't want to be a stress factor of why that applicant did not perform well because they know the administrators in there. So I leave that teacher in there who those are her kids or his kids. It's who they know how the instruction is supposed to be. And then after the lesson is taught, I meet with them and I say, what do think?

And they'll either say, ⁓ or yeah, they had some good things. I think we could really work with them. I really, they didn't know anything they were talking about. And that's what I know right away. You had some great interview skills, but when I put you in a space that was your choice of your grade, your subject, and it was just 30 minutes, that gives me a really clear view of, do I have the capacity right now to dive into this person?

Or, you know what, this is just not a good fit for us right now. It doesn't mean it's not going to be a fit for someone else. But for us, I trust my teacher in that room. I trust what I know about this applicant to say, OK, thank you so much for doing that lesson. We're going to move in a different direction. And I think sometimes we have to do those kind of things to really find the people that best fit with what you're trying to build on your team.

Darrin Peppard (30:06)

And I think, think so much of that. Number one, I love that. we would have people come in and teach lessons as well. ⁓ never let them pick their own. I like that idea though, because that really does allow them to set themselves up for success. And if they still fall short, then it makes you go, okay, wait a minute here. You know, like I let you choose this. I love that. I really do. ⁓ the other thing too, that that's, that that's really making me think about it and leaders, this is something you should all be thinking about too.

This is why so much of this type of training is necessary because a lot of leaders that I talk with, heck, even myself, when I first started as a building principal, ⁓ didn't know I could Google somebody. I didn't know that it was okay for me to go Facebook stalk them. I didn't know that I could, hey, what if we do this differently? Or you're not locked into the system.

Todd Nesloney (30:52)

Neither.

Darrin Peppard (31:05)

that you think you're locked into. think it's important to look for other opportunities, different ways to get to what you're really trying to learn about those people and find out if they're a really good fit for you. At the time this episode is airing, so it's June, hopefully I say this with all of my fingers and toes crossed for all of our leadership friends out there, people are fully staffed. They're not needing to hire right now.

Todd Nesloney (31:25)

You

Darrin Peppard (31:34)

We both know some people in June are still hiring. But that said, the next step, of course, is the let's get them on board. Let's train them. Let's get them up to speed with the vision of our school with what we want to see happen. What might be a couple of things that you would recommend to school leaders for ways to really efficiently get people caught up with and trained for what it is that you expect in your school?

Todd Nesloney (32:03)

Yeah, and like the other question we had a second ago, I think there are some idiosyncrasies that you have to think about about what works for you and your people. But there were a couple of things that we did that I was really proud of and think really set the tone well. We made a huge... So when you think about sports, I'm not a big sports guy, but I know all these signings that happen and these teams make a huge deal when they get their draft pick and all these kind of things. And so I was like, why don't we do that? I'd seen something go viral on social media back when I was the principal of somebody doing that. And I was like,

I love that so when we would hire people we would go like big on social media and blasting it out to the community and the families like my gosh we just signed a new first grade teacher we're so excited for y'all to meet him or her and not only does that set the tone of us spreading the news with our our community right away but it also kind of allows that person to be like whoa like look at them kind of bringing me in here with all this fanfare ⁓ because people want to feel special and so I think that's one of the first

ways that we do that. I always make sure that anytime somebody's hired they're assigned a mentor and I make sure that it is a mentor who wants to be a mentor. Just like as teachers, I often have to have the conversation with teachers of do not assign your highest performing students to your lowest performing students. There's so much research that talks about how that doesn't work. They weren't trained in how to do that. Which is the same reason of do not assign a high performing teacher to a

low-performing teacher if they don't want to help that person get better. Like so for me it's having that conversation of hey I've got somebody I hired who has 12 years of experience I still want them to have a mentor their first year with us because a lot of stuff that changes from campus to campus and district to district and or I have a newbie teacher guys she's she's never taught before she just graduated I need somebody to really help grow her in these areas these are some ways that she feels she's weakened and so we'll see if that's true or not but anybody got some stuff with that?

And we right away are assigning them a person who's friendly who's on their side who's looking to help them out Who's not on their team? That was always really big to me too because I want them to have somebody they can go to to talk about stuff when it gets hard ⁓ and then I move trust after being a principal for a few years started to move to this process of anything that I could Create a PDF for or a brief video. I was constantly finding myself creating those things so when somebody would be

hired even if they were hired like mid-year I could have a library of resources for them so it's like you don't know what we do a discipline Todd already made this three minute video and we've got a discipline form here with a step-by-step thing like you don't have to worry about going I don't know how to do this who do I go

We tried to create a library of those resources so that way it eliminates that fear of asking and instead knowing there's always somewhere you can go. And if you find something we don't have created, that's when we need to know because we need to create that. So those are some of the three first things that we really focused on was welcoming them in big, making sure they have a person that is theirs that they check in monthly with. And then the third thing was just trying to have all those resources available in advance for when they

have questions, they know where to go.

Darrin Peppard (35:24)

I think that probably goes a long way in retaining staff as well because then number one, yes, you've welcomed them in a great way, but two, you continue to provide them with the resources and support and so forth that allows them to feel like, this is a place where, I really want to be. And this has been just an amazing conversation in our time is absolutely flying by, which really does not come as a big surprise. ⁓ but,

Todd Nesloney (35:49)

Ha ha ha!

Darrin Peppard (35:51)

We're at that point, Todd, where I'm going to ask you the same question I ask everybody here on the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. You've shared a lot of different pieces here, but I'm sure there's got to be something else you can tell us that you're doing right now to lean into leadership.

