PMP473: Road to Awesome with Darrin Peppard

Meet Darrin Peppard:

Dr. Darrin Peppard is a dynamic keynote speaker, leadership expert, and consultant with a passion for transforming organizational culture and developing the next generation of leaders. A former award-winning principal, Darrin draws from nearly 30 years of experience in education to inspire leaders to embrace clarity, purpose, and joy in their work. 

He is the author of Road to Awesome: The Journey of a Leader, and his newest book, Culture First Classrooms: Leadership, Relationships, and Practices that Transform Schools, co-authored with Katie Kinder.

Darrin hosts the Leaning Into Leadership podcast, where he shares real-world insights to help leaders build strong teams and thriving school cultures.

“So much of what we do as a leader isn’t about the words that we use or the things that we say but about our actions.”

Why Road to Awesome?

At the beginning of the interview, Will asks Darrin to share with listeners about why he chose to write the Road to Awesome. Darrin answers that his motivation for writing this book goes back to his first year as a high school principal. He dealt with a lot of discipline, and the school had a pretty toxic culture. One day, Darrin received a wake up call in the form of a question. A teacher asked him, “Why does it always have to be about what students do wrong? Why can’t we focus on what they do right?”. From that moment on, Darrin began showing up differently and shifted his focus to building relationships with students. Eventually, the rest of his staff followed suit. The shift in what they were looking for from students changed the school culture. 

A.W.E.S.O.M.E: 

Darrin and Will spend a large part of the interview covering Darrin’s acronym for leaders, A.W.E.S.O.M.E. Below is a short summary of the acronym and the meaning behind each statement.

• Accepting challenge
  • Being a leader is hard, we have to accept that being a leader is a challenge 
  • If we want a better school or team, if we want a better we, I have to be a better me. 
• Welcome feedback
  • If we’re going to continue to grow as a leader, we have to be willing to welcome support and feedback.
  • When I welcome feedback, it is an opportunity for me to learn about myself as a leader.
  • Take it as an opportunity to reflect, to continue to grow and improve.
  • Don’t get defensive.
• Examine priorities
  • If you are not clear on what your priorities are, you will end up stuck in a consonant firefighter work, constantly running around and trying to fix problems.
  • There are certain things that only I can do, and there are things that I can delegate to others.
    • Figure out what work priorities are the most important to you; the things that only you can do. 
    • What’s the most essential purpose of your role?
• Stand on your values
  • Do you want to be a firefighter or a leader?
  • Be really clear about what really matters to you? What are your core values? What do you really want to see happening at your school?
• Operate intentionally
  • When we are clear on our values, we need to go be intentional about the work that we do.
  • Doing things on purpose, not by happenstance.
  • If you’re doing something, it needs to be on purpose.
  • Be intentional about where you are.
• Model what you expect
  • Don’t ask other people to do something that you’re not willing to do yourself.
  • If your actions don’t match what you’re saying, then teachers are not going to follow through on what you tell them to do.
• Engage in reflection
  • Reflection needs to come at the end of the day, week, month, or year.
    • You are not going to learn unless you are reflecting on your experiences.
  • Spend time reflecting on your values and asking what evidence you have that you are engaging in the practices you think that you are.

Staying Connected:

To learn more about Darrin Peppard, check out the Leaning in to Leadership podcast, follow @Darrinmpeppard on all social media platforms, or visit DarrinPeppard.com

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