Episode 230: Leading with Grace - Navigating Your Leadership Lifespan with Julia Bialeski

Darrin Peppard (00:00.908)

All right, my friends, welcome into episode 230 of the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. You know, over the past few months, I've had the privilege of keynoting events all over the country, and the feedback has been incredible. One of the attendees shared with me, this got to the heart of how to shift culture in schools, break through the excuses, get to the root of the problem, and then act. Another said,

Darren shares inspiring stories and philosophies about culture and leadership, he gives great examples that we can put into practice right away. Finally, someone said, Darren's perspective and advice on leadership is inspiring and transformative. I can't wait to bring awesome into my work. You see, that's the passion for practical people-centered leadership that is exactly why I'm so excited about today's conversation. My guest is Julia Bolesky.

She's an educator, author, and a district leader whose career has spanned teaching, school administration, and now leading recruitment and hiring for a district of 78 schools and over 57,000 students. Julia's book, Leading with Grace, is packed with stories and strategies for leaders at every stage of their career. Today, we're digging into the concept of the leadership lifespan, how to enter a new leadership role with intentionality and how systems, listening, and well-being

can shape your success. Folks, this is a fantastic conversation. I know you're going to get so much value out of it. So let's get right to it with Julia Bolesky.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (00:16.44)

Hey my friends, welcome back into the Leaning into Leadership podcast. I'm really excited about today's episode. I'm sitting down with Julia Bilesky. She is the author of the book Leading with Grace, Cultivating Hope, Authenticity, and a Focus on People Throughout the Leadership Lifespan. I'm really excited about talking through that concept of a leadership lifespan, interested to hear more about Julia's career and about some of the work that she is currently doing. Before we do that, Julia, welcome into the show.

Julia Bialeski (00:53.773)

Thank you so much. am just as excited as you for this conversation. I've really been looking forward to it.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (00:59.534)

awesome. So let's do this really quick. Let's kind of maybe set the table, if you will, for our conversation and let our listeners and our viewers on YouTube know a little bit about you so that maybe they've kind of framed in their mind where we might be going with our conversation.

Julia Bialeski (01:17.731)

Great, yeah, so I am in my 21st year in public education and I've had a lot of jobs in public education. It's actually one of my favorite things about our field is all of the opportunities to do different things. Like many of us, I started as a classroom teacher and taught elementary grades, taught fifth, fourth, and first grades in that order.

across two schools before I had the opportunity to work as an instructional specialist where I was writing curriculum and doing some curriculum training for schools at the district level. And then really wanted to take that jump into a more formal leadership role and had the opportunity to serve as an assistant principal and then eventually principal, both at the elementary level in two different districts here in Maryland where I live.

And currently after serving as an elementary principal for almost five years, I saw an opportunity to move over to the business side of the house as a district leader in human resources. And so my current day job is that I serve as the coordinator of recruitment and hiring for the county school system where I live here in Maryland. And we are a large district compared to a lot of other places in the country. have

78 schools and central office that we hire for we support 57,000 students and we have about 9,000 permanent employees and 3,000 temporary employees at any given time and I really was drawn to this position because to me it married my passion for contributing to the longevity and sustainability of our profession as educators and I felt that I could have an impact on the recruitment side of the house.

because as we all know, it is increasingly more and more challenging to recruit people into public education and to make sure that we are taking good care of our people in public education. So I've loved all of those professional opportunities that I had. As you mentioned, I also am an author and published a book in 2024 called Leading with Grace, Cultivating Hope, Authenticity and a Focus on People Throughout the Leadership Lifespan.

Julia Bialeski (03:35.939)

And that book was really born out of the most formative of all of those experiences that I've had, which was the opportunity to serve as an elementary school principal. I have truly loved and appreciated every single job I've had, but the job of elementary principal is and probably always will be my favorite job and the job that's closest to my heart.

