Show Notes:
In episode 50, I interviewed Danny Bauer (@alienearbud), educational leader, podcast host, and author behind the Better Leaders Better Schools brand. Danny is the author of “The Better Leaders Better Schools Roadmap: Small Ideas That Lead to Big Impact.” We discussed how to lead through adversity and how important coaching is in leadership.
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About Danny Bauer
Daniel Bauer is the founder of Better Leaders Better Schools, a trusted blog and category-defining podcast for ruckus makers in education. He helps school leaders fight isolation and frustration through his leadership community, “The Mastermind,” in order to gain clarity and find solutions to their greatest challenges. Daniel is also the author of The Better Leaders Better Schools Roadmap.
Most Recent Better Leaders Better School Podcast Episodes
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Better Leaders Better Schools Website:
betterleadersbetterschools.com
Our Conversation
Dan Kreiness
Hey, leaders of learning. Welcome back. And thanks for being on this ride with me because we are at Episode 50 of the program while Episode 50 halfway to the century mark, again, thank you so much for being on this ride and taking the journey with me. Some of you guys have been here from the start. If you haven’t, that’s okay too. I just appreciate you coming along. For the ride in Episode 50, I have a great guest, a return guest to the show, who hasn’t been here since episode eight, all the way back in 2017. So it’s been a couple of years, and this guy has been super busy. You might know him from his own podcast. He has better leaders, better schools, and the school leadership series. He also published a book better leaders better schools roadmap, Danny Bauer joins me and we had a great conversation about leadership, including leading through adversity, like I shared with you in the last episode. I’ve battled my own adversity, especially over the last few months in my career, and he has some advice about that and what to do if you have that sort of adversity in your lives and in your careers. We also talk about coaching quite a bit because he is the epitome of someone who just wants to coach people, support people and help them be the best version of themselves that they can be as educators and as leaders. I know I say this at the end of every episode, but before we get to that interview with Danny Bauer, I just wanted to ask you and remind you one more time to subscribe to this podcast. If you’re not already subscribed, whatever you use to listen to your podcast, there’s a subscribe button somewhere, whether it’s Apple podcast, Google podcasts, like me, I use pocket casts to listen to the shows that I’m subscribed to. But whatever you use, definitely hit subscribe. That way, you’re notified every time a new episode comes out. And if you’re like me, those new episodes will automatically be downloaded into your program of choice and into your device. So it’s ready to go ready for you to listen to in your car, or wherever you like listening to podcasts. Without further ado, here is my interview with Danny Bauer.
Dan Kreiness
All right, leaders of learning I have a great guest again, actually he’s a return guest and I’ve said this before I feel like this is as far as I’ve come as a podcaster now to bring back return guests. And I’m really excited to bring back now, a guest who went all the way back to episode eight. And that is Danny Bauer. Danny, thanks so much for joining us.
Danny Bauer
Hey, I’m so excited to be here talking to leaders of learning. And Dan, thanks so much for having me back.
Dan Kreiness
Thank you. And just in case, some of our listeners have not been with us since episode eight and may not listen to your podcasts or or your books or anything, just introduce yourself if you could, and let the listeners know who you are, where you are, what you do.
Danny Bauer
Yeah, started better leaders better schools in 2015. And the idea behind it was in my district, there weren’t a lot of leadership development opportunities, the ones that were sort of identified as that was really like how to exist in the big bureaucracy and how not to get fired, right? Do these 10 things and you won’t get fired, but not about how to have difficult conversations, navigate conflict, inspire people. You know, cast a vision and all that kind of stuff. So I started to show talk to awesome leaders like you right to learn from your successes and failures and I figured I’d grow and that worked I grew and the podcast grew so that’s the better leaders better schools podcasts, have a second one called the school leadership series. But essentially at the end of the day, you know, our why we’ve got guys to work with everything we do is this quote, everybody wins when a leader gets better everybody wins when you the listener, the leader of learning listener gets better and so that’s that’s what we’re all about.
