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 in crisis mode for too long, it starts to believe the script is already written. Adults decide. Students comply. Families find out after. Everyone adjusts to the pain like it’s normal. 

Leadership has to break that cycle.

For me, the sequence was simple. Restore stability through safety. Activate the voice of students, staff, and families. Then take the next step that most leaders skip: give people real agency. Not just a chance to speak, but the power to shape a decision and see it live in the world.

I first learned the difference between voice and agency at Harper High School when I was the assistant principal of student development.

Our student voice committee asked to meet with the police commander. Not to complain. Not to perform. They came with receipts. They mapped the patrol patterns of the police cars throughout the neighborhood. They showed where the cars were, where they were not, and what times mattered most. Then they proposed a new plan.

Before that meeting, we had already lost a half dozen students to gun violence. After that meeting, we almost went a full year without losing a student.

Think about what that means. Teenagers, in the middle of grief, using data and lived experience to redesign safety in their own neighborhood.

That was not because we got lucky.

It was because the people closest to the problem were finally trusted to be part of the solution.

I carried that lesson with me. Later, at Sullivan as the principal, I put $10,000 of discretionary money in students’ hands and used a participatory budgeting model to decide how it would be spent. They had to pitch their ideas, make the case, and vote. Same principle, different setting: voice becomes ownership when power is real.

Leadership can make it feel like everything is on you.

Sometimes that is not pressure, it is a habit.

A habit of holding the decision. Holding the mic. Holding the control.

Agency requires a different kind of strength.

The strength to share power on purpose.

The leader’s job is to make it safe to tell the truth and safe to take a risk. Then actually let people decide.

Because if the power never moves, agency never grows.

Your Turn:

Where have you been asking for input, but still holding the decision too tight?

In February, every comment on a Match blog post—past or present—will serve as an entry to win a custom The Match hoodie!

That’s right, you will receive an entry for the raffle for every comment you make this month. The winner will be announced on Thursday, March 5th. I can’t wait to hear your comments and reflections.