And as I said, it was the most formative for me. I was a first year principal during the 2019, 2020 school year. So the experience of finding my voice as a leader during the COVID pandemic when we were reinventing school and everything was turned upside down. At the time it didn't feel like that, but in hindsight, it was such a formative experience for me. And when I left the principalship and transitioned into my current role,

there was this recalibration that took place and a speech I had written to give to my staff on the day I was going to be able to announce to them that I was leaving was really the catalyst for the book because the response I got to that speech made me realize that maybe my stories and my values as a leader and the things that I have to share as I'm exiting this role and transitioning into a new opportunity might be something that I could put to paper and fulfill that lifelong dream.

of writing a book. So, you know, I love leadership. I love every element of leadership, even the challenging parts of it. In the book, I write about my personal and professional mantra, which is be brave and care about people. And I tell the story of how I got to those particular six words in the book. But to me, that really encompasses everything that I believe about leadership. It's not for the faint of heart.

You have to be willing to be brave, to have challenging conversations, to be the one to step up in a difficult situation and help to find solutions, even when everyone may not agree with those solutions, while always remembering that leadership is about people first and that we have to be keeping the people who we serve in education, that's the students, the communities, and of course the staff.

Julia Bialeski (05:51.903)

at the forefront of your mind. So those six words are how I boil down what I believe about leadership. And that idea of graceful leadership in my book really ties in with both the bravery and accountability and high expectations that we have as leaders while never ever losing sight of the fact that ultimately we are in the people business.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (06:13.058)

Yeah, absolutely. So I love that you say it that way. One of the pieces in my keynote, it's actually in my first book, Road to Awesome, that I talk about all the time is we are in the people business. It's one of the unique things about what we do, know, as leaders, and this is true of leaders in all walks of life, but specifically in education. I mean, the product at the end of the day for us as person, it isn't, you know,

Julia Bialeski (06:27.318)

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (06:41.482)

a widget of some kind. not putting tires on cars. We're not, you know, selling products. We are, we're growing people. So I love that you said it that way. I want to loop back to something because I'm certain that there are people who are listening, who are saying, please, Darren, don't let it get away that she's in charge of HR and hiring and recruiting. Please come back to that. So I do want to come back to that. And then I want to loop back and talk more about the book. I want to talk about the leadership.

Julia Bialeski (06:43.436)

That's right.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (07:10.83)

that leadership life cycle and that type of thing. But again, people would be like, come on, man, ask her about HR, ask her if she's fully staffed, right? So many people, and you referred to it, so many schools and districts around the country certainly are faced with challenges in hiring. And it's actually true outside of the education profession as much as it is on the inside.

I'm curious without giving away your best secrets, what might be some things that you're doing maybe a little bit differently over the last few years to recruit, hire, retain staff that maybe weren't being done in your district a handful of years ago?

Julia Bialeski (08:00.727)

Well, you know, it's interesting. I was listening to another one of your episodes and you were talking about, I think, a client that you have that was fully staffed and there was no turnover in their district. And I have to admit, when I heard that, I told you how large our district is with 9,000 employees. I thought, my gosh, that would never happen, right? But we have the same challenges on different scales, depending on the size of the districts in which we might work.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (08:11.938)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (08:28.79)

And so while it may never be a reality in our district to have zero turnover, that's the ideal aspirational state. I love that you talk about recruitment, hiring and retention all in the same breath because they're interrelated. And if we treat them like they're different things, then we're not going to move the needle as far. The first thing I always like to say is that

The best recruitment strategy we have is retention. So investing in taking care of our people, and that is certainly a huge responsibility of human resources, but it is a shared responsibility of every single one of us who work. I will say actually not only who work in a school district, but who live and exist in a school district, right? The community members, whether or not they have children in the school district, there are things we can all do to influence.

the retention within our district, things that we can advocate for at the local level, at the state level, at the federal level to ensure that our educators, our support staff, every single person who works in support of our school districts has what they need. So to get to answer the question that you really asked, which is what are some, what's the secret sauce? I'm not sure. I think if any of us had found the secret sauce, we'd be very, very wealthy.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (09:43.693)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (09:49.091)

a million times over, right? On the consulting cycle, being able to just deliver to somebody, this is exactly what you need to do and you'll be able to do it. I think the truth is never resting on our laurels and always remaining willing to be innovative and to adapt to what the landscape is right now. So I can give you a couple of examples. In prior years, maybe a decade ago in our district,

We are a very high performing district. We have a wonderful reputation in the area. And 10 years ago, recruitment looked very different, right? It was much more of a passive practice where we didn't have to go out and really, you know, show ourselves, like shine ourselves up and show ourselves to woo people to come to us.

