relationship building Archives — Pri Educational Consulting

Tag: relationship building

May 25, 2026

Equanimity is a Path to Maintaining Calm

Equanimity can lead to balance.

What is Equanimity?

Equanimity is defined as an evenness of mind, especially under stress, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary. As a leader, this is an essential strategic leadership quality. As a parent, you are a leader in the home, and it’s not only an essential skill to practice but also a way to model, observe, connect with your child, and practice empathy.

Equanimity does not mean being aloof or detached. It means you still have feelings and compassion, and you are a steady and balanced presence that can see options and can support the people around you. When I can practice equanimity, I can observe what’s happening around me. I can see options and choices. I am not hijacked by my feelings. My frontal lobe has not been taken over by the amygdala.

How Does Equanimity Impact Parenting?

Cindy Goldrich states the importance of staying calm and connected as a parent in her books and workshops with families and educators.

April 9, 2026

Sustainable Leadership: Ego, Trust, Humility

How can leaders lead in a sustainable way?

Photo by feey on Unsplash

How can leaders lead sustainably? When leaders sit in despair and urgency, thinking they are the only person who can help, does that help? Is it sustainable to lead this way? Does it lead to burnout?

Recently, I watched an episode of Season 2 of The Pitt, a show that focuses on emergency room events in a hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I found myself struggling with Dr. Robby’s character this season. It all hit home in one conversation he had with Nurse Dana. Dr. Robby won’t leave for his sabbatical, and he tells Nurse Dana he is convinced the entire hospital and all the people he supervises will fall apart in his absence. Wow! I have experienced many leaders like this, and I have felt this way at some point or another. To me, this can be a dangerous place for leadership to live.

January 7, 2026

Enabling or Supporting Leadership

What does enabling versus supporting look like in the workplace as a leader?

Photo by Sierra Koder on Unsplash

Last month, I wrote about enabling and supporting as a parent. This month, I expand on the topic to the workplace. What does enabling versus supporting look like in the workplace as a leader?

Let’s start with a definition of each. Cindy Goldrich defines enabling as doing things for others with no plan for their future independence. Supporting is helping someone with a plan to help them build a specific skill towards autonomy. Leaders, how does this apply to your direct reports?

Supportive Leadership style is a leadership style in which the leader supports their subordinates with tools and resources until they have the skills to work autonomously.
Indeed Career Guide

Enabling in the Workplace

In the workplace, if a direct report came to me with an issue and I solved the problem for them, when would they learn to develop their own problem-solving and decision-making skills?

September 18, 2025

Equanimity and Empathy: A Powerful Pairing

A lotus flower sitting above the mud below.

Photo by Alfonso Betancourt on Unsplash

As a leader and a parent, staying steady in the face of chaos, while also understanding how others feel, is a superpower that I strive to cultivate. This is practicing the powerful pairing of equanimity and empathy. It’s about bringing a steady and stable presence even when the world around you is swirling, while trying to understand what others are going through. Sometimes I am more successful than others.

Equanimity

Equanimity is characterized by the ability to remain calm, composed, open, and non-reactive in the face of challenging or distressing situations.
Positive Psychology

This image of the lotus flower helps me think of equanimity. The lotus flower sits in glorious beauty and yet underneath is mud and roots. It needs all those things to exist. It looks steady and calm above the muddy and murky waters.

Equanimity is not about ignoring the chaos.

April 4, 2025

Humility is Strong Leadership

Photo by Jaspinder Singh on Unsplash

Humility is an essential aspect of being a strong leader. Louise Penny creates the ultimate example of a leader who expresses humility in her Three Pines series, Inspector Gamache. Recently, I have been thoroughly enjoying the Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny. Gamache is often described as positioning himself as a mentor to young folks in his field and teaching them how to be leaders. He is noted for teaching his mentees to say the following at crucial moments in their careers.

I don’t know.

I need help.

I’m sorry.

I was wrong.
-Inspector Armand Gamache

I don’t know.

