Word: Routine

Sentence:

Our routines show what matters to us because they are the things we keep coming back to.

Passage:

I think we give leadership too much credit for the big moments.

We remember the speeches, the difficult decisions, the moments when someone stepped up and changed the direction of a team or an organization. Those things matter. But when I think back on the cultures I was a part of building, most of it did not happen in one defining moment.

It happened over and over again.

When I started my listening tour as a school leader, I was paying attention to what people said about the work, but I was also listening for what they could count on. What happened regularly? What felt unpredictable? What structures helped people do their jobs, and which ones seemed to make the work harder?

I began to realize that routines were already sending messages, whether we intended them to or not.

If we said collaboration mattered, people needed regular time to collaborate. If we said teachers needed support, then being in classrooms could not happen only when something went wrong. If we said students belonged, they needed to experience that sense of belonging more than once at an assembly or special event.

The routine had to match the thing we said we valued.

That did not mean every day was predictable. Schools are probably one of the worst places to expect that. Something can happen before first period that changes the entire day. A student needs you. A parent walks in. A staff member is struggling. A crisis happens. The plan you made that morning can disappear before lunch.

But that was also why the routines mattered.

They gave us something to return to.

I remember feeling this in a completely different way when I was a teacher during the summer. The first couple of weeks were great. I could sleep a little later, move slower, and enjoy not having a bell telling me where I needed to be. But eventually, I would start missing the rhythm of school.

I missed seeing the same people. I missed having somewhere to go. I missed knowing what the day was asking of me.

At some point, I realized that even the routines I complained about during the school year had given my life a certain rhythm.

I think that is true for most of us. We build routines around work, family, exercise, friendships, mornings, evenings, and all the little things that make up a life. Some of them we chose. Some just happened over time. And some probably need to be changed.

But if we pay attention, our routines tell us a lot.

We can say family matters, but our calendar may tell a different story. We can say our health matters, but never make room for it. We can say people are our priority, but spend most of our time behind a screen or behind a closed door.

That is the thing about routine. Eventually, what we repeat starts to become what people expect from us and what we expect from ourselves.

For me, creating more consistency in the school was not about making everything rigid. It was about giving people a few things they could depend on when everything else felt uncertain. Over time, those routines created space for relationships to grow, teams to get stronger, and people to focus less on what might change tomorrow and more on the work in front of them today.

Maybe that is part of what culture really is.

Not only the moments that inspire us, but the things we do often enough that people begin to trust they will still be there tomorrow.

Your Turn:

What does your routine say about what matters most to you?

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