one climbs to new levels of leadership.)
Doers do not delegate well, if at all. They tend to take on the work of others at the expense of doing their own work (which they are likely the only person in the organization qualified or tasked to do). They send the inadvertent message to their teams that they do not trust them to do their own work. Their teams become increasingly dependent on the doer to solve their problems for them. Doer leaders take on more and more while their teams do less. They become overwhelmed, drop balls more and more frequently, and communicate reactively. Doers lose credibility and sink into chronic stress, while their teams become less empowered and less effective over time.
The Imposter
While all seven of these self‐limiting mindsets are very personal in nature, this one—commonly called imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon—is anchored most deeply in self (Mount and Tardanico 2014; Mount 2015).7 Leaders struggling with imposter syndrome believe that they aren't really qualified for their job, that others believe this too, and that sooner or later they will be confronted about this ugly truth by the people they lead. In challenging moments, imposter syndrome sends leaders into their head, causing disconnection, indecisiveness, and avoidance of difficult decisions or actions in the moment. It leads to the very loss of credibility that the leader fears.
The imposter syndrome may be the deeper mindset at work when one or more of the other mindsets on this list shows up in practice. When combined with any of the others, the impact on leader behavior is multiplied.
The Implementer
Implementers believe that the leader's primary job is to execute on the best practices they are given by others. The implementer should not be confused with the doer, who is driven by the desire to be the performer. Implementer believes that the results will be better, and the process will be more efficient if they fully follow the school leadership playbook that they are given by their manager or their organization.
Our sector has done a lot of great work on building efficient systems in schools. We have gotten smarter about how to pool our resources to build better and better curriculum, and then to share it efficiently and widely, resulting in a significant, positive impact on student achievement. We have increasingly valued the implementer competency in our selection of leaders. And implementers are not wrong about the importance of being able to replicate great practices! Where they go wrong is in the degree to which they try to replicate.
When implementers lead from someone else's playbook without connecting to their values, they may inadvertently lose touch with their own visions. Implementers tend to lead from a persona that is not authentic to who they are and to what they believe. They are less likely to truly connect with others, particularly when confronted by adaptive leadership challenges that require authentic influence and inspiration to be able to solve.
Why These Mindsets Matter
These self‐limiting mindsets have a deep impact on the leaders whose behaviors are governed by them. These obstacles lead to constant overwork and significant emotional turmoil that has become known as chronic stress or power stress. In their book Becoming a Resonant Leader, Boyatzis and McKee refer to the cycle of constant stress as the sacrifice syndrome, which ultimately leads to burnout and diminished effectiveness (Boyatzis and McKee 2005).8 Leaders who can't find their way through these obstacles suffer. They do not live the lives that they imagined for themselves. Further, they will not realize their potential for growth as leaders and human beings, and they know it. While all of this is terrible for the leaders themselves, the negative impact of their self‐limiting mindsets on the people they lead, and their educational outcomes, is much greater. This is because teaching and learning are emotional work, and emotions are contagious.
School Leadership Is Primarily Emotional Work …
In our focus on educational outcomes, we often lose sight of the fact that learning and teaching are fundamentally emotional work. People need to feel emotionally safe to learn. There have been multiple studies showing that emotional connection is a condition for learning:
A concept from graduate school that has stayed with me is Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development theory. The idea here is that, for people to learn new skills, a trusted “knowledgeable other” must guide and encourage them as a first step (Penguin Dictionary of Psychology 2009).9
Research on memory has made it very clear that what makes its way into long‐term memory is almost always associated with a strong emotion (Bloom 1956).10
Bloom's Taxonomy identifies the affective domain—marked by feeling tone, emotional acceptance, or rejection—as one of three domains for learning. The affective domain is the gateway to learning. If the emotional gates aren't open, learning can't get in. Research on memory makes sense when considering the affective domain. What makes its way into long‐term memory is almost always associated with a strong emotion (Conway, Anderson, and Larsen 1994).11
Goleman writes that how the brain’s reaction to emotional stimuli shows that negative emotions shut down cognitive function while positive ones both reinforce existing synapse connections and create new neural pathways (Karen 1998).12
Attachment research shows that connection and trust is a prerequisite to learning for people who have experienced trauma, and that this connection does not come easily (Boyatzis in Coursera).13
Meeting a human being's needs for connection is a prerequisite to their being able to learn from their teacher. Once a teacher has met their student's need for connection, the work of learning can begin. The second core ingredient then comes into play: challenge. The education sector is much more fluent in the challenge component of learning. Academic rigor is the focus du jour, and as a sector we are making headway on the “what” of academic skills. However, effective challenge in teaching and learning is both a “what” and a “how” endeavor. Effective challenge stimulates intrinsic motivation and energizes a learner to strive to meet their full potential. This is a largely human, emotional endeavor that is inextricably linked to the connection between teacher and student.
This book is grounded in the belief that a school leader's job is to create the conditions for the people in their schools to reach their full potential. The two conditions leaders must create for each individual are connection and challenge. These conditions are emotional conditions. They are necessary for both students and teachers alike because emotions are contagious. If the connection and challenge needs of teachers are not being met, then the teachers will not be able to create the right conditions for students.
… And Emotions Are Contagious
The biggest challenge and opportunity of creating the right conditions for people to learn is that emotions are contagious. Significant and astonishing brain research has proven this to be true. We have what scientists call mirror neurons that react to the emotions of those around us. These neurons dance with each other in our separate heads and hearts. The same research shows that the emotions of the person with the most power in a room are significantly
