Dr. Sue Alborn-Yilek
Assistant Professor/Coordinator of the Principal Preparation Program
“I don’t know if I want to be a principal” my aspiring principal student said after having interviewed her principal and superintendent to gain their perspectives on the role and responsibilities of the principal.
An image of another young teacher filled my mind. She had been a successful English teacher -- mother of two itty-bitty babes and wife to her “soul mate” farmer-husband -- with no ambition of going to graduate school. She and her husband were simple people, dreamers with great big hearts, and, together, they had built a strong family foundation. All they had to do was stay the course and the American dream would be theirs!
But then the unthinkable happened! The husband did not come home one night and, nine days later, she pulled him out of a nearby lake. Her dream exploded!
Well, that was my dream and I was that teacher!
Four years elapsed as I grappled with my new reality. Struggling to support my family on a teacher’s salary and upon the nudging of my principal and superintendent who saw leadership capacity in me, I joined a cohort of aspiring principals.
“You will be great,” they told me. But, I was not so sure.
Is this the direction for me, I wondered. Do I have what it takes to juggle parenting, working, and completing a grueling set of courses for the principalship?
If you have ever asked yourself the same questions, perhaps my life experience will benefit you.
1. Be still and listen to your heart.
I felt I was ready to serve in a leadership role and, though others were encouraging me, I couldn’t always hear them amid my noisy life. I needed to be still and listen to my heart as it was then that I could hear the voice of my beloved, “G for G, my dear, and never look back.” So, I’d take off on a run and, the more I ran, the better I felt. As negative energy escaped my body, new thoughts filled my head. In fact, I can remember the exact moment I made the decision to attend graduate school. I’d ground out the last mile on a crunchy gravel road and, as I arrived at the top of the hill, I felt this rush of energy. “I’m going for it,” I told myself and that was it.
2. Embrace your vulnerability -- and your cohort.
I am not going to lie. I like being in control and my first class in the principal prep program was a time of reckoning. Though my professors exuded friendship and good will and I was learning a ton, the work was arduous and my mind was elsewhere.
For me, grad school was an extremely vulnerable time. I was learning how to live and raise a family, alone. I was learning how to fix a leaky pipe, drive a tractor and empty mouse traps. I had moved off the farm and into town and my friendship circle was changing. So many people depended on me – my children, my husband’s grieving family, our farming partners - and I couldn’t hold them up hard as I tried. At times, I felt like a hero and at others I felt like a smuck. I had bought into grad school as a viable and inspiring career option but I questioned how much novelty my system could handle.
Brene Brown’s vulnerability research had yet to surface but I did know enough about myself to conclude that, in times of trouble when I knew not where to turn, my best response had always been to surround myself with positive and inspiring people willing to share their ideas in a comfortable and caring environment. This is who my new cohort had become. Together, we would “cooperate and graduate” and, when I felt like giving up,I would remind myself I did not want to let them go.
3. Re-engage like never before.
Grad school required me to go deep and it will you, too. I re-visited long-standing worldviews and, like a turtle coming out of its shell, began to see the light on many issues for the first time. I had been in command of my English classroom but had not an understanding nor, probably, an appreciation for the work of my building principal. The deeper I dove into the content, the more I wanted to wrap my loving arms around every principal I knew. In fact, one of the benefactors of such love was my very own high school principal who received a letter from me during my program thanking him for the service and guidance and direction he provided me during those high school years. He was surprised -- and delighted -- to receive my letter and our old friendship rekindled!
I was still a mom first and a worker/graduate student second but, had I not been all-in and re-engaged like never before, I would not have benefited from my excellent instruction nor engaged in the content at the core of the program.
So, here I am, 25 years later and well into a career as a building principal, central office administrator and now university professor, reflecting on one of my students. If you are like me and all the others who have questioned whether they can endure, my advice is to “hang in there.” Challenging times are what define us and make us who we are today.
Go for greatness and know always I look forward to seeing you on the other side!
