94. Enhancing Your School Leadership with the Dare To Lead Program with Nicole McDermott

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Tara: Welcome to Mindful School Marketing. I’m Tara Clays. 

Aubrey: And I’m Aubrey Bursch. Today we’re joined by Nicole McDermott. Nicole is an independent school leader, facilitator, certified leadership coach, and search consultant with 20 plus years of experience. She values choosing courage over comfort, leading with transparency and vulnerability, building a nurturing community, attending to the details, and showing up with curiosity.

For 18 years, she served as head of an award winning Northern Virginia Independent school, and now works with schools, connecting them to outstanding leaders as a partner with educational directions, an acknowledged leader in the independent school leadership search consulting field. And as a certified coach and certified dare to lead facilitator trained directly by Brené Brown to facilitate curriculum based on her research and best selling books.

Welcome Nicole. We’re so happy you’re here with us today. 

Nicole: Thank you. I’m really glad to be with you. 

Tara: Yes. Thank you so much. I was excited to meet you recently at an information session at the Sycamore school. It was really fun to, to be part of a presentation of other school professionals. And of course, as happens, we realized, we know a lot of people in common and was so excited to hear about what you do around mindfulness and, and leadership.

So we’re thrilled that you were able to join us. Can you tell us beyond what, Aubrey just shared about you, which is amazing. Can you tell us something else about yourself? 

Nicole: Sure. Yeah. So it’s funny because this is my first year in a long time, not being in a school first school year. And I still really always identify as a teacher.

When I was in second grade, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I always say it kind of chose me as opposed to me making that choice. And so it has always felt that teaching is a, is my vocation much more so than it was my occupation. And the other thing I would just share is that the school that I led in Northern Virginia, we started a mindfulness program for students.

I like to say before it was trendy before it was a buzzword. It was about 10 years ago in 2014 and we saw so many benefits to the culture and from feedback from families. About how it really made a difference. So there’s a lot of alignment here today, and I’m really happy to be with you. 

Aubrey: There is a lot of alignment, and we’re excited that you’re here.

You know, as we’re thinking about, you know, you mentioned Brene Brown, and everyone kind of knows who she is I’d love to know more, and I know our listeners would as well, more about that Dare to Lead program that was mentioned in your bio. Can you tell us a little bit more about it? 

Nicole: Yes, so in 2018 Brene Brown released Dare to Lead, the book, which is right behind me, and and after that book came out following that was a curriculum that Brene and her team had developed, and it’s research based like everything Brene Brown does is, is heavily research based.

She’s a qualitative researcher. And the program really, so it’s, it’s a tricky thing, right? Because you think it’s a leadership program, Dare to Lead, and it is. And what we like to say most is that it’s a courage building program. And it’s based around four skillsets that are teachable, observable, and measurable.

Aubrey: That’s so interesting. I’m curious, what are the four skillsets? 

Nicole: Yeah, so the four skill sets are also, you know, if you, if you’re familiar with Brene Brown, this will all feel familiar. The first one is vulnerability. So kind of talking about it, understanding it you know, how were we raised? What the, what messages about vulnerability did we get?

And, and essentially kind of getting more comfortable with vulnerability. Number two is clarity of values. So a lot of times we think we know what our values are. And as we dig deeper and try to think about, okay, well, here’s my behavior and here are my values. And I’m not sure if that’s a, if that’s, if that’s actually matching up right, that it, then it’s an aspirational value.

And so this is a clarity of values where we can really figure out what are our practice values and how do those show up in our behavior and in our work. And also the idea that you don’t have work values and home values and church values and parents values. You have your values. And that’s kind of you’re showing up as your whole heart itself.

And, and those values need to be clear. And then following that comes trust which is kind of a big gauzy word and hard to kind of really pin down. And so there’s a lot of work around operationalizing trust. You know, what does it really mean again, showing up in behavior. And then the final skill set is Brené calls it rising skills.

And it’s essentially, you know, we are all going to fail. We will have missteps. There will be hard times. And how do we get back up from that? How do we persevere? How do we can show resilience? And continue to continue to keep going and, and showing up with daring leadership.

Tara: Okay. So all this stuff I, I’ve listened to Brene Brown and so it’s familiar to me but I want to ask about how this applies to a school curriculum. I mean, 

Nicole: yeah, 

Tara: it’s great as a podcast and as a book to listen to as a personal, you know, as personal self help. But how do you use it as a curriculum in a school?

Nicole: Yes, so that’s a great question. When, when dare to lead came out, I was already several years into being very, very familiar with Brene Brown, and we had been at the school where I was, we had been working with her research and her content for several years already, you know, some of her main areas. I mean, The least thing that anybody wants to talk about it with Brene Brown is how she’s a shame researcher, right?

And shame is not a subject that we really want to ever delve into or talk about and talking about it and delving into it and understanding it helps us show up more wholeheartedly because we can kind of let go of that. So it’s really interesting when you think about some of her work around shame and how, you know, with kids in a building every day and kids in classrooms how much language we sometimes can use that is shaming language.

