Today I attended the first meeting of a new committee. I have been on dozens of committees, but the leader of this particular committee started his committee in a way that demonstrated outstanding leadership. He said three things that I have paraphrased below.
- I called this committee to explore _____. The issue is not urgent at the moment, and that’s why we’re doing this work now. We shouldn’t only examine issues like this one after — or in the midst of — a crisis.
- I called this committee because I want us to start with a blank slate and rebuild _____ around our current school culture.
- I called this committee because I want to ensure that decisions surrounding _____ are not left to one person only. These issues are too important to be left to one decision maker.
Statement 1 ensures that our work will be important, not urgent; statement 2 ensures that our work will be pragmatic and prone to succeed during the implementation stage; statement 3 is just good discipline and indicative of a humble leader who believes in the people he leads.