Book Update!
Imperfect Leaders! My book, An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action is available on Amazon.com. If there is no hyperlink to follow, please go to Amazon.com or peterstiepleman.com. You can order it there.
AND if you liked it, would you please leave a positive review on Amazon?
Intro: A few months ago, I found myself driving some logging roads on Vancouver Island. A few days later, I wandered into an independent bookstore and saw a book by Harley Rustad called Big Lonely Doug. Who was Big Lonely Doug and what made him Doug so lonely?! Big Lonely Doug is a massive Douglas Fir – the second largest tree in all of Canada. And I had totally missed seeing it. I must have driven right past both the Avatar Grove and Big Lonely Doug! Learning about Doug has been amazing.
The book is a great resource for thinking about and teaching systems thinking. For one thing, you really learn about how trees are not individual entities, but rather connected to each other. You learn about mycorrhiza and how these fungi establish a symbiotic association with plant roots (they improve nutrition and stabilization for them).
I know I am geeking out a bit on this intro, but as I read this book, I thought about the internal system of the forest and what it needs and the external systems that influence these forests (logging companies and the communities relying on the jobs, local, regional, federal, and tribal governments establishing policies about the trees, conservationists, climate scientists, the general public). As an educational leader, I couldn’t help but think about schools and school systems when reading this book.
And you can’t help but think of my guest this week who is working hard in the Washington DC to build enduring systems for children, with them and their families. Dr. Bren Elliott is my guest. In her After-Action Review, we discuss a topic that so many leaders have had to face – feeling pressured to fill a position and making an unsuccessful hire.
BIO: Dr. Bren Elliott is the chief of school improvement and supports for District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). In her role, she leads efforts to see that the district meets the goals outlined in its strategic plan.
Prior to DCPS, Dr. Elliott worked in Tennessee and North Carolina as a teacher, an assistant principal, a principal, an area director, and an assistant superintendent. Plus! Dr. Elliott is a former officer in the United States Army and completed 10 years of military service.
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An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action is supported by ILAA, LLC, a firm dedicated to supporting aspiring, new, and established leaders. For more information, please find them at www.human-centeredleaders.com.
Music for An Imperfect Leader was written and arranged by Ian Varley.
Sam Falbo created our artwork, a wood-print inspired daruma doll butterfly.
