The Match: Attention
Let’s light this week’s Match!
Each Week: One Word. One Sentence. One Passage.
Word: Attention
Sentence:
What you pay attention to grows.
Passage:
Schools are full of noise: test scores, district demands, a thousand little fires. If you’re not careful, your attention gets pulled toward the urgent but not important. And when that happens, what matters most (kids, teachers, relationships) slips to the edges.
In my first two years as principal, we chose to focus on attendance, and not on the kids who weren’t coming, but on the kids who were. That shift in attention mattered. Our daily attendance rose from 80 percent to 90 percent.
Attention is a choice. If you only focus on problems, you miss progress. If you only notice mistakes, you miss growth. But when you give your attention to the right things, those things get stronger.
As a leader, you can’t control everything. But you can control where you place your attention. And that choice shapes the culture around you.
Your Turn:
Think back on your last week: what did you give your best attention to, and what might have grown stronger if you had noticed it more?
Tell me how this shows up in your leadership—I’m here for the conversation.
8 Comments
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8 Comments
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on August 22, 2025 at 11:35 am
Attention: I intentionally focus on (pay attention to) building positive relationships. As a central office employee, others think you are unapproachable or untouchable but I make an effort to prove them and that perception wrong. This strengthens our relationship and they become an advocate when they feel your heart is in the right place.
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on August 22, 2025 at 5:11 pm
I love it! You hear all that time that relationship matter but the work stretches us so thin and leaves so little time for such intentional relationship building. On top of this, so many people have experienced leadership that was unfocused and not human centered. This means we have to work extra hard to build relationships to counter the negative narrative that was established long before we might have even met the person we are in front of and work for or with now.
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on August 23, 2025 at 8:58 am
For the first week of school, attention manifested through sound systems of monitoring. Not the content of the feedback itself, just the deliberate precise areas in which our attention landed.
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Love this. You’re right. It’s not just feedback, but the precision of where we choose to focus it. That choice signals what matters most!
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on August 24, 2025 at 9:44 pm
My attention has been solely focused on supporting school leaders with barriers and roadblocks they have encountered leading to frustration. Because of my focus, I have been able to identify areas that can be improved to make processes less confusing and build coherence to better serve our schools.
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Love how you framed this—attention not just as noticing, but as noticing with purpose. When we give sustained focus to the right challenges, clarity and coherence grow.
I’m curious—what’s one barrier you’ve helped remove recently or in the past that’s had the biggest ripple effect for leaders?
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on August 24, 2025 at 10:15 pm
Last week, I gave my best attention to promoting a welcoming culture, setting clear expectations, collaborative discourse about effective instruction, and parent engagement. Setting a strong foundation in these areas at the start of the year help me ‘keep the main thing the main thing’ throughout the year.
Community connections might have grown stronger if I invested energy towards making partnerships more visible.
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Hi Principal Banks,
This is the essence of attention—naming what matters most and giving it focus. What we give our best attention to grows, and I appreciate how you’re also noticing where you might shift it next.
Keeping the main thing the main thing is no small task. What strategies do you use to keep those priorities centered once the year gets hectic?”
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Attention: I intentionally focus on (pay attention to) building positive relationships. As a central office employee, others think you are unapproachable or untouchable but I make an effort to prove them and that perception wrong. This strengthens our relationship and they become an advocate when they feel your heart is in the right place.
I love it! You hear all that time that relationship matter but the work stretches us so thin and leaves so little time for such intentional relationship building. On top of this, so many people have experienced leadership that was unfocused and not human centered. This means we have to work extra hard to build relationships to counter the negative narrative that was established long before we might have even met the person we are in front of and work for or with now.
For the first week of school, attention manifested through sound systems of monitoring. Not the content of the feedback itself, just the deliberate precise areas in which our attention landed.
Love this. You’re right. It’s not just feedback, but the precision of where we choose to focus it. That choice signals what matters most!
My attention has been solely focused on supporting school leaders with barriers and roadblocks they have encountered leading to frustration. Because of my focus, I have been able to identify areas that can be improved to make processes less confusing and build coherence to better serve our schools.
Love how you framed this—attention not just as noticing, but as noticing with purpose. When we give sustained focus to the right challenges, clarity and coherence grow.
I’m curious—what’s one barrier you’ve helped remove recently or in the past that’s had the biggest ripple effect for leaders?
Last week, I gave my best attention to promoting a welcoming culture, setting clear expectations, collaborative discourse about effective instruction, and parent engagement. Setting a strong foundation in these areas at the start of the year help me ‘keep the main thing the main thing’ throughout the year.
Community connections might have grown stronger if I invested energy towards making partnerships more visible.
Hi Principal Banks,
This is the essence of attention—naming what matters most and giving it focus. What we give our best attention to grows, and I appreciate how you’re also noticing where you might shift it next.
Keeping the main thing the main thing is no small task. What strategies do you use to keep those priorities centered once the year gets hectic?”