Episode 29: These “3 Little Words” Will Change The Way That You Lead

Every so often, one of my students asks, “Mr. Minkus, how old are you?”

I always come back with the same answer, “Well, I was born before man walked on the moon!” That answer usually gets the desired reaction: mouth open, eyes wide, etc. I then tell them that I was only two years old in July of 1969, but that does little to reduce their utter disbelief.

When Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon, he uttered one of the most famous phrases in recorded history. “That’s one small step for man, one giant step for mankind.”

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about “first words” and how important they are:

• Neil Armstrong’s first words on the moon.
• Baby’s first words. (I wanted my daughters to say “Daddy”, but one of them said “Hi!” and two of them said “No!” for their first words…..
• The first words that you say to your spouse or partner when you get home from school. For example, do you say “How was your day?” or do you say “What’s for dinner?” (The rest of your evening hangs in the balance!)

On today’s episode of The Private School Leader Podcast, we are going to discuss The “3 Little Words” That Will Change The Way That You Lead.

As private school leaders, we do a lot of listening. We listen to teachers, students and parents tell us about complex problems and complex feelings. We often will immediately go into our “problem solving mode”. Unfortunately, that is not always the best thing to do. We need to stop and think about the first words that we should say and then say “three little words”.

I know that you are super busy, so be sure to listen while you are doing something else. I hope that you will get value from this episode as you serve and lead your school community. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to listen to the podcast!

Thanks for making a difference,

Mark Minkus

I want to give you a gift to say “thank you” for listening to the podcast. I have created a FREE guide for you called “5 Strategies To Help You Work With Difficult Parents”. We know that working with parents is part of the job and most of our parents are great, but some of them can be very demanding and emotional and difficult. This guide will give you the tools that you need to build better relationships and have better meetings with the difficult parents at your school. Go to theprivateschoolleader.com/parents to grab the guide. Thank you again for listening every week!

Please check out all of the free resources on my website that can help you serve and lead your school community. There are "Plug & Play PD's" (45 minute webinars with guided notes) as well as Top 10 Lists of Leadership Books, Productivity Books and TED Talks over at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/resources. You can grab the show notes for today's episode at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/episode29

Please write a review of this podcast and help push this content out to more leaders. I would love to get your feedback about the podcast, ideas for future episodes and hear about how you are implementing these strategies in your life and at your school. You can email me at mark.o.minkus@gmail.com Thanks!!

I’ve created a FREE RESOURCE for you called “The Top 6 Ways To Protect Your School From a Lawsuit”. This is a 10 page pdf that will help you to keep your staff and students safe and help keep your school out of court. Litigation is expensive, time consuming and extremely stressful. This common sense guide will help you to be more intentional and proactive when it comes to protecting your school. You can grab “The Top 6 Ways To Protect Your School From a Lawsuit” at www.theprivateschoolleader.com/lawsuit. Thanks!