Dan Kreiness
That’s great man. And and I think I said this before, but if I haven’t, let me say it again that this show was at least partly inspired by your show and you know, yours was one of the first the better leaders better schools podcast, I know you have the school leadership series now too, but that was one of the first ones that I really got into, and especially as I was sort of this up and coming school leader and and you know, trying to take on new leadership opportunities. It was definitely a big motivation for me to listen to that. And and I really appreciate what you’re doing. And you know, now a few years later, even you’re still doing it and growing and getting bigger and better all the time. So that’s awesome. Let’s move back for a second though, because you just said something about learning and leading through the good times and the bad through successes and failures. As we were just saying, before we hit record here, my last episode, which is really kind of the first episode in the third season of the show. I got vulnerable, I opened up a little bit about and I will call it a failure, but I would call it just an opportunity that didn’t go as well as I thought it would or didn’t end the way that I thought it would as a first year administrator. And so I’ve had to kind of take a new route and a new course in my own path through the leadership ranks, but I’m just wondering if you might be able to give me my listeners a little bit of advice or ideas or your thoughts around sort of this idea of learning through failure
Danny Bauer
Here’s the thing. Like if you’re not willing to fail to swing for the fences or shoot for the moon, you’re not going to ever experience anything great or create you know, some tremendous value in your personal life for the organization where you work. The people that you serve, and you have to dance with fear, it might not be the partner you want to bring to the prom, right? But fear is always going to be there and you have to dance with her and and learn to get comfortable with it. You know, something that’s really interesting about failure, fear, the imposter syndrome, all these things if we follow that thread, everybody experiences everybody that’s that’s an idea called Sander that that idea in your brain that you’re not good enough or, you know, I’m going to really screw this up or I did screw it up. And, you know, man, I’m such a failure actually. Everybody has that, okay, every single person, but how you respond to it is what makes you you, you know, I think of it like a coin to, you know, heads is one side, which we just sort of talked about imposter syndrome fear, all of that. And then on the other side is potential and possibility and greatness and excitement, you know, and just depends on how you want to frame that experience. You know, so Dan, you talked about I want to, I want to look at that as a as a opportunity to learn that is so good. I want to, you know, honor you on your show in front of the listeners that that is an incredible approach to take. I recently took this course called finding finding mastery and it’s about you know, finding your personal best however you want to define that it was taught by Dr. Michael GV who has a podcast called find a mastery and coach Pete Carroll. So JV works with only Beans and elite performers, you know, executives, and we know coach Carroll with the Seattle Seahawks. So these guys are working with people who are at the top of their game, right? And you can imagine, when the stakes are high, you’re playing in front of all the fans in you’re about to throw, you know, your Russell in your pocket and back into the pocket. You can’t be worried am I about to throw the interception or not, you got to be confident, you got to be ready. But in that moment, there is a fear of failure to and so you got to collect that data, that feedback loop and decide how you want to respond. But then one of the interesting things and this last thing I want to say and see what follow up questions you have. The interesting thing is that right in that moment, when you’re competing, right, you start your body changes, your heart rate starts to accelerate. Even on this podcast right now. I feel a little bit of sweat coming on, right. Maybe the hands shake subtly or they’re a bit clammy, you know, there’s some physiological response that happens when it’s time to perform and too little, you’re not moved to give your best too much. And you’re absolutely arrested, you know, frozen there and you can’t give your best either. So if that’s some sort of scale from one to 10 one, not enough activation and 10 too much activation, you want to somehow be able to rest between four and six, five being ideal right there in the middle. And so one thing that I’ve learned is that talking on a podcast, giving a keynote, presenting at a leadership retreat, whatever it is coaching, and leaning into really difficult topics with leaders that asked me to help right, those are all scary things. And now when the heart gets beating faster or a little bit sweat happens or my hands slightly tremble. I say great. This is awesome. My body is getting pumped. I’m getting activated. So I could be here and serve at my highest level. And then what do I need to do to make sure I don’t go to a 789 or 10. And the simplest thing that you can do, Dan is take a deep breath, right? First, be internally aware that those physiological things are happening. And then secondly, have things maybe it’s a mantra you repeat or whatever. But for me, just taking a nice deep breath is a way of resetting everything, too.
