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.

1. 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.
2. I called this committee because I want us to start with a blank slate and rebuild _____ around our current school culture.
3. 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.