In my leadership journey, it took me a long time to realize that saying, “I don’t know.” showed great strength. People actually appreciated my honesty in admitting I needed time and space to consult and research before getting back to them. As an educator, I used to draw a small circle on the board to indicate ‘what I know’ and then a much larger circle around it to indicate ’what I don’t know’.

May 24, 2024

Understand Your Power

Understand your power and influence.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Teachers, coaches, and leaders understand your power and influence so that you can build the skills within your students, clients, and direct reports. In the first part of my teaching career, I did not truly understand or appreciate the power and influence I had over my students. Statements and comments I made to my students were taken as the honest truth and solid facts. Sure, I had to make things fun and engaging to keep their interest but what I said mattered and counted. My students were influenced by my words by the simple fact that I was their teacher. I held the most power in the room. It was up to me to set the tone for the classroom, help students feel safe and welcomed, and build a sense of belonging. When those basic needs were disrupted, I was the person with the power and ability to respond and make changes to bring our community back to safety and belonging.

January 18, 2024

Be a Human with a Human

Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash

I first heard this phrase when attending the ten-day intensive part of my executive coaching certification through Berkeley. “Be a human with a human.” noted one of the faculty coaches before they launched us into one of our first practicums where we coached a stranger in front of each other and received feedback. I was so nervous and was at the beginning of this journey, not feeling like I had the skills as yet to do a great job. A lot of self-doubt was creeping into my mind until I heard this phrase. Being a human with a human seemed doable to me. It was a reality that felt approachable, comfortable, and true. After all, we are just two human beings talking to each other.

I saw the true expression of this phrase in a brilliant movie. Recently, I had the privilege to watch an early screening of Ava Duvernay’s new film, Origin, about the author Isabel Wilkerson’s journey to writing her book Caste while coping with personal loss.

October 6, 2023

Teacher, Coach, or Superhero?

When you were a child, did you think your favorite teacher was a kind of superhero?

Photo by Ali Kokab on Unsplash

I recently had the opportunity to serve as an alumni coachee at the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute during the in-person institute held at Berkeley. When I took the certification course, it was completely online and I saw the talented and skilled faculty through my Zoom screen. When I arrived at the Berkeley Faculty Club on this very hot day in October, I saw some of the incredible faculty that taught me during my course. Benjamin was playing the piano. Jennie came over to give me a hug. I saw Doy and Praew in the distance. It felt like celebrity sightings! These were the skilled and thoughtful people who taught me so much and I was actually seeing them in real life. I was surprised by my reaction. I am an adult and know that these are real human beings even though I saw them only on Zoom.

April 28, 2023

New Leaders: Prepare for Your Journey

Part 1: Building Relationships

Have you accepted a new leadership opportunity? There are probably many feelings running through you right now: excitement, worry, joy, overwhelm and so much more on any given day and even in any given minute. Having been a new leader and new to school communities many times over, I have learned from my mistakes and from the things that worked well. The way you enter a community and begin your journey as a leader is important. This should be intentional work that is thoughtfully carried out with the purpose of learning about the community you are entering and making connections.

Building Relationships is at the core of introducing yourself to a community and a key way for you to get to know a community. This is time well spent even if it takes the entire year. Meeting one on one with your direct reports as you enter your school community is an essential first step.

April 5, 2023

Documentation is Communication

Documentation is communication.

Photo by Jan Kahánek on Unsplash

When I was an administrator at a school and I had concerns about a direct report’s performance, I looked for past notes and documentation regarding observations, conversations, and other feedback. I found nothing. This was a person that had many complaints from all different constituents in the school over many years and yet there was nothing in writing. This could mean that someone might not have received clear and timely feedback about their performance and at the very least if they did, there was no follow-up to clarify goals and expectations. This does not serve anyone well: the person struggling in the job, the supervisor, and ultimately if you are in a school, the students. Documentation is a form of feedback. It leads to clarity and direct communication. There are likely few surprises when you document in a timely and clear manner.