The Principal’s Guide to Conflict Management with Jen Schwanke
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome in, everybody. You are listening to the Authority Podcast on the BE Podcast Network. Thanks so much for being with us, as always, and it's going to be a great discussion here. It's a topic we have Had some conversations about the past around conflict management, but in this case, specifically with respect to school leaders, the principals, the types of conflicts that happen in schools and how to navigate them.
So my guest for the occasion, Dr. Jen Schwanke,she is a longtime educator who currently serves as a deputy superintendent in Ohio. and is also an instructor in educational administration at Miami University of Ohio. She's the author of four books with ASCD, [00:01:00] including the latest, The Principal's Guide to Conflict Management.
Jen, welcome to the show.
Jen Schwanke: Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to this.
Ross Romano: I think a great place to start is conflict. Is all conflict bad, necessarily?
Jen Schwanke: Well, it's funny you say that because that was kind of the through line when I wrote this book. I wanted to destigmatize conflict because I want leaders, not only school leaders, but any leader or any human really, to think about conflict as inevitable. You know, it would not be a rational expectation to think that we're all going to get along all the time.
And I also found the seeds to this book came when I realized so many school principals or administrators and even teachers measure their own success based on a lack of conflict. And so they think if there's conflict, I must be doing something wrong. And I think that's a fundamental misunderstanding [00:02:00] about where, how, and why conflict exists.
And I wanted to shift. the mindset to think, okay, conflict is as expected as the sun coming up and going down. The key is to figure out what to do when you are, when it exists.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Are there opportunities conflict can present when it inevitably occurs, right? And we'll talk about some of the sources and certainly the step by step process for kind of navigating it. But just as far as. Approaching it, as you mentioned am I doing something wrong here or is this unavoidable or what's happening?
If we look at it first as maybe an opportunity for what we can learn or gain through it what does that look like?
Jen Schwanke: Well, and again, I think that's a mindset shift and it takes discipline to reframe your own thinking about it. And the story I tell about this is my It came from my dad and he's a farmer and a contractor [00:03:00] and kind of a jack of all trades. And he gets up in the morning and he tackles a problem.
I've always known that about him. Well, I was about I've been an educator about 26 years and at about year 16, I was kind of a mess. I felt like a failure. I felt like, as a principal, everyone was always mad at me or mad at each other. And I just. hadn't mastered, in my mind, how in the world could I lead a school where everybody would get along and the kids wouldn't fight and the parents wouldn't be upset and I was kind of unloading on my dad and he said, Honey, you are tearing yourself up.
looking for a time where there's going to be no problems. And he said, you don't want that world. That first of all, is never going to happen. But second of all, then there's no need for you, right? You have to look at problems as, Oh, okay, this is what this day is going to bring to me. Or, Oh, this is interesting.
How, what, what might be going on here? [00:04:00] And so instead of thinking of problems as something to work to eliminate or to avoid, or again, as a mark on my failure as a leader, you should look at them as, huh, well, this, this is interesting. This is what I'm going to be working on today. And so in his mindset where he might replace a roof or he might load a trailer full of sheep to take to auction, that was the day's work, right?
And school leaders really need to start thinking about that. This conflict that I have that has been presented to me or that I stumbled into, that's my work today, or that's going to be my work this year or whatever. And so you it, for me in that moment, I thought Eureka this is a whole opportunity for the rest of my career, really, to think, okay, this is something we're going to work on and we're going to work our way through it.
And that does not, please hear me, that does not mean [00:05:00] you successfully navigate conflict every time or you do it right. It also doesn't mean, and I'll probably mention this a few times it doesn't even mean you always have to do something. You don't always have to act. But you have to think of conflict as a potential for productivity and for a chance to improve in some way or help two people connect in a way there hadn't been a relationship before, or make your systems better, make your processes more streamlined.
All of it is kind of a door opening just a little bit. And you can make the decision as a leader to push that door open and see what's beyond it.
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Ross Romano: Kind of stepping back and looking at it I could sort of observe that the presence of conflict within the school is while necessary to pay attention to it, determine the right course of action, et cetera, [00:06:00] but its presence and its persistence is a positive sign in certain ways. You know, one it indicates right, in the profession.
And it indicates a profession where there is a lot of passion. It's challenging. There's hard work that people who really care about what they're doing and care about the results they're getting are by nature going to be more likely to have strong feelings. about the way other people are doing their job, right?
But if it's still continuing, it at least indicates that we're not checked out, burned out, right? I mean that there's, in any workplace people are going to have probably internal feelings of things they're dissatisfied with or they wish were different or they want to change, etc. But if they don't choose to [00:07:00] really put that much energy into it, it might be an indication of that they're sort of on their way out the door or that, right?
