How to develop your teachers while holding them accountable and having a life of your own

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There is this misconception out there - that you can’t hold people accountable and help them grow, while maintaining collegial rapport and earning their genuine respect. Most leaders think that holding people accountable automatically means having to be the bad guy. Because deadlines are scary, letting people know they missed the deadline is mean, and the follow up just to get your direct reports to comply is just straight up exhausting. 
 
Or there’s the other way: Maintain the culture of niceness. Get them to like you, or at least act as if they do. Let things slide or look the other way when your direct reports are not doing what you asked them to because you don’t want to ‘hurt the relationship’. You pick up the slack, leave school a little later, have a little less time with your kids, but it’s okay because…. I’m not sure why. 
 
I hear you. I know that the mere thought of telling people to do things that you know they don’t want to do makes you want to hide, go on about what’s not in job description, or even retire early.  
 
And it doesn’t have to be that way. You can have it all – develop your teachers, hold them accountable, and have a life. You can have it all while even building the relationship. I promise. I know because I’ve done it myself. 
 
When I coached a group of 12 novice teachers, in an anonymous evaluation of my ability to supervise, coach, and lead them in professional development, 100% of them rated me as Excellent. Each and every single one. Even this one teacher who I thought didn’t like getting feedback from women – he rated me as excellent, no lie. (Okay I was surprised by that one too!) 
 
I was not ‘nice’. I said things that put them in their feelings. I didn’t even respond to their emails after 6pm or give every single lesson plan ever submitted detailed feedback. The weight of the day or the week didn’t haunt me in my free time and I was able to enjoy evenings and weekends with my wife (then girlfriend). And yet their classroom management, instructional practices and curriculum planning improved. For each and every single one of them. And they all felt supported along the way.
 
How did I do it? 
 
BOUNDARIES. Make them transparent, make them a two-way street, and implement them from the (fresh) start. For my novice teachers, I did this by telling them, on the first day that I met them, that I will respond to their emails Monday-Friday from 7am-8am and Monday-Thursday from 5pm-6pm (my NYC subway commute). By doing this, I taught my novice teachers how to treat me and what to expect from me. I taught them that they won’t have access to me 24/7, but they definitely will have access to me via email during those 1-2 hours a day. They did not sulk in disappointment or fall apart because I did not answer their emails during my lunch break or after 6:01pm. Since they knew when the ball was in their court, they had the information they needed to plan their communication and anticipate a predictable, timely response. Which means that I no longer became the barrier to their access of information… that responsibility was put on them. That’s how I got peace of mind, stopped checking my work emails, started enjoying (not escaping into) Netflix and wine at the end of long day. 
 
TELL THE TRUTH. About them and about yourself. Start with the truth about yourself. Tell them why you are here. Your real reason. And let them know that everything you do will stem from that. I told my teachers that I am here to create access to grade-level content for Black children and the most direct path to getting there was to intentionally build their instructional practices. This declaration made me courageous in the conviction to say and do things that allowed me to act in integrity with this belief. And by telling the truth about who I am and what I stood for, it made those inevitable ‘difficult’ conversations so much easier to start. For example, that teacher who I thought didn’t like feedback from women had classroom management skills that met and exceeded the program’s expectations. But his lesson planning and instruction were not there. And after a several observations and lesson planning feedback cycles, it was evident that he just wasn’t trying, probably because he knew he didn’t need to (like many teachers of color that are overlooked when it comes to being developed because they have “good management” and will be fine). 
 
So, for one coaching conversation, I scrapped my usual agenda and shared with him the impact of his actions, while contextualizing it in the power of his potential. That (sermon) conversation went a little like this: 
 
You have the classroom management skills to pass this program. And that will be good enough for this institution. However, as one of two male teachers of color in our cohort, it is a disservice to the youth of color in front of you to deny them of an opportunity to deeply think and engage in an intellectual way with an adult who looks like them and comes from where they are from. In education, Black and Brown educators are systemically pushed into leadership for culture and classroom management and instructional leadership is systemically reserved for white educators. What does that tell us, what does that tell our kids about who is smart enough to learn from and who is the keeper of knowledge in this world? You have an opportunity to disrupt that with the youth sitting in front of you and the only thing that is getting in the way of that right now is you. I believe in your capacity for instructional greatness and want to empower you with the foundation that will bring this into fruition for you. However, I can’t give you feedback that develops your skills and your students won’t have that opportunity to be intellectual with a male teacher of color until you step it up and do X, Y, Z in your lesson plans. What do you need from me to feel supported and do X, Y, Z? 
 
So yes, I went in. 
 
And yes, his brow was sweating by the end of the conversation. 
 
But oh my goodness. That was one of the fastest transformations and learning curves I have ever seen in my life. 

• His lesson plans: On time – check!
• His planning: Including strategies from PD – check! 
• My feedback: Now focused on his actual zone of proximal development, so it can transform instructional practice: finally, check!

 
Not only that. At the end of the program, he thanked me! This teacher said thank you for having that real talk with me, that no one has ever called him out like that before. 
 
The truth didn’t break him. The truth did not disrespect him. The truth, with respect, compassion and fidelity to the why – access for Black children – empowered him with the information he needed to get out of his own way step into his own power and potential. 
 
Like they say, the truth (with respect, compassion and fidelity to the why) will set you free. 
 
TEACH THEM TO SEE. Use evidence, not judgements, to teach teachers how to see what you see. When they see differently, they will do differently. If your teachers do what you asked them to do once, maybe a couple of times, then they revert back, then your teachers did not have the opportunity to develop an understanding of what happened. If your teachers respond defensively, then you did not share what you saw. You shared your judgements. 
 
With my teachers, I grounded our coaching conversations in an evidence-based question that allowed them to zoom in on a specific moment, reflect and think deeply about what their kids were saying and doing. This prompt led to aha! moments that allowed my teachers to make connections between the evidence of student learning we had in front of us and the instructional decisions they were making. As a result, what my teachers wanted to work on and what I determined to be a high-leverage focus area were regularly aligned. So by the time we began to discuss strategies for improvement, not only were they receptive, they were eager to try them. My teachers didn’t just blindly trust me, and we didn’t just have a great relationship. I created an opportunity for my teachers to see differently by sharing low-inference evidence of student action and asking them to reflect on it.
 
So how are you going to develop your teachers while holding them accountable and having a life of your own? 
 
What boundaries will you teach and uphold with the people that you supervise? How will you be transparent and share the information they need to prepare for when they won’t have access to you?HINT: No one has access to you all the time, even if you try to be available all the time. You can choose to stay stressed, tell yourself you are “less than” for not always being available, and project this anxiety to the people you love in your life (I’ve been guilty of this too). Or you can choose peace of mind, communicate what your ethical due diligence looks like, and enjoy your dayum weekend. 
 
What truth are you hiding from the people that you are responsible for developing? How can you share that truth in a way that communicates respect, compassion and fidelity to your (shared) ultimate purpose? 
 
What evidence-based questions are you going to ask your teachers that invite them to reflect on the relationship between what kids are doing and the instructional decisions they are making? 
 
Share the boundaries that you are considering, the truths you need to share, and the evidence-based questions you need to ask in the comments below, or on social media and tag Equitable Outcomes on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter with your how.