It was a different market for educators then when we might have had a long line out the door and not enough positions to be able to take all the wonderful people who wanted to come here. In recent years, just like in other districts all across the country and in the private schools as well and charter schools and all of the different places, we have seen a flip in that. And so we have to think about short term strategies, certainly of how we can get people in positions to be ready for students on the first day of school.

So that's when we're looking at things like in our district, we try to leverage open contracts for staff while we're still in our budget season and preparing to know exactly where all of the vacancies might be at schools when we find great people. That's very strategic because we have to be really careful and fiscally responsible and making sure that we are offering exactly the right number. It's like almost like we need a crystal ball to know exactly what we're gonna need as all of those details are still unfolding.

But we also really need to invest in any type of grow your own programs and longer term recruitment strategies that we can. And in our district, we do that in a variety of ways. We certainly partner with colleges and universities who have programs not just to tap into their graduating seniors, but to get in front of their freshmen and sophomores who maybe haven't even declared a major yet.

Julia Bialeski (11:57.823)

and try to let them know a little bit about education. Like, you really are interested in history? Well, have you looked into what it would take to become a history education major or what the state would require for you to add that certification should you want to pursue that?

at a later time because we know having been around for a long time that it's a lot easier to do that on the front end often than it is for people to come in later and say, I think I'd like to be a teacher and I already have all these degrees under my belt, depending on where you live and what the states require as far as licensure. We even get in front of our middle and high school students. So we have wonderful teacher apprenticeship programs and partnerships with our local community college.

where our enrolled students can also work for us as paid temporary employees, as teacher assistants. And we try to track those students over time and when they get into college so that we can woo them hopefully to come back and join us. And I just wanna lift up, and it's true for every district, it doesn't matter if you have 20 employees or 9,000 employees or 20,000 employees.

We have so many positions that are critical to the operation of the school system and we have to make sure we're thinking holistically about the long-term recruitment strategies because we need IT people, we need custodial people, we need tradesmen to do things like HVAC and we need paraprofessionals.

We need administrators. We really need to think about all of the many positions. We need athletic coaches. So the list can go on and on and on of positions that my team is responsible for hiring for. And we want to ensure that we have a pipeline of people for a long time to come. And listening to our applicants, to our candidates, to our recent hires about what

Julia Bialeski (13:59.649)

what was it that sealed for them coming to us? I I think that information is gold seeking that feedback so that we understand really what this generation of candidates who are coming up need and want and value in an employer. That's really, really important. I think we're gonna get into that a lot later, but that's a key piece is being willing to be open to listen and hopefully.

to see what we can do organizationally to support this next crop of employees coming up. Because what worked 10 years ago is likely not going to retain people or even get people to come in the first place now.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (14:38.947)

Yeah, I think I think a big piece of what you're talking about. There's so much good, so much good stuff in there. But just simply the listening piece, you know, you kind of opened with, you know, saying, hey, it's good that you mentioned, you know, both, you know, recruiting, hiring and retaining all in one breath. And it made me think just a little bit more about, you know, almost, you know, we're almost recruiting our own people when we still have them. And, you know, recruiting them to stay.

a group that one of the the districts that I support, working at the high school yesterday with their large leadership team of about 12 people, just getting to what is their primary focus this year, the number one focus for them is adult connectedness in the building. Yes, they're also focused on on student connectedness. But they really want to focus on adult connectedness for two reasons. One, because we want to model what it is that we want to

are adults to do. So if we're not modeling that, why would they do it in their classrooms? And two, for that very reason that they even though they have a fairly low turnover this year, they want to continue to grow that, hey, you know, we want to be here, we want pride in our school, we want pride in our organization, and we have to have people who feel connected to that. So I appreciate that that you talked about that. Let's let's transition because I really