I mean, it doesn't, again, right, we have to avoid negative conflicts or disagreements that turn into something worse, but I think. Kind of having a mentality of, all right, let's first start from the place of kind of that assume positive intent thing of, let's first assume that the reason why some of these things are happening is because we have people who feel strongly about what they're doing and they really care and not everybody always initially agrees on everything.
So we need to discuss it. But I'd rather have this than have a bunch of people who are just going through the motions and just feel like it's kind of a lost cause, right? Well, there's no point in even voicing any disagreement because nothing's going to change and it doesn't matter,
Jen Schwanke: Well, I think. I think you [00:08:00] nailed it. And I make it a lot of connections to a family, right? Like I have a friend and she says, my family never fights. And I say, well, tell me about that. And she said, and she's talking to her extended family. She said, yeah, we don't really talk. We're not we're, we don't really see each other.
It'll go years before I see my sister or my brother or whatever. And I thought, well, that is not. Great. You know, you want a family that can work through the swamp of life. You want a situation where you have been through hard times so that when it's time to come together and work through a problem, there's that trust, there's knowing, the knowing one another, the understanding that, for example, my colleague, if I know that a colleague, whenever there's conflict is always going to first react with defensiveness, then I can accept that, right?
And I can say, okay, there's the defensive part. And now we're going to get to the work or the solution. And so it is really is about getting to know one another on a colleague basis. And then in terms of students or parents, which [00:09:00] is, that's of course, the main clients of a school district, those students, you have to get to the root of how people are thinking and feeling in order to even begin to dissect the problem.
And you mentioned it's a problem if there's a lack of caring or a lack of engagement. And what I would call that is apathy. And to me, I think apathy is incredibly damaging to any situation, family, work, whatever, because apathy to me indicates a lack of hope. And if you don't have hope, you first have anger, typically, and then you have despair, and then you have apathy, and none of those three things are helpful or are are going to lead to any sort of contribution of hope.
So it's cyclical. It feeds on itself. And so like you said, if people come into their work and they close the door and they do their work and [00:10:00] then they go home and they don't really care, they don't have hope that they can make a difference or that their teammates are going to get along with them or that their leadership is going to, whatever it is that lack of sense of hope you know, anger, despair, and apathy are so damaging.
And you don't want that. You want people to think, you know what, if I open my mouth and I have something to say, people are going to listen. And they're, they might argue, they might agree. They might say, yeah, let's do something with that, but I'm going to be heard. And that's the goal as you work through conflict.
It's not to say, okay, let's all please get along and like everybody be nice. It's to say what productivity is going to come out of this.
Ross Romano: Yeah, and it's also potentially a sign, right, depending on, we'll get deeper into this, but the nature of the conflicts, what they're about, and where they go it could be a sign to you as the school leader that in fact there are things you're doing right, right, versus doing wrong. If people [00:11:00] feel open to share their insights talk about.
different ideas they have or areas of disagreement or they feel that they're able to put them forth so that they can be worked on. It's an indication, one you mentioned earlier, getting along that getting along could look like go along to get along and or whatever, we'll just do whatever.
And we maybe we're missing out on a lot of good ideas or we have people who are right, feeling more apathetic, less enthusiastic about what we're doing, or Getting along could mean reaching an agreement, right? We start from a place of disagreement, we ultimately reach some agreement about how to proceed.
It doesn't mean I necessarily think that what everybody else says is right, or I think that my opinion was wrong, but we figure out, all right, here's how we're going to move forward, and we're going to have maybe a more dynamic marketplace exchange of ideas, right, that we can kind of say [00:12:00] As a school leader, even though I came from perhaps an instructional in a classroom background, I'm now in a different role.
There's certain things I don't have visibility into. There's things that each individual in my staff and faculty may notice, observe, or just know that I may be missing or that could be helpful. And those could be the germs of some feelings of tension and conflict, You know, rather than holding on to those resentments, like the family who doesn't fight because I'm just going to sit on this.
It's not worth it. Right? And it just turns into emotional distance or a more unmanageable, explosive conflict down the road that we understand this is a place where, again, right, we're going to choose a connotation of this word that just means right now we have a disagreement. To discuss versus we [00:13:00] are incompatible, irreconcilable,
Jen Schwanke: right. And I think that's, that it's important to recognize too, when conflicts exist and they are what they are and you've got to move on. I think any married person would say there are certain things you let go of, right? Okay. My my husband doesn't unload the dishwasher. I can be mad about that for 50 years, or I can say, okay, that's not going to be his thing.