Dan Kreiness
So a couple of things really resonated with me that you just said. And first I’ll go back to the point you made about dancing with fear. And then this last piece about sort of the, the level at which you operate, you know, on a scale from zero to 10. As a matter of fact, while you were talking I was kind of thinking that a couple of weeks ago, we took a family vacation to Universal Studios in Orlando, and my son is eight and a half, almost nine and he isn’t exactly a thrill seeker, but there was a actually there were two rides, probably at the That he sort of conquered his fear and overcame. And, you know, I kept telling him like, they’re called thrill rides for a reason. Because you’re supposed to get nervous and feel like you were just saying, you know, that clamming is that nervousness while you’re on it, and then you get off and you’re like, yes, I did it and, and that’s totally how he reacted and how he felt after he was so proud of himself. One of those rides, he went back on a second time.
Danny Bauer
And so I think, you know, to liken that to compare it to situations of leadership or any path that any educators on really like there’s always unknowns. They’re always things getting thrown your way you’re wearing many hats, you’re there’s accountability that you have to face and you know, at the end of the day, you get through it, you conquer it and you’re like, yes, you feel that that success. You feel that rush, so I appreciate that. Now, yeah. Well, I just didn’t say like, you know, same thing like the coin you can see that moment as, Oh man. I’m super nervous and you know, What do I have to do to not make a mistake and all this kind of stuff and then you’re almost guaranteed you’re going to make a mistake because you’re too rigid. You’re not flexible, which elite performers are, are flexible, right? And so here it’s the same thing. Just telling yourself not that you’re nervous and you’re about to make a mistake. Don’t mess it up. Don’t mess it up. That’s not helpful. It’s that my body’s responding. It’s getting ready to perform at its best, you know, so that’s simply the idea. I want listeners definitely to walk away with.
Dan Kreiness
Now, I mentioned a few minutes ago you came on to this show is a guest pretty early on after its inception episode eight, I believe that was sometime around fall of 28. Teen I want to say. So it’s been a while since we spoke at least the last time on air. You have been really busy. And so since then I know you’ve been involved in publishing your first solo book, better leaders better schools roadmap, and you have this second podcast, the school leadership series, this GO community now that you’ve launched, talk to us a little bit about what you’ve been up to.
Danny Bauer
Yeah. When you say it that way. It has been a lot, you know, and I want to I want to share a practice for the listener to start doing this year and put it on your calendar because I want you to do it in December, January ish, and block off, you know, a couple hours, but one of the things that I do is write a letter to the tribe every single year, and then I can look back at where was a year ago, and really reflect and measure right the growth or the impact that has happened through me personally or professionally. So that’s a pretty cool activity to do. And if you just go to the website and type in a letter to the tribe, you can see you know what I’ve written in the past. But I think the highlights the highlights would be, you know, in 2019, I started really checking off things on my vivid vision, which is a three year roadmap for where I’m going and got the first book out. So that’s the better leaders better schools roadmap, and I’m talking to a handful of publishers now working on book number two, but their first book available on Amazon, there’s an audio with tons tons more bonus content. So check that out if you’d like. The second show came out I wanted to extend reach an impact. So it’s called the school leadership series. It’s always five minutes or less. It’s typically around three, Monday through Friday, just like daily inspiration on your way to work. If you have an Amazon Echo type device, you can have that as a morning brief. But it’s also available on iTunes, Spotify, everywhere you Linda shows that show too. And here’s a here’s a great leadership lesson for your listeners. I was working with leaders I serve in the in the mastermind, and I was pushing them the challenge tradition, because a lot of times tradition is for a kid, a teacher, a community member that no longer exists, you know, and you have to you have to question on always ask why are you develop blind spots? Right? And so I said question tradition within your schools. Why are you doing the things you do? Does it still serve the student that’s in front of you, the teacher, the community