Remarks Captured During Session
The following comments from session presenters were captured informally by members of Class XXVIII. They are included here for reference and class reflection only. These are not necessarily exact quotes–different nuances were captured by different class members, and the following combines those submissions–and should not be used or shared beyond the LNC program.
Dr. Dudley Flood
- Good leaders get people to do things. Great leaders get people to WANT to do things.
- Leaders make decisions in a timely manner (not necessarily quickly).
- Believe that if people knew better, they would do better.
- If you are going to take up a big airplane, you need a long runway. (In reference to NC taking until the deadline to desegregate schools.)
- Make tough decisions, have clear goals and a vision in order to inspire others (vision is what it looks like when it is done).
- Get rid of dead wood, and that may not necessarily be to fire it (if you do then your “next worst” person becomes the dead wood). Dead wood was once alive. Don’t fire it–ignite it!
- If you have to complain about your job, always complain above you, not laterally or below you.
- Education is about bringing something out of someone – same thing with leading leaders.
- It is easy to judge when you only see one side of the problem.
- Being busy doesn’t mean you are getting things accomplished. Neither does being tired at the end of the day. You should be energized at the end of the day.
- Don’t take yourself too seriously.
- On leading leaders: Let them own the solutions. They don’t need you seen as solving their problems.
- People aren’t who you think they are, people aren’t who they think they are, people become who they think you think they are, so raise your standards.
- My job is not to solve your problems, but to empower you to solve your own problems.
Quotes from or Shared by Other Presenters
- Advocate for more funding to early care and education in NC. Advocate for less restrictions on budgeted dollars for education. (unattributed)
- “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Marian Wright Edelman (shared in chat)
- 60% of a student’s experience is directly related to a teacher. Jennifer Bell
- “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”—President Theodore Roosevelt, shared by Dr. Anthony Graham