Todd Nesloney (36:04)

You know, for me, it goes back to what kind of what I said at the beginning of this conversation is I'm always looking at what can I do to make myself a little bit uncomfortable? Cause I don't feel like we are learning or growing unless we are uncomfortable. And as a leader and as a human, we should never stop learning. There's always something that we could do better. There's always something that's changing. And so for me, I think one of the biggest ways I'm trying to lean into that is I have spent a little over a year and just

launched a huge online course, which is something that I got professionally recorded videos. I spent hours making all these PDF documents and this workbook that's 173 pages and it has been a terrifying experience and it has been a very uncomfortable experience learning how to really create professional looking resources to help people improve their culture, whether it's in their classroom, on their campus, in their district. And so I think that's one of the ways that I've really been leaning into that is

launching that here. I launched it in April and just trying to

feel comfortable in my voice and in my experience and in my knowledge and trusting that I have something to offer people even when that self doubt creeps in. And really just getting comfortable sharing about like, hey, I created this huge thing for people. It's got like eight hours of content, but it was the scariest thing I've ever done. Outside of a Ted Talk, was the other scariest thing I've ever done. So ⁓ yeah, I think that's one thing for me is I'm still

Darrin Peppard (37:35)

Yeah.

Todd Nesloney (37:39)

leaning into that uncomfortable. It's still not a lesson I've learned and so I think that that's my thing I want to leave leaders with as they finish this conversation today is continue to find something that if you're feeling good about stuff that's when you should be like time for to get uncomfortable. What can I dive into now that I know nothing about I'm not good at and I can grow at and there's a lot of ways you can do that.

Darrin Peppard (38:01)

Yeah, no, that's outstanding stuff. love that. A couple of quick things to wrap this up. One, know you have your TESPA summer event coming up here, just right around the corner. Maybe visit a little bit about that. And then just finally, where do people find you and get connected with you? Because I know they're going to want to learn more and check out your course and all that other great stuff.

Todd Nesloney (38:26)

Yeah, so if you're a pre-k through eight leader, we have our TEPSA conference at June 10th through 12th this year. Every year it's in June. It's in Round Rock, Texas at the Kalahari Resort. So it's a beautiful space. We've got amazing keynotes, Gary Brooks, Allison Appsey, Manny Scott, one of his last presentations he's doing before getting off the road. ⁓ And so I'm leading two sessions there. I'll be doing a difficult conversation session and a creating a Disney culture ⁓ as well and how to

bring in all that fun and excitement and that specialness that Disney does and how you can build that into your school. So definitely hope you all can join us there. If not, put it on your calendar for 2026. You can definitely join us. You don't have to be from Texas. Anybody can come. And so it's about 2,500 of your like-minded leaders who are there every summer. So we hope you see you there. But as far as me, you can find all my stuff on ToddNeslone.com. If you don't know how to spell Neslone, just Google it how you think it's spelled. It'll come

up but all my information, my books, my blog, my social media, my course, everything is there and you can check it all out.

Darrin Peppard (39:36)

All right, wonderful. I really appreciate you joining me here on the Leading Into Leadership podcast, Have an awesome day.

Todd Nesloney (39:42)

Thanks, you too.

All right, as always, fantastic conversation, really enjoyed that opportunity to sit down with Todd. It's something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and I'm grateful that Todd and I were finally able to make our calendars sync up and actually have a time to sit down and hit the record button at the same time. So again, everything Todd Nesslone is down there in the show notes, so make sure you go.

Check all that out. And if you are in Texas, if you are an elementary or middle school administrator, teacher, and I'll tell you what, you definitely should be looking at the TESPA conference. And now it's time for a pep talk. Today on the pep talk, I want to talk a little bit about something from this week. During the course of the week, again, I had an opportunity to work with a

good size leadership team for a couple of days, then also with another leadership team specifically in one building. And we spent the better part of a day digging into current practices, realigning not only job assignments, but the way in which each of the leaders would focus. And it's one thing to say we need to maybe move job assignments around or

or change certain things. You know, I saw a post recently where somebody was talking about trying to change the culture in their building by moving people around. That doesn't get the job done in and of itself. And with this particular team, just changing who is responsible for which things is not enough. A huge piece in this team's case, and honestly, in the individuals case, who talked about moving people around, you've got to get to the core of why

the practices you have are currently happening. How do you move past those possibly outdated or inefficient practices and into some things that will actually make a difference? Add to that, how do you communicate it repeatedly to those who need to know your entire staff and probably your students, probably your parents?

As far as who's responsible for what who is the go to for what? What is the process? What does the practice look like? All of it comes down to a statement that if you're a regular listener, you heard Nate Eklund say a couple episodes ago, nothing boost morale like a well run school. My challenge for you, my my ask of you this week in the pep talk is to get up on the balcony and take a look at the practices.

the procedures, the points of contact in your current structure. And one, are there practices, procedures, points of contact that might be done more efficiently? And whether you make changes or not, think about how you can be very intentional to, let's just say, over communicate.

expectations, points of contact, procedures, and so forth. When you ramp up to start up your new school year, I think the more clear you can be for everybody who will be coming back into the building, the higher morale is going to be because you in order to do all of that have to be running an efficient school.

Hey, that's what I've got for you this week, folks. Thanks so much for joining me here on episode 213 of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Get out there, have a road to awesome week.