Word: Connection Sentence: Connection begins when we look past what is different and stay long enough to discover what is shared. Passage: Connection often comes easiest when we can see ourselves in someone else. When the story feels familiar, the bridge is already there. I feel that with other principals all the time. There is an…

Word: Momentum Sentence: Momentum starts when the vision becomes shared and belief starts to spread. Passage: By year five, I could feel something changing at the school. What once felt heavy started to feel lighter. What once took constant pushing began to move with more ease. The vision was no longer just mine. It had become…

Word: Forward Sentence: Sometimes the thing that moves us forward is not success, but what failure shows us. Passage: In my third year as principal, Mayor Rahm Emanuel asked us to take part in XQ, a national high school redesign challenge backed by Laurene Powell Jobs. We would be the only Chicago school to submit a…

Word: Values Sentence: Values are what people carry with them after being with us. Passage: Recently, I ran into three former students, and each time I walked away with the same feeling. Pride. The quiet kind.The kind that sneaks up on you.The kind that stays with you longer than the conversation. At the school I led,…

Word: Enough Sentence: Enough is learning to trust your worth, honor your effort, and recognize when no more is required. Passage: I spent years asking if I was enough and if I had done enough. Only later did I realize I may have been measuring enough by the wrong things. After giving myself to my school…

Word: Ownership Sentence: Ownership is the courage to say, “This part is mine.” Passage: Ownership sounds simple. In practice, it rarely is. It is hard to say, I messed that up.But it is also surprisingly hard to say, I did that well. Both require a kind of vulnerability. One risks judgment. The other risks sounding like…

Word: Progress Sentence: What used to knock you down can become the very place where progress takes root. Passage: Progress is hard to see in ourselves. We can be our own worst critic. One setback, one hard conversation, one project that falls short, and suddenly it feels like all the work we have done no longer…

Word: Rhythm Sentence: Rhythm is knowing when to push, when to pause, and when to let time do its work. Passage: After leaving the principal role and moving into district leadership, I noticed something I did not have language for at the time. The rhythm of a leader. As a principal, I was a bit like…

Word: Humor Sentence: Humor keeps connection alive when the work gets heavy. Passage: When schools, organizations or companies are under pressure, humor is usually the first thing to disappear. Everything gets serious. Performance meetings. Discipline. Turnaround plans. Adults start bracing before conversations even begin. My first year at Harper High School, I worked alongside another assistant…

Word: Agency Sentence: Agency is when people feel the power to shape what happens next. Passage: When I became a principal for the first time, I knew my ultimate goal was never to run the school. It was to give it back to its community. There were four principals in four years. When a school lives…