Julia Bialeski (15:36.567)

Yes.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (16:03.163)

want to get to the book. I appreciate you letting me birdwalk for a couple of minutes on some HR things, but I do want to definitely get to the book. And I want to talk about this concept that you outlined in the book and that you shared a little bit of in your introduction with the leadership lifespan. As I was looking through that, one of the things that just really stood out to me is just thinking through that

Julia Bialeski (16:06.529)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (16:21.836)

Yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (16:31.331)

that cycle. I mean, we all know as leaders, you know, from the time the school year starts to the time the school year ends, I always described it as like flying a plane. No matter how big it is, you still got to get it off the ground and then get it safely back down on the ground. But this is almost more about like that career cycle within a role. So I'd like to have you talk a little bit more about that specific piece. Maybe take us through the leadership lifespan.

Julia Bialeski (16:51.51)

Yes.

Julia Bialeski (17:01.6)

I would love to. So I think that's a great analogy to like flying the plane and you hit it on the head that it is the leadership lifespan is a framework that was really born during that time that I was recalibrating after leaving the principal ship and I was reflecting on the experience that I had and sort of what that arc looked like from the time I entered that particular role to the time I exited it and.

As I was doing that, I realized, you know, this is my first principalship, but I was an assistant principal in two different schools before and for three different principals. And each of those experiences, there were some pretty common, you know, patterns that I noticed that again, when you kind of take a higher bird's eye view of something, you can start to notice those patterns. So it is about the cycle that we experience as leaders and

Every time that we change roles, if it's changing schools, it's taking a promotional opportunity, changing districts. And really, it could even be staying in the same role and you're physically in the same location, but something else about the context of your work has changed, right? So I mentioned working as an assistant principal with two different principals. It was the same school, my desk didn't move.

My parking space was the same parking space, but you better believe those were two very different experiences and anything that you insert into that experiment, right, can really restart the leadership lifespan in many ways. So the common themes and patterns that I noticed are sort of the way that the book is organized around the leadership lifespan. Each one is a chapter. It starts with entering a role. Then there are some common things we're going to do.

Most of us, many of us are going to face imposter syndrome in some form or another. We're going to have to communicate with people in our roles. We're going to have to staff our buildings and deal with all of the things related to staffing, evaluating staff, observing staff, dealing with challenges around that. We're probably going to have to manage a crisis or maybe more at all different levels and scales. Inevitably, we're going to be faced with a time when we are going to be battling burnout.

Julia Bialeski (19:14.752)

While we're in a role, we wanna be sure that we are building a legacy behind us and eventually we're going to exit a role. No matter who we are in a leadership role, we are always temporary and temporary could mean a year or it could mean 15 years, but at some point we are going to transition out of that role. And so while it is really a lifespan that I noticed, I was really thoughtful about the way I presented it because...

it doesn't always happen in that linear order. So I kind of structured the book in that order, but the reality is you may not even get the luxury as a leader of really having to getting to enter a role with a thoughtful entry plan. You might be entering overnight and going right into managing a crisis. And then maybe later you get the gift of coming back to think through an entry plan, but the circumstances are often outside of our control and we can jump around on that life cycle.

you know, many, many times. But I found as I reflected on my formal leadership roles where I had a title and was maybe supervising people all the way back to being a first year teacher, I found I kind of was noticing these common themes that I would go through. And so that's how I structured the book. And each chapter starts with a personal story from my time as a principal to sort of set the context for that stage of the leadership lifespan. And then I share

some research, some action steps and tips that leaders can hopefully apply right away in their role. And then the end of the chapter is reflection questions, workbook style with lines right in the book where people can jot ideas and notes down in the book to really think about how they can apply those lessons or think about the experience that I share that might be very different from their own experiences into wherever they are in their leadership lifespan at this time.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (21:07.565)

Yeah, so let's let's dive in and into a couple very specific pieces at the time that this episode is airing many and I mean many principles will be in their first principleship for the very first time and and maybe they're a couple of weeks in maybe they're right at the very beginning. Both as the the author of this book and then also maybe a little bit as that HR person to

Julia Bialeski (21:21.984)

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (21:35.789)

What are some things that you share with people who are just getting started? What might be a couple pieces of advice, again, from both your HR role and then also from the book specifically on that entering of the role? Let's start with that particular part of that lifespan.