There's certainly something that I do that, that ticks. my partner off and we're going to live together in peace anyway. So I think it's important to say that. I also I personally live by a rule I made up, which was the four tens rule. And this is you kind of go through this checklist in your mind.
Is this going to even matter in 10 minutes? Is this going to matter in 10 hours, 10 days, 10 months, 10 years, right? So, I always think if something doesn't matter anymore in 10 minutes, do nothing, like let it go. If something still. doesn't matter in, in 10 days, then you should let it go, but maybe learn from [00:14:00] it.
If it's still going to matter somebody, if they're still going to be hurt and pain after 10 months, then it's significant. And then again, 10 years, if somebody's still gonna be walking around thinking, well, that one time I was so damaged or hurt or insulted. that I can't let it go, then it's something that really needs intervention.
And so I sometimes think as leaders, we jump to every conflict as in, okay, I got to fix this. I have to fix this and make everybody get along. And so I think you have to learn to train yourself to measure whether or not something is really a conflict or just a bad moment for someone, a snip, a snap, a frustration residue from whatever happened to them that morning.
But yeah, sometimes there are conflicts that can create wounds that last a long time. And that helps frame your response. And similarly, I think there's types of conflict, just to use school leaders as a particular example. You handle student conflicts very differently than you handle adult conflicts. You handle conflicts between your staff and [00:15:00] faculty differently than you would a parent.
And I do talk about that in the book. There's just a different approach. And again, it's all about the leader's mindset. What is the outcome I want to get out of this? And then track from there. I developed this a three pronged cycle that, that begin, I don't even want to say it begins, but there's anticipating conflict.
You have to kind of look and see if you are setting people up for conflict unknowingly, and then you wonder why it keeps happening, right? So a good example for that would be you've got your, a middle school principal and you know, middle schoolers are handsy and pushy and touchy and chubby, but yet you dismiss.
all 900 kids at once to go to the bus, right? And then you wonder why people shove and push each other. That's an anticipation step where you can say, how can I change something so we don't have a fight at the bus every day? The second step to that is analyze it. So to really think about why is this happening?
What processes are in place [00:16:00] that are triggering this? What norms have I not set? What input have I not gotten? And really analyze why this conflict happened And then the final step is act. So again, this is to think about that outcome you want, what your role is, whether it's to do nothing, to facilitate a conversation, to oversee a conversation, to recommend a conversation, whatever it is.
And so if you follow that process and you tell yourself, what step am I in? And what can I do to get us to the right outcome? It's much better than always be in reaction mode. I actually work with a lot of principals in consulting outside of my real job. And a lot of times I'll say to them you're so, so hell bent on eliminating the conflict that you're not looking at what you or your system is doing.
may have set up to make it inevitable. And then you're mad that it happened. So you walk around feeling like a failure, but [00:17:00] one or two tweaks here or there, one or two insights from a colleague, might eliminate it. It might change everything.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Are there with this anticipate, so we'll talk about this three step process. So the first step of this anticipate, are there ways for, particularly if you're say a new school leader, or even if you're not new, but to. tap into your experiences when you were in other roles, when you were a teacher, when you were an assistant, et cetera, right? To use that to your advantage, to anticipate, okay, here's where some of these sources of conflict or tension, here's what I perceived when I was in that role, here's what I can see differently from where I am now, here are some of the communication gaps to bridge, here are some of the things maybe to be proactive about to use, right, the knowledge that I have and now the new [00:18:00] perspective to understand, one, again, it's not, my fault that these things are occurring.
So I, but I need to approach them confidently because ultimately I am accountable for what's going to happen going forward. So I can't hide from it, hope it goes away, et cetera. But I would imagine that that, that perspective would be helpful and it's most immediately helpful when it's fresher, right?
In one's mind and you're kind of making that transition to say, all right, let me use that to my advantage.
Jen Schwanke: Right. I, as you were talking, I was thinking about an activity that I did last summer with a group. And it was so incredibly helpful to them. What I did is I said, okay, I want you all to think of a conflict that either bothered you or that's still bothering you. And we kind of, compiled them all. And then I said, okay, we're going to put every one of these, all the, one of these conflicts into a [00:19:00] bucket.
The bucket is either going to be a people problem, a process problem, or something out of our control. And it was incredibly insightful for, because we always, we default to, it's a people problem. Somebody isn't thinking like they should or acting like they should. Somebody isn't meeting expectations. And we always blame people.
And sometimes that is true, but there's also process problems. And by process, I mean systems or the way we've always done things, or somebody who hasn't evolved from a particular mindset or way of doing things. And then there's things out of our control. There truly are conflicts that come out of things that are not in our control.