members, and not to get too much into it too, but you know, unfortunately, a lot of traditions too are often found in in some sort of prejudice viewpoint. And we need to be critical of those and investigate. But I was thinking about my own practice and leadership and what I do have better leaders. And it’s so brand new. I’m thinking, Well, how do I, how do I question tradition? What does that look like? And what I ended up doing was I said, Oh, I don’t have to be the host of my own podcast. So the school leadership series, how much better could it be? Or here’s another leadership lesson the what if? What if I invited other amazing school leaders to have the mic and just share their incredible viewpoint? And if I’m a leader that values diversity, women in leadership in leaders of color, how am I amplifying those voices, I can do it through having them as guests on the better leaders show. But I can also do it by very intentionally forming a an Avengers like team that represents my values. And so it started in season one, but in season two, which drops in September will be much more intentional. There’s 13 of us. Men, women, all different races, ethnicities, sexual orientations. So it’s a great diverse group. And they’re all be sharing from their perspective about school leadership. So I’m super pumped about how that started and how it’s continuing to grow. Last thing I want to say in terms of vivid vision, I filled the mastermind to 60 members, school leaders that we get to coach and support in our leadership community. And there’s members from six different countries around the world. So we get together weekly, we talked deeply about education and leadership. You know, if LeBron James can have a coach, I think a principal or an assistant principal should have a coach too. And that’s what we do we help school leaders be their best and do it in a community environment. We’ve opened up a fifth cohort, which is quite nice, and that’s not going to be led by me but Dr. Kelly crane, and that’s just in an effort to impact and serve more school leaders and You mentioned the GO community. And so the masterminds not for everybody. But people that still want to grow and still want to be connected to the right kind of leaders that are forward thinking or innovative are authentic and able to ask for help and share where they’re challenged and want to share resources at a crazy level. We have the go community for them as well, what I love about it, and I go back to what I said before about how your show and and really your brand as it started to launch was, you know, was really motivating for me is that you and this community that you’ve built, in my in my opinion, and I’m sure he would agree, but it’s just so much about coaching and just really supporting each other and I appreciate that very much because that’s what drives me in my work, whether it was my last job as an administrator or the job that I’m heading back to now being an instructional coach. You know, I made that shift in my career. A handful years ago to say like, I love being an educator. But being in the classroom and working with students day to day is not really my thing. I just really want to support other educators and get them to be the best that they can be, so that they can make a huge impact on their students.
Dan Kreiness
So, I love it, man, I really do. And here’s what I’m wondering, I mentioned to you before we started here that I’m in my dissertation process, I’m finishing up my doctorate and so research is kind of a big thing with me right now, when you kind of sit back and you soak it all in. You’ve been doing the masterminds for a few years now. I know the NGO community is relatively new but you you’ve obviously been a part of this community and and dare I say, like the leader of the pack, in terms of running the community, but like, what kinds of trends topics patterns have you seen emerge, whether it be in terms of leadership, or just in education in general?
Danny Bauer
Hmm, well, first, congrats, you know that you’re winding down Your own research and going to finish that advanced degree. That’s, that’s a hard
Dan Kreiness
I’m actually about to say I’m just about to start my research. But it’s pretty exciting. I’m really interested to see what I can find out. And it does pertain quite a lot to leadership. So I’ll definitely share my results with you if you’re interested. But I’m looking at transformational leadership practices to inspire a growth mindset and classroom teachers, because I really want to get down to like, what is it that leaders are doing or not doing yet? To be able to, you know, take those teachers who, as you were saying a minute or two ago like they’re, they’re stuck in that tradition and and they haven’t yet kind of pushed through that. So that’s really what I’m what I’m looking at.