Julia Bialeski (21:46.327)

Mm-hmm.

Julia Bialeski (21:56.643)

So I think my best sort of tip around that and what I found was helpful for me when I was coming into the job of principal in particular is you likely just went through a recruitment process to get the job that you have. You applied for a job, you went through likely multiple rounds of interviews and you really devoted a lot of time to preparing for those interviews. And for me,

in preparing for my interview before I even knew that I was going to be selected for the position, I had thought about what an entry plan would look like. And so really being thoughtful about identifying who are all the people with whom you want to connect when you start in a role and identifying like.

I almost want to say lowering your expectations for yourself because I'm going to take a leap and if you are a new principal, you are a high achieving person, you are a very smart and successful person and you have great aspirations and high expectations for yourself. And my advice is to identify two or three things in those first hundred days of your principalship that are your goals.

because I mean, I know you love to talk about clarity, right? You can be really clear on two or three things that you wanna do, concrete actions. And so I share what my two or three goals were that I came up with when I was starting in my school. A lot of it's very contextual. You know a little bit about the school or the community or maybe a lot that you're coming into. I wanted to make sure that I developed a very strong.

relationship with my assistant principal. We knew one another, but we had never worked together before. So I wanted to invest time and I had one assistant principal, was just the two of us, we were a team. And so being really intentional about developing that relationship over the summer. I wanted to provide an opportunity, an optional opportunity for every single member of the staff. had 115 people on my staff as an elementary principal. We were a large elementary school with two regional programs in our building.

Julia Bialeski (24:06.706)

And I wanted to provide an opportunity for every single person who wanted to, to sit down with me one-on-one. I did this in the summer. I had the gift of starting July 1st and our district, we start about the week before Labor Day. So I had several weeks to do this, but it could look many different ways, even if you are already underway in your new role by the time you're listening to this. set up a pretty simple signup sheet electronically.

I wrote a welcome message to the staff and I invited them to come and sit and have like kind of a coffee chat with me for 15 minutes if they would like to. And I used a Google form to ask them three questions during those initial meetings. Because they were really feedback and learning sessions for me. It wasn't a chance for me to sell myself to them or to tell them what I was all about. It was, what do you love about this school? What are you?

what do you think I need to know about or that you might be open to changing or that you think I need to change? And in your opinion, what is the most impactful thing I can do in my first year as the principal that you think would move the needle here? And those responses were golden. So I used a Google form to capture them all in one place. That's a great system that I had. So I wasn't dealing with, I do like to take notes on paper, but for this, I knew this is something I'm gonna wanna be able to come back to. And at that time,

AI was not on my radar. I'm sure it existed at that time. It was not on my radar though. And now I can think immediately like, what a great opportunity to drop AD responses into AI and ask for summary. I did that part manually and I went through and that is how I set my 100 day sort of plan really around that feedback from staff.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (25:33.657)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (25:53.453)

So that's a huge piece of advice that I have about entering a role is to be really thoughtful and intentional. Use the information you've already gleaned and the thinking and preparation you already did to get to the job, to apply that to your entry plan. And then we talked already about listening. It's probably gonna come up several other times in our conversation. Get in front of as many people as are willing to sit with you and just listen. And the rest really...

kind of maps itself out. If you make yourself available to listen and you take good notes, mean, those notes were invaluable to me, not just in that first year, but in all of the five years that I was there. And I actually share a copy of the form that I used right in the book so people can take that and modify it if they want to use it themselves.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (26:47.524)

Yeah, I love that. So I want to get to one more thing before before we get to the last question I asked everybody our time is flying by but I don't want to let this one get away. You talked in there several times about systems. And I know you are very much a strategic and systematic thinker. I think when we originally came in with this plan, we were going to talk about being strategic and systematic with well being. But I think I want to stay on the new principle.