And usually that is a. residual effect of people or processes that have failed in the past. And so therefore there's resentment or there's anger or there's there's some sort of a what am I trying to say here? Some sort of a revenge piece there, right? Somebody's made me mad or upset me before and I'm going [00:20:00] to come in and I'm going to race hell until I feel better about myself.
So I think identifying conflicts as which problem it is so helpful. This is the silliest story. And I hope people realize this is, this was an aha moment for me. We had, this was years ago, I was a principal of a school and there was one bus. Every principal who's listening is going to say, I know the bus.
It's the, but there were always fights. There was always, the bus drivers would always quit that route. It was terrible. And Ross, they had two miles to drive. I could not understand this. And I would see these kids at school and they were fine. They were not fighters. They were not name callers. They weren't mean kids, but in that two miles, it was like a war zone.
And one day it occurred to me, this is not a problem. There is nothing wrong with these. 45 kids that are getting on this bus. What it was, where my school was, you could there was a stoplight. And if you turned left, there were probably eight more stoplights to get to [00:21:00] this apartment complex where the students were delivered.
Or you could turn right and there were no stop lights, but there was a highway. It was probably actually two miles longer, but the bus was moving the entire time. And I suggested to the driver, turn right. Take the highway. She said, well, it's longer. I said, I bet you it's faster. And I bet those students sitting at the stoplights in a hot bus with all this traffic and all this noise and being idle.
I bet that's the problem. And I am, I hand to God, it worked. The, that was a process that because we were trying to save in mileage. And the kids were locked in this steel cylinder and poking and pushing and prodding and calling. I never had, and I'm not exaggerating, I never had another fight on that bus again.
So what I'm saying there is you sometimes can't just assume, Oh, these are bad people or they're tired and hungry and they're, so they're going at each other. It could just be that the process needs attention. tiny little tweak and your conflict will really dissipate. So all of that long story to [00:22:00] say, we really have to analyze carefully and try different things to see if we might come out of the conflict better for it
Ross Romano: And then so it's anticipate, analyze and act or don't.
Jen Schwanke: or don't. Right.
Ross Romano: What is gonna can you break down that decision a little bit once you've sort of made your analysis, you talked a little bit earlier about you know, if it's not going to matter in 10 minutes, right? It's not worth doing something about you know, this could also relate to you writing the book about it.
productive conflict, right? That doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't require action, but kind of seeing, all right what should I do here? Or when are the times where I shouldn't do anything?
Jen Schwanke: Right. And I think this is this is critical, especially for teachers and school leaders who we are by nature fixers. We want to fix things. And so sometimes a problem will come toward us and we'll think, okay, I've got to fix it. If I had a dime for every time someone's come to me and said, listen [00:23:00] to this email I got, or this parent's really upset because, or these students are fussing at each other because, whatever, colleagues.
And I would say, okay, that's good information, but you don't need to act on that. These a good example is two law, two colleagues who might be disagreeing and the principal feels like they have to set up a meeting and sit down and hear one perspective and hear the other. And often, no, you don't.
You know, they're grownups. They can work through this. And every time we step into a conflict to fix it, we do take power away from the two people or three people or two teams or whatever who have the ability and have the vested interest in working through it themselves. So you don't want to take away that power.
And by power, I mean, confidence and security and willingness to work through a problem. And so all that is to say, sometimes A nasty email doesn't need a reply. It needs a, okay, thanks for sharing and I noted sometimes a [00:24:00] people need to be uncomfortable in conflict in order to be motivated to work through it.
And so I as a principal and I learned this from a mentor, so I'm not taking credit. I was fussing once with our school counselor and I thought she was irresponsible and arrogant and abrasive. And my principal came to me and said, you two need to go to coffee. And I thought, well, that's the last thing I want to do.
Are you kidding me? And she said, no you need to go to coffee. It was borderline on a mandate. And I went to coffee and the counselor and I worked through those things as a guidance counselor, she had a whole bunch on her plate that I didn't know about and vice versa. And we're it's 23 years later and we're dear friends.
Sometimes the principal, the leader needs to say, Hey, go work this out, figure, figure it out. And then there's other times where you need to be much more involved in the facilitation and not in a therapist marriage counselor kind of way, what I hear you saying is not that, but hey what's, what are our shared goals here?
What are the two perspectives we're [00:25:00] working at? How can we get to a place of compromise? And sometimes that takes time. Sometimes it takes. Hours, sometimes months, sometimes years. But we want to give that power to work through conflict to others. It is way too much on a principal or a leader's shoulders to take everyone's conflict and absorb it and assume we have to fix it.
