My top 10 lessons in leadership from more than a decade of teaching

1. You cannot be all things, for all people. This is the biggie. Trying to be all things for all people will only exhaust you. Keep coming back to the center of yourself, and the center of why you created the group experience that you did.

2. Upholding the integrity of the group is the leader’s job. Integrity is: when your words and actions match, and they are in alignment with your values, beliefs, commitments, and life vision (Matthew Marzel). You can’t make people do anything that they don’t want to do, but you can uphold the integrity of the group and its purpose. A leader who fails to address a lack of integrity within the group is just colluding with it.

3. Never get caught in the upswing (or the downswing). When I was a college professor, my Ego was big-time wrapped up in being a student’s Favorite Teacher. It was a high like no other when students loved my classroom. And–it was a crushing blow when they didn’t. There’s plenty of advice out there about not believing the naysayers too much. There’s less said about the dangers of getting caught in the praise. Praise feels good, but it can easily be used to stroke the Ego. When someone praises you, receive it, and then like a meditation…release it. Let it go. Don’t let praise “mean something” about who you are, because that just invites the criticism to “mean something” about who you are.

4. Everyone shows up to the group experience, differently, but everyone really wants the same thing: connection. Even when they don’t say so, that’s what they actually want. Even if they say they want answers, or a new skill, or a new career? Well, they want those things because they feel that having them would make them feel connected to themselves, to their own lives. Everyone wants connection. You want it, too–that’s why you teach or lead.

5. Everyone has a right to make a request. People always have the right to make a request, no matter how outlandish it is, how diva-esque you feel they are being. Resenting them for making the request becomes problematic because then they don’t feel safe. Let your people know that they’re safe to make requests, with you.

6. You don’t have to say “yes” to everything. Yes, people have a right to make requests—but you don’t have to say “yes.” Discernment is an important quality of leadership. Be clear about what you will and won’t say “yes” to. Be particularly careful around those places and spaces where a “yes” to someone else means saying “no” to yourself or how that might water down the overall group.

7. Believe in the capacity of the people you work with. It’s incredibly common that when people feel fear, they start justifying that fear with all the reasons why they “can’t” do something, and they will logically lay out and explain some very, very legitimate reasons for why they can’t do something. As a teacher and leader, remind yourself that the REASON THEY ARE THERE is to shift something, despite those obstacles. You need to believe in their capacity for them, during the difficult learning period when they don’t believe in themselves. When I was a classroom teacher, students told me, all of the time, their absolutely and totally legitimate reasons for why they couldn’t get a paper turned in on time, and why they needed an extension. I never doubted their reasons or the challenges they were up against. I also never doubted…them. I believed in them and in their capacity to deliver. I know that if something is important enough to you, you’ll find a way to get it. 90% of the time, students who swore that there was absolutely no way that they could get a paper in, got one in. Some of them hated me for not granting the extension, but–well, see #1 on this list. And #2. And #3. And #6.

8. Let them see your pride in their results. When the people in your classroom or on your team do something amazing, LET THEM SEE YOUR PRIDE. Let them see how you’re so impressed. Let them see how you’re in awe of them. Let them see that you’re so excited by the results that they created. Never reign that in. Never play it cool. BE THE PERSON at your job or in a classroom who is handing out the high-fives. Yes, there are inevitably some people who are “too cool” who will sit in a corner amongst themselves and judge you as being weirdly overly enthusiastic, but I promise you, that’s their pain and posturing. Most of the people you lead or teach will remember that you gave them a gold star. And when I was a classroom teacher, it shocked me how many times a college student would tell me that I was the FIRST person they could ever remember offering them encouragement—can you imagine? Going through years and years of school and not hearing encouragement until college? My god—may we please stop playing it cool, and show people how proud we are of what they’re doing.

9. Never try to play it cool. Your passion for a topic is magnetic. Let people see that, too, and never try to play it cool. When you allow yourself to be full-on nerding out about a topic that you’re facilitating on or presenting, people perk up and get curious about why you’re so into it. Then they start trying to look for the evidence that this same topic is awesome. Then they’re more likely to get enrolled in your same passion for it! This isn’t a manipulative tactic. It’s an authenticity tactic. Just be a full-on nerd who’s passionate about the matter at hand, and that will be an infectious energy on your team.

10. Walk your talk when it comes to self-care. In leadership, you’ve got to actually walk your talk so that you can show up for the mission—the facilitating or teaching or learning or holding space or managing that project—later. You’ve got to get rest, take vitamins, schedule a massage, suit up n’ show up for yourself, so that you can have capacity to show up for others. Sometimes, “getting rest” will mean that you’re later than you’d like to be on things like returning emails or having a perfectly clean house. I often think that self-care happens more in the little daily moments of not constantly pushing ourselves, more so than it happens in big moments like a vacation to Tahiti. Whatever form it takes, self-care is a must and if you aren’t prioritizing it, you aren’t performing at the highest possible level of your leadership.