Julia Bialeski (26:54.572)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (27:01.281)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (27:13.248)

Yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (27:17.104)

piece here. And let's talk about because I'll say this and again, regular listeners, watchers of the show know my first two years train wreck, not a system stinker had to learn that.

Julia Bialeski (27:17.867)

I would love it. Yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (27:33.777)

What advice would you have and not 1000 systems or that type of thing, but talk a little bit more about being that that strategic thinker, you've already kind of outlined that a little bit even just with that how you developed your entry plan. But again, newer, newer administrators new to their roles, what are some things they can do to be a little bit more strategic and to be a little bit more systems focused?

Julia Bialeski (27:40.193)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (28:01.814)

Yeah, so I think I'm gonna marry the two things together. I'm gonna answer your question and I'm gonna try to marry together the wellbeing piece because I can't separate it out from this conversation. That is my passion. And I wanna lift up a couple things you said, Darren, that I think are really important to acknowledge, especially in the context of we are early in a school year and we have a lot of new leaders who are listening to this.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (28:05.04)

Perfect.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (28:10.042)

great. There we go bonus work here folks bonus work I love it

Julia Bialeski (28:25.854)

everything I am saying, I would not have said to you in my first year as a principal. I was in survival mode, right? You mentioned the first year. So hindsight is a wonderful, lovely thing. and, but I think we're doing a disservice to everybody if we're not being honest and open about the fact that I am able to share these reflections because I spent a lot of time thinking through it. I learned a lot in those five years that I was a principal and continue to learn in a different leadership role that's completely different at the district level.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (28:34.522)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (28:55.21)

And then I wrote a whole book about it and had a whole lot of time to think about it and really think about how I wanted to say it. like, we want to be honest about where people are and that that's completely normal and that there is no expectation that you go in from the get go. In fact, I guess my first piece of advice would be let go of feeling like whatever plan you've come up with is what's going to happen because that doesn't leave space for, it doesn't leave space for the listening.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (28:58.938)

Yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (29:20.368)

That's totally true.

Julia Bialeski (29:25.162)

I mean, if you go in and you're listening to people, but you have a plan of what you're going to enact, what your vision is for the school and you've been there for five minutes, we both know that that's probably not going to land very well. And so that whole idea that we talk about go slow to go fast, it's a real thing. My best advice is to spend that first year.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (29:36.877)

Yeah, right.

Julia Bialeski (29:46.463)

immersing yourself in the school community. Get to know every single angle of what's happening. And how do you do that? You do that by listening to people. You do that by authentically being present in the spaces where people are present. You do it by being in the cafeteria. In elementary school, you do it by being out on the field at recess. Or in high school, you do it by being after, you know, at football practice after school and at the games on the weekends. You do it by being connected to the other

community organizations that are supporting your building by listening to parents, by getting to know people on a personal level. And you spend that time, that is an invaluable investment of your time because you are just paying deposits into the bank every single moment that you are present, every single conversation that you have about what someone did over the weekend. You are just paying deposits and you don't know when you're going to need to withdraw on those deposits, but one day you probably are.

Right? We talked at the beginning about you need to be brave and willing to have challenging conversations or navigate some really nuanced, tricky situations that don't have a clear answer. And when you've paid those deposits, will follow you even if they don't agree with the ultimate decision. So that piece, investing that time and being willing to let go of any expectations that you've artificially put on yourself.

Now, let's be real, there might be directives that are coming your way and there are going to be emergencies that come and there are going to be literal and figurative fires that need to be put out and that's going to happen.

and respond to those when you need to, but your overall goal really should be to focus on relationships and getting to know the context of where you are, because that will give you clarity later. And then the second piece that comes to mind is being aware from the day you pull into that parking lot in that job that every single thing you say and every single action you take has influence over others, whether you're aware of it or not.