The much more sustainable and productive response I would argue is to say, okay, you, you have Let's think about some ideas about how you might work through this. Not, okay, I'll be there at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning for a meeting, right? Don't say that. Say let's brainstorm. I bet you I can have some perspective that will help you as you go forward.
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Ross Romano: What are some of the ways that your approach may differ or be influenced by who is involved in the conflict? If it's staff and staff, [00:26:00] Parents and staff, parents and school, students, student to student, student to teacher there's different dynamics. Do they kind of dictate which types of approaches and responses may be more necessary in a given case?
Jen Schwanke: Well, do we have like five hours? Cause that's how long it's good. I'm just kidding. We don't need five hours. But again, it's about mindset. Whenever there is a conflict with students, I have a, my, I approach in terms of teaching. I want these. let's assume two. I want these two people to learn something out of this.
And so I want them to know themselves a little bit better. I want them to be able to learn to anticipate, analyze, act. And so I kind of work through that cycle with the students. You know, what happened to get us here? Why were you feeling that way? What made you feel sensitive? That's part of the anticipate step, then analyze, okay, where, What [00:27:00] set you up for this?
Where do we want to go? What do we need to do? And then the act part, what are we going to change? Too many school leaders, I believe, approach student conflict with an intent to eliminate it. And by that I mean, they'll say to, let's say two students are fussing at each other, they'll say, I want you to stay away from each other.
That doesn't teach the kid anything except avoid, and you know, students are like flies to a flame. They're going to navigate toward each other. And so when we say to kids, Hey, you're in a conflict, stay away from each other. The students are like, okay, I'll do that. And it lasts about five minutes.
And then they find each other, right? Every school leader knows that. So we have to teach through it. And we have to hopefully teach a little bit about empathy and understanding safe distances are fine, but it can't be the only strategy.
Ross Romano: Yeah.
Jen Schwanke: When I think about colleagues I always go back to the word family because many times colleagues are going to be rubbing elbows with one another for decades.
And so many times hate, anger, disrespect, [00:28:00] gossip is simply not acceptable. And so you kind of have to take the long term view about how can these colleagues continue to work together in a way that isn't damaging or divisive for our staff. And that comes from understanding. who feels wronged, why they feel wrong, where the misstep was, and again, to circle back, processes.
So many times processes aren't clear. So you might have, I'm just grabbing an example out of thin air, but you might have a teacher who's really frustrated because she doesn't know where she doesn't know where to find IEPs that are the intervention specialist perhaps isn't as forthcoming as she would want them to be.
And so she's mad because she doesn't know things. Ah, that's a lack of information that's creating conflict. So we need to get better at communication. So therefore, our process for communication, communicating needs of students is not in place. How can we fix that? And then parents are a whole other a whole other minefield, I'm going to say, just because parents [00:29:00] always come from a place of love and protection for their child.
And that can manifest itself in a lot of yucky feelings. They can lash out, they can accuse, they can say big words. This is disappointing. This is unacceptable. I'm calling my attorney, whatever it is. And so that kind of conflict tends to come with fear. And when I think about myself, whenever I feel fear, I'm not making rational decisions.
So if I get a hate mail from a parent in my inbox, I want to reply right away to make it all better. I'm a fixer, remember? But that's coming from a place of fear rather than logic, reason, and again, an eye to that outcome. So with parents, I always tell people when they ask me, Pause, wait. You are going to be better in your response and your plan if you wait 24 hours, because the email or the phone call was made in emotion.
And if you reply with emotion, we're not going to get anywhere. So to give yourself [00:30:00] permission, to take time. And circling back to your original question, in the book, there's separate chapters for these different types of conflicts because they do require a different mindset. And we can't just be a hammer looking for nails, right?
And go and try and blast all the conflict out of existence. We have to really take that time to analyze it before we act.
Ross Romano: and I don't know if this would be conflict management or prevention, but is there, I guess, such thing as potentially like hidden conflict or proactive, for example, like, maybe it would be anticipate investigate either. Okay. This is, you know. Some big new thing we're doing in the school, and we think it's likely that once people learn about it, there's going to be some people who have some questions or feel opposition, or we heard One parent had a complaint about X. We're sure they're not [00:31:00] the only one, and rather than waiting for everybody to individually have to voice their questions or their pushback, let's have a strategy here for communicating about this, for welcoming their feedback, but for also communicating where we're coming from, etc. To You know, sort of, right, one to sort of do this at scale and say, look, we're dealing with, there's a lot of different stakeholders in our community and there may be a lot of issues that are not unique, that there's other people thinking the same thing, or other people who will eventually think the same thing once they encounter it.