Danny Bauer
That’s cool. Well, congrats. Nonetheless, that’s an important topic to investigate in. I know that you’re, you know, the fruit of that research will have big time change. I like to think of the ripple effect, right. So throwing that stone into the lake, seeing the ripples that that happened as a result, and your research will definitely, to your point, you know, in terms of trends and that kind of thing. You know, as CL and like trauma informed practices so high, obviously, you see it everywhere. Definitely culturally responsive pedagogy and curriculum is extremely important. I think like leadership challenges that are still around and have been around forever is how to make change happen within the system, because school districts can just be so large, you know, and operate as these big behemoth bureaucracies in and I really enjoy learning from business and startup culture because it’s so nimble and fast right? And it can then make changes on a dime when you need to based on the feedback again, that feedback loop the data you’re collecting, and ultimately, in this context, serve the students right, the way need they need to serve instead of going through all these checklists and processes. To do something that we know in our gut is right or even just want to experiment and we believe it’s right let’s let’s now test it and see. So that’s a big one too. Interestingly, I think, you know, isn’t Bernie brown great like her, her research her books, very similar to her Jerry Kelowna, he does a thing called reboot. But they’re, they’re about I think, very intentional leadership, authentic leadership vulnerability, and asking the deep, dark, scary questions of ourselves like, MM, does my work matter? Does it matter that I’m the principal that I am the system principal, the stakes were high, the pressure was turned up, and i just i f that up like, I was a jerk in that moment. Why did I say that? Why did I choose to do that? And it’s like a shadow version of ourselves. So that’s a question we wrestle and almost under all of it is like am I enough just am enough as a human being And I think those are big trends in big ideas that need to be explored as leaders. And back to the coaching thing if LeBron and other elite athletes have coach of musicians and pop artists have coach, if CEOs at Google, right in Apple, and everywhere else has a coach, you know, principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, that model works in back to learning from failure. That’s where you learn in a safe space, you unpack it with somebody, and then you can predict when things are going to happen and you do the hard work to try to avoid some of those mistakes in cycles that you seem to be on. Right? You can get yourself off that but doing the same thing expecting a different result. We all know that to be the definition of insanity. So where are you plugged into a powerful professional learning network or working with a coach where they can help you remove those blind spots? You know, Confucius says a man who is committed and mistake in doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake. And that’s a part of my life’s work now is just to help others become more wise make better decisions and avoid mistakes.
Dan Kreiness
Yeah, I get that totally. And it’s sort of in keeping with that sentiment, then I guess my last topic that I wanted to discuss with you is, you know, we’re in the beginning of September, some educators in the US have gone back for a few weeks, almost a month now. I’ve just started school, some more schools will be starting just after Labor Day, what kind of advice might you have for teachers and leaders for this upcoming school year? I know you talked a lot about, you know, sort of breaking through that barrier of the nervousness or fear or tradition that you might feel is holding you back anything else that you would share with people on you know, as this school year starts?
Danny Bauer
Yeah, you know, we Yeah, we’ve talked a lot internally, how to perform at our best and so one just very practical tip, keep it short and sweet is doing Less than obsess right in be an inch wide and a mile deep, instead of a mile wide and an inch deep. So as you get fired up for the school year in how you’re going to serve and create amazing value for that community, and you add that new, big, beautiful idea, what are you going to cut because you can’t just keep adding to the plate, you get over overweight, right? So you have to cut something off to make sure that you have enough time for that. Love it. Yeah, go go deeper. And you know, not too broad right and really delve in and get as good as you can be anything else that I haven’t asked you about yet that you wanted to make sure you get in and have the listeners here. I just so appreciate you know, being a part of this. And so I’m Thank you for having me as a guest and this is what it’s all about, you know, connecting building relationships, generosity. And so just one last challenge for the listener know where are you doing that right. So where are you building relationships were you given the gift not given the get if something doesn’t exist? That you think that Man, I wish that thing was out there for me. Go make it right be the person who introduces the solution. So you’ve got the power in you, I believe in you.
