Top 5 Themes from 2024: I want to end the year by highlighting some of the big themes that have come from my leadership conversations. This year I did significantly fewer posts than 2023, but there were still a lot of great things I learned. It was hard to narrow it down to 5, and at the end of the post I list 8 other topics that could have been towards the top as well. These 5 topics came up the most often by the most number of leaders. Here are the top 5 themes from 2024:

1. Relationships
2. Culture is What You Allow
3. Empower Others
4. Leader Wellness and Sustainability
5. Purpose Driven and Intentional Leadership

Increase the Humanity You Have With People: I met with Jethro Jones, a veteran school leader and coach. We had an awesome conversation and we ended up spending a lot of the time talking about productivity for school leaders. You will want to listen to the full episode to hear Jethro’s ideas on getting the most done in your day, while still being able to focus on the people in your building. You can learn more about Jethro on his website: https://www.jethrojones.com/ and you can find his productivity tools here: https://jethro.site/tools. Here are 3 main takeaways I had from the conversation:

1. Be Curious
2. Get the Biggest Return on Your Time
3. Balance comes in Seasons

Be In It For the Long Haul: I met with Dr. Barb Flowers, a veteran educator and life coach. We had a great conversation around building more sustainable leadership practices. Be sure to check out her podcast, The Principal’s Handbook. We talked about many things, but I always narrow it down to three key takeaways.

1. Be Present in the Classroom
2. Set Boundaries
3. Prioritize

Also, be sure to check out the Be Podcast Network, which hosts this podcast and Dr. Flower's podcast!