Or things that we just know that are worth maybe proactively looking into, investigating, doing a survey about, etc. and saying, okay, before it becomes a full fledged conflict we can imagine that there's at least going to be some conflicting opinions.[00:32:00]
Jen Schwanke: Yeah, I think you're a very good question asker, my friend. This is I think at the crux of what many school leaders struggle with is the anticipation process can go really right or really wrong. I think I see a lot of school leaders wrongly anticipating a problem where there isn't going to be one, but they'll say, Oh, this isn't going to go well.
This is going to be so bad. Okay. We need to blast it on social media. We need to send the emails. We need our parent meetings and really nobody actually cares. So that's a lot of wasted angst and anxiety and it amps up the emotion in your school. Okay, so that's one thing is we can't be so dramatic in our anticipation that everything feels like it's going to be a federal case.
Now, with that said, I think to your point, sometimes we implement something or we change or we, whatever, and we start to hear there's a little bit of unrest. I think it's a mistake to Use that as a trigger to blow everything up, to cancel it, to change it, to send out massive [00:33:00] surveys. I think you have to first look at your sources.
Is the, are the people that are beginning to grumble, are they typically grumblers? Because if so, stay the course. But if you're hearing some concerns from people who tend to get on board and like to see things through, then you might say, Oh, there's some things I didn't anticipate. And then you might call some people together and brainstorm and say, Hey, tell me what you're feeling about this.
And then if you think, okay, we are way off track with our processes here. There's something here we need to fix. Then I think you're right, Ross you figure out which feedback matters and you get it. And I do see a lot of school leaders. oversaturating their communities with surveys and questions.
It almost makes them paralyzed to make a decision because they want to make sure everybody's on board before they make it a decision or before they implement something. And I think that diminishes the, clout and respect that people have for them, because sometimes people do just want someone to make a decision, [00:34:00] right?
And they're going to grumble, but you got to kind of move on. But then there's other things where you might say, okay, I didn't see all of the flaws in my plan. So now I've got to take a step back, say, Hey, we're going to get some focus groups together. We're going to think this through and see how we can make it better for next year.
But it shouldn't, I don't think be a knee jerk. Ooh, somebody's not happy. So cancel. School. School leaders deal with this so often, Ross, because you'll get, as a principal, I would get an email and it would say, okay this is a problem and I'm not the only parent that thinks this. Well, that isn't necessarily even true, but it makes the principal feel like everybody's mad.
And by everybody, it could be thousands of people, and it's not, it's one person, or it's two people, and those people tend to be leaders in a, let's say it's a parent who's a parent leader, and they may be mad, I'm using an example here, about their athlete's playing time, and so the principal needs to think, okay, After the ball game, this parent's kid didn't play.
And so [00:35:00] this parent went up to five other parents and said, can you believe this coach? Terrible playing time, terrible pacing and terrible practice stinks too. And those other parents are going to nod and say, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. But they might turn around and say, I don't actually agree with that. I was nodding because I'm a good friend.
But then that parent goes home and sits down at the keyboard and says, I talked to five other parents and we all think this way. Then what that's, what has happened is there's a, the principal's panicked because they think I have a big problem, but really all it was an emotional situation where the parent got support from friends and it really isn't a problem.
But those moments tend to be good and good to file away. I have a friend who says, just put that in your back pocket and pull it out when you need it. You're always gathering information, but it doesn't necessarily mean you need to survey your whole community and change your course midstream.
Ross Romano: right. And certainly there's a squeaky wheel,
Jen Schwanke: Right, right,
Ross Romano: or that sometimes we can't [00:36:00] overgeneralize and think, oh, this one person seems really passionate about this. That means everybody feels that way. But it does take some case by case weighing of things and understanding, and I do think most people, most reasonable people, right, it's not, they don't expect every decision that's made to be the same one they would have made but they get frustrated when they feel like their perspective doesn't register.
It's not taken into account, right? And that goes to the importance of, like, saying, Basically, we appreciate the feedback we received. You know, here's the decision we went with. Here's why we'll continue to evaluate as we move forward, or whatever the case may be having some sense of closure to those things, not saying, okay, I have to, we have to immediately pause or stop or change things because we have some different ideas coming [00:37:00] in.
But that if we feel like there's. A segment that has a certain perspective if we can at least show some way of demonstrating that we value the people who are contributing their ideas, even if we know that not all the ideas are the ones that we're going to do, I guess.
Jen Schwanke: Well exactly and I also think there's a component of that you're alluding to where sometimes we have made a bad decision. We have implemented something that just doesn't make sense and it's not helping anyone. And then I think it's a mistake to stick to it by God because you're the principal and you're the boss and it becomes you damaging, even if people accept it.