Julia Bialeski (31:57.877)

And so if you try to be conscious of that from the very first day, you are communicating every second of every day, whether you're alone in a room, it doesn't matter. You are communicating to those around you. And this is where I'm gonna tie it into the wellbeing piece. From a retention standpoint, a turnover standpoint, supporting the people who support our students standpoint and maintaining your own longevity as a leader.

being attuned to well-being is really important, and thinking about what you are modeling for other people, it speaks volumes. And so if you are never taking a day off of work, people notice, even if they don't say anything. If you are responding to emails on the weekends, that's your choice, but I highly encourage you to leverage the schedule send feature that pretty much every email platform has, because even if you're

I've seen sometimes people's email signatures say, you know, I work when that works for me and don't need to respond. Not everyone's going to react to that when it's their boss who's sending them the email. And that's a very powerful tool for your own well-being as a leader. When it comes to community, you may have thousands of people in your community between students and parents and other family members and community members who you're supporting. And if you

don't set that boundary from the beginning about when you are available, when you are reachable, and when you will respond to communication. If you don't set the boundary, you're teaching them that you will be available to them all the time. And it's really, really hard to pull that back. So that would be my other sort of tip or piece of advice that I wish, you know, it's a lot harder to pull it back later when you're teetering on the edge of burnout and you have to put some things in place that can be really uncomfortable for others around you. And it can be really uncomfortable for you. So

don't do what I did and start out that way. And it will lead to better outcomes for your own wellbeing, but more importantly, from a leadership standpoint, it models and empowers others to show them that it's okay for them to do it too.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (34:05.329)

100 % the advice that I needed when I started as the building principal. Everything you just talked about is everything that I didn't do. Didn't take care of myself, worked myself till I was sick, but the whole bit, right? So excellent, excellent advice there, Julia, for not only for brand new administrators, but folks, if you're starting up a new school year, take that advice for yourself as well.

Julia Bialeski (34:10.273)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (34:16.034)

Yeah.

Julia Bialeski (34:22.23)

Yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (34:34.533)

There's nothing wrong with saying, Hey, you know what, this is the year that maybe, maybe I am going to be a little bit more systems focused. Maybe this is the year I am going to do a little bit more to take care of myself. And maybe this is the year that I might just take a Thursday off once in the, in the course of the school year, something like that folks. So, excellent, excellent stuff. and man, love this conversation. I knew this was going to be a great one. So

Julia Bialeski (34:56.929)

Yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (35:03.599)

Let's do this. We're at that point in the show where I'll ask you the same question. Ask everybody here on the show. This is the leaning into leadership podcast. So Julia, tell me, tell me some things you're doing to lean into leadership.

Julia Bialeski (35:16.396)

Well, I listened to the show, so I was prepared for this question and I have a really specific example to share. We've talked a lot about listening and as I...

had been reflecting, one of the things that I do just for joy on the side is I write a newsletter, a free newsletter for leaders, educators called the strategic serenity newsletter. And every week I delve into some kind of topic either about personal wellbeing, organizational wellbeing, leadership, it kind of like feeds that need in me to still be a teacher that I don't get to do as much in my day job. And I was writing a draft newsletter about emotional intelligence and about how to strengthen

strengthen our self-awareness. And one of the tips I was giving in the newsletter was about engaging in 360 degree feedback. So reflecting yourself, but also soliciting feedback from those around you. And I realized it's been a couple of years since I've done this myself. And if I'm going to preach it, I probably need to practice it. You know, I did it when I was a principal and it's been a couple of years since I've done that. And so what I am doing to lean into leadership right now is as we speak.

I have a survey out there that I sent out this week to 35 people who work with me, direct reports, my peers, supervisors, senior leadership in the organization and colleagues in other divisions who I engage with regularly in my work, specifically asking them to give me feedback on my self-awareness.

Because in writing the newsletter, the research tells us 95 % of people say they're self-aware, but only 10 to 15 % of people actually are self-aware. So chances are, if I think I am, maybe I'm not. And I'm not going to know unless I do that very terrifying, scary thing and put myself out there and say, give me some anonymous feedback. So I developed a survey and I sent it out.

Julia Bialeski (37:09.986)

I'm going to share a copy of the survey in my newsletter. I'd be happy to share it when I talk about how to get in touch with me. If anybody would like that to see, you know, that might be something I would like to do. Again, there's that bravery. If I'm asking other people to receive feedback, I need to be willing to receive it as well. So literally as we speak, the responses are coming in and

Darren, it's gold. Like whatever people write, it's gold. If it's complimentary, of course that's gold. That lifts me up. That makes me feel great. If it's feedback of things that might be blind spots for me, how else would I have gotten the opportunity to know that this is something that I might need to work on? I am a person who values growth. And so that's, that is what I'm doing. And we know leadership is modeling and influence and I'm hoping that I am modeling for others around me.

that feedback is a two-way street and that this is something that good leaders do. And I really can't wait to receive the responses and get to dig into them a little bit and see how other people see me in a positive way that I might not have recognized in myself, but also what some opportunities are that I have to work

Dr. Darrin Peppard (38:22.826)

I think that's fantastic as a great example. certainly something that one, you're modeling very much the importance of feedback, you're modeling being vulnerable, and you're really sharing with with folks, hey, I want to continue to grow and continue to improve as a leader. So I certainly applaud you for that. People are going to want to get in touch with you, they're going to, you know, get some information from you or

join your newsletter? What are some ways that they can get in touch?

Julia Bialeski (38:53.398)

Yeah. Yeah. So I have a website, Julia by Lesky.com. I'm sure it will be linked in the show notes. I am very active on both LinkedIn and Instagram and would love to connect with people there. On my website, I have a link to subscribe to that free newsletter. send it out every Sunday. And I would love if anybody is interested if you are

someone who either just loves talking about leadership, wellbeing, organizational things that we can do to support people's wellbeing like me, or if that just piques your interest and you think, you know, I'd like to learn a little bit more about that, there's a link on my website and I think the link will be in the show notes for that as well. So this has been really great. We could have talked all afternoon and evening, yeah.

Dr. Darrin Peppard (39:37.17)

Oh yeah, yeah, we could just keep going. Yeah, without questions. So this was really wonderful, Julia. I really appreciate you joining me here on Leaning Into Leadership.

Julia Bialeski (39:46.284)

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Alright, folks, again, I can't thank Julia enough for being on the show. That was such a great conversation. And I know you took away a ton of value from that. So all of her stuff is down in the show notes, including a link to her book, Leading with Grace, make sure you check it out. And now it's time for a pep talk.

So all of you who have gone back to school this month, here in the month of August, I want to say, man, I'm excited for you. I want to tell you that I am certain that you have started the year with a great deal of momentum and you want to do everything you can to capitalize on that. So today in the pep talk, I want to talk about that. In fact, if you haven't already listened, go back to episode 229. Yeah, it was just a couple of days ago, dropped on Wednesday.

Darrin Peppard (02:24.45)

Go check that out because I share five things that you can do to not only enjoy that momentum, but to ride that wave through the entire school year. And today I want to talk about just one of them in particular. And it's the third of the five that I share, both in that episode and in my Friday blog post. Number three for me, third way that you can ride that momentum wave is to keep the main thing the main thing.

Now if you've listened to all of the episodes, you've heard me talk at least once or twice about Gary Keller's incredible book, The One Thing. And Gary says in that book, what is the one thing that I can do such that by doing it makes everything else either easier or unnecessary? That one thing is the thing that you want to hang on to. It's those one or two really crucial important goals that you want to make sure they are impossible to forget.

So what does that mean? It means talk about them in every single staff meeting. Talk about them in every single administrative meeting. Make sure that you are revisiting them regularly on all of your different check-ins. And then also make sure that you're using them as a guide to your decision making. I used to love to say, will this whatever was coming forward idea, thought process,

change of direction. Will this bring us closer to our goal or will it take us further away? And if the answer was it'll take us further away, then let's not do it. Let's stay focused on the main thing. Resist that temptation to pile on new initiatives in the mid-year just because they're exciting. Remember, the surest way to lose focus is to try and focus on everything. So keep the main thing the main thing.

Hey, that's what I've got for you this week, folks. Thank you so much for listening to the Leaning Into Leadership podcast. Get out there, have a road to awesome week.