A common one principals deal with a lot is the same teacher gets the tricky behaviors every year, right? And it's kind of, people complain that the teachers complain about it. One teacher gets the gifted kids, one teacher gets the behavior kids. [00:38:00] And principals will say, well, that's the way it works.
That's the schedule. I can't change it. And that's where I think, well, wait a minute, push back on that a little bit. Think about how that feels to be. either the teacher on the tricky class end or the teacher who always has the students who are high achieving, but therefore might have parents who are high achieving too, right?
There's pressure on all of us. So in that sense, I think Sometimes principals work too much in isolation. And so, yes, they're the ones that ultimately make the decision. But to come in and say something like, Hey, this is a problem I've heard about now for six years. Can we really think outside the box, the three of us, and just think about how we can change this or six of us or 12 of us or whatever, and just dream big, dream big and re envision so that.
People don't think, okay, this is a conflict point and it's always going to be that way. So whatever, I'll get through. It's a really delicate dance between being the person in charge who makes the [00:39:00] decisions and getting stakeholder input to always be getting better. And so again, it's that identify the problem, anticipate, analyze, act, and ask for help along the way if you feel like your own thinking isn't getting you anywhere.
Right.
Ross Romano: any analysis, I guess, around, I think there's a, it's a particularly a timely issue around, manufactured conflict around that may be generating conflict not acting in good faith, right? And where a lot of times I think the conflicts that maybe come up around, right? A a poor decision that a leader actually made and that, that can be hard because it can feel personal or you can feel sensitive, but these other things can be even harder because maybe our previous position is, I'm just going to ignore this because this isn't.
But it can also get away from you you know, it's perhaps [00:40:00] an opportunity to maybe enforce and reinforce some parameters or some authenticity around the processes that are happening, but it's there's a risk involved too because once, I guess, once something sort of takes off, then it can really, I mean, it can derail.
the actual positive efforts because it gets ignored for too long, even though you may know, right. This is just, this is literally one or two people that are starting this. But if we don't pay any attention to it or try to fortify the support around the things we are really doing here and why we're doing them that, that little spark could turn into a fire.
Jen Schwanke: right. I, and again that's a constant challenge for principals because there is, I always, I'm not a mathematician nor am I a psychologist, but I feel like there's 2 percent of people that are always going to stir the [00:41:00] pot. They're, they love the drama. They find conflict where it's not there. You stand up at a staff meeting and you say a few things and that person goes back to their colleagues and says, can you believe, and repeats your words in a different way that, that perpetuates ill intent.
Those. Those sometimes are the most hurtful because you'll never change those people. They exist and everything you say, any attempt you make is not going to work. And I always advise principals, you've got to lead around them, build the trust and the efficacy of the people who aren't doing that.
And so while this person, let's say it's a staff member. No, let's say it's a parent. Let's say a parent is constantly attacking teachers, constantly going around them. Your job then as a principal is to support your staff members, your teachers who are getting hurtful emails, who are, who feel attacked and let them know that you do not and will not give light to these, to this person.
Similarly, circling back, if it's a staff member who's constantly undermining the [00:42:00] mission of the school, who's constantly tearing you down, you have to forge and lead around. Because most people want to trust and follow their principal. Most people believe that schools do well with a compassionate, confident, strong Skill leader, they want that.
And so you sometimes have to leave behind the stain and I always think of those toxic people as kind of, this is a little bit gory, but a blood stain who is just going to keep seeping and keep seeping and make everything red and nasty. And you have to kind of move past that and say, okay, this exists.
Some people truly wake up in the morning and want bad things to happen to other people. These are the ones that they want someone fired. They want a kid suspended. They want big dramatic action. And that's the only thing that will make them feel the conflict has been addressed. But that's not true.
We all know that. We all know that suspending literally or [00:43:00] figuratively suspending a problem only pauses. the impact that that problem has. So it needs to be dealt with at some point. But if you're working with someone that is looking for ways to bring down the system,
Have to fortify the people who believe in the system and believe in the school and give them more voice.
And you may never empower, let's say there's a team of four people and one of them is toxic and hateful. You may never empower them. Get those remaining three to a place where they will say, Hey, stop it, but you will get them to a place where they can listen as a friend or a teammate, and then go forth and lead in a positive way, whether it's their own classroom or the rest of the team or whatever.
So, those are the things that hurt the most. Those are the things that give me a stomach ache. I know when I think I'm never going to be able to fix this conflict, but you can, if you stay focused on the positive. you know, where the stain is not.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Is this something principals [00:44:00] only get better at by living through it or are there exercises? You know, can you practice? How can you strengthen your skills?
Jen Schwanke: saw that always needs sharpened, but I have never met a principal that doesn't still get affected by conflict. I I've been doing this 26 years. I'm not a principal now but still leading schools. And it's, there's always still angst and pain and feelings attached to it. But what I am better at, I'm only speaking for myself, what I am much better at, and this has come with practice and experience.
is that pause piece. I have learned to say to myself, okay, Jen, you feel really bad right now, but a good meal and a good night's sleep and a nice walk in the morning, and you're going to look at this differently. And the one voice in my head says, no, you're not. This is horrible. This is going to bring everything down.
But if I trust that I just need to step away 100 percent of the time, the next day with 24 hours, 48 hours, I see more clearly. And I think, [00:45:00] wow I can do this. And I will lead with logic and rational thought and calm and empathy and equanimity. I will do that because I can, but I rarely can to answer your question.
I'm not better at in the moment responses than I was when I was 24. I am much better at responses when I've given myself a hot second to think through it.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's likely true for most people, right? That
Jen Schwanke: Right. Right.
Ross Romano: of the time there's the benefit of taking a pause, but as much as possible that there's Just more factors to consider, more dynamics and that thinking it through and determining the right course of action, the right response is better than something that's hasty right?
So as we're as we're wrapping up here, [00:46:00] Art, besides, Your book are there other particularly, I guess, for, well, in either case, let's say any school leader that hasn't had training in conflict management any ways they could seek that out that you would recommend or resources or if they have the mindset of Understanding the importance of the stakes here and that it is a significant part of the job that is new once you're in that job.
If they're not something you're typically responsible for before you get there. But it can be, in a lot of ways a make or break for culture and for retention and recruitment and not to mention the efficacy of your individuals and the collective, but Yeah, let's say nobody's offering me training here and it's not what I was taught, but I need to get [00:47:00] better at it and I don't want to wait until I have navigated through enough big conflicts in my school.
Hopefully I get better.
Jen Schwanke: Well, exactly. And let's be real here for a moment. There isn't a single principal running a building that's had a graduate level class on conflict management. It doesn't exist. And so you do have to learn on the job and it takes such a long time. And I think that that's why so many principals express to me, but also in online forums and in, in staff or in, in collegial.
settings, such frustration and a feeling of failure because they go into a job every day where they're literally paid to navigate through conflict and they don't know how or they do it and it doesn't go as they wanted and so they feel like they failed. So that's a problem. There is nothing But on the job training.
So what I encourage principals to do is to just don't do it alone Please don't do it alone [00:48:00] because that's where you get isolated and angry and burnt out You do this is such a cliche, but build a network of people you can call Whether again, it's an online forum or a colleague you have at the other end of the phone where you can say, Hey, can I just outline the facts as I know them and talk me through what I might do?
So many times we react to conflict based on our instinct, which if we're leaders just by being in a seat we can assume that our instincts are strong, but Instinct doesn't come, bring confidence along with it. so to talk it through, I have learned so much from trusted mentors and friends. So many times I'll think, okay, I'll say to a colleague, Hey, here's the facts and here's what I'm gonna do.
What do you think? And if it's somebody that I've empowered to be honest with me, when they say, well, I know I better listen up because there's something good coming. And sometimes it changes my, me. planned [00:49:00] approach. Sometimes it reaffirms my planned approach, but it makes me feel like I've put in the time and the energy to really think it through.
That's my number one push for any leader is don't work alone. Because if you, if things go south, then you really are alone because nobody's going to say, It wasn't all that bad. They're going to say, why'd you do that? And why'd you work alone?
Ross Romano: so listeners, the book is The Principal's Guide to Conflict Management. It's available from ASCD or wherever you get your books. We'll put the link to that below. You can also learn more about this book and Jen's other work at jenschwanke. com. We'll put that link below. Jen, anything else there that people should check out if we have school leaders listening other books or resources that they should look at?
Jen Schwanke: Nope. They can check out, like you said, my website, JenSchwonke. com. I'm happy to come and meet with your group or do some virtual stuff or whatever. Just reach out to me. But it's been a pleasure, Roscoe. You and I met, it's been like eight years ago when my first book came out. It's so nice to reconnect and talk through these [00:50:00] things.
Ross Romano: No, it couldn't be that long.
Jen Schwanke: Yes, it was, my friend. It was 2016 or 2017, maybe. I hate to break it to you, but it's been a while.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. So everybody please do check that out below. There's the links. And if you're not already, please do also subscribe to the authority for more author interviews coming your way every week, we will continue to cover all of the leadership topics that are relevant to your work. So please do subscribe.
Jen, thanks so much for being on the show.
Jen Schwanke: Thank you so much.
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