And, you know, the biggest distinction with that is I made a mistake. That’s kind of guilt. I am a mistake. That’s shame. And so, you know, we have to be really careful as educators in a school, you know, what language are we using with students? Also, kids will say, I was a bad boy. You know, I had kids in my house.

I, I, I’m naughty. I’m a bad boy. And we would say, you’re a good kid. And you made a bad choice. And you know, whether or not they really understood that, and it was important to us to kind of say that, especially once we engaged in this work. And then also supporting parents, because parents think they’re doing the right thing, and sometimes they’re using language that hurts and is not great.

That’s one piece. And then the other piece I would say is the curiosity, the empathy the focus on trying, how to have a hard conversation when you know, it’s tricky. And a teacher and a parent, and especially in an independent school, there is a customer aspect, you know, and we don’t like to talk about that.

And everyone does feel that to a degree. And so, so yeah, the, the, the pieces of her work really extend Perfectly in my mind to a school and we worked with, like I said, we were already working with it and then once I was trained, we continued doing dare to lead content. All the teachers were trained at the time that I left and dare to lead trained, which means they went through the full curriculum and I think it did really change the culture of our school.

I think we had embedded these ideas that were. Bigger than just educating a kid. And I think also the school where I was, we were very focused on social emotional growth. And I think a lot of independent schools are. And so that’s also the the alignment is there too. 

Tara: Yeah, I have so many questions going through my head.

So I’m going to Jump in. I’m not going to let Aubrey have a chance to talk, but I’m curious about the, the relationship between this program in your school and what’s happening at home and how parents feel about this, you mentioned, right? I mean, I could send my child to amazing school. That’s teaching them all these great things, but if when they get home and walk in the door, I’m not following through on that.

So I imagine, or I would wonder. If there’s a parent education component of this, how parents feel about it, how you, how you introduced it and talk to them about it. And also, as this is a marketing podcast, this is, you know, this is a feature of your school that you would Most likely choose to promote as something that makes your school stand out.

And so you’re going to maybe attract or turn away certain families as a result of that. So that’s a lot of information and questions in one, but I’m super energized about it. Yeah, yeah. 

Nicole: Well, the parent component. Yeah, that’s a great question. I would love to tell you that we did parent workshops and we did not.

And probably that was just me. Just a function of time and covid and a lot of things that kind of just all happened as as all school leaders know things happen. I will say that I shared a lot of Bernays content in. I did a weekly newsletter to families and a lot of Bernie content and the thing that I shared the most.

And maybe we can add this to the show notes. But Bernie has this, wholehearted parenting manifesto, she calls it. And there’s a really great clip of, of Bernay and Oprah Winfrey in an interview together where Bernay reads the wholehearted parenting manifesto. And the piece of it that always stood out to me that I, I always highlighted is When Brene says, and this is like her talking to her child, you know, so this is like her talking about what kind of parent does she want to be.

And when she says I would like to take away your pain and instead I’ll sit with you and help you feel it. And that, you know, being in a school for so long and being kind of front row seat to parents and students every day, I knew for sure that Brene Brown was a truth teller when I heard that. And, you know, we pushed out that kind of content to parents a lot.

And. Parents resonated. I mean, parents were interested. And a lot of people would tell me, oh, I got her book because you mentioned it, or I’m listening to the podcast once that, that came out. So yeah, I think you’re right. And I would just also add a little bit going back to the mindfulness piece too, because we were a school that was also doing mindfulness and all of these components help to really make a school unique.

Right. And also. With the mindfulness. And I think some of the, the mindfulness more so because it directly affected the students, the, the dare to leave content was more showing up through the teachers. I think with the mindfulness piece, when kids would go home and like, we had a great story about a kindergartner telling his dad, and actually his dad was the chair of our board at the time.

So it made it even funnier say that the child saying to the dad, dad. You need to do a pause plus five, sit down and do your breathing. And pause plus five was a breathing exercise we did where we traced our hand. And that was a great story because the dad acknowledged he was a little bit mad and his son picked up on that.

And, and so then you just see it. That’s where for schools that engage in any of this kind of work, when families can really feel it. That makes a difference. You know, you’re, you’re really showing a family what the impact of your school is when you engage in some of the stuff that’s beyond traditional academics.

Aubrey: That’s fascinating. I’m, you know, intrigued as a parent and as a marketer and just because I’m a big fan of this work. So I’m curious, like, kind of building on what Tara said about kind of marketing. I think about internal marketing, external marketing. So there’s a retention factor. So, like, what are some key outcomes or benefits that you’ve seen and how have those worked to pretend To perhaps help with retention, both of your students, your faculty, your staff and of your parents.

Because we know, you know, it’s easier to retain students than it is to and get more students in the door. So I’d love to absolutely. Yeah, 

Nicole: and staff too, right? Easier to keep a teacher than hire a new one. 

Aubrey: Absolutely. 

Nicole: Yeah. So let me speak to the teacher retention piece first teacher and staff retention piece first.

So I think particularly at this moment in time that we’re in, you know, coming out of the pandemic teacher shortages, teachers, not always being treated. Well, you know, you hear this is just media stuff that you hear right. Dare to lead the dare to lead curriculum is a professional development opportunity that invests as much in the school and the community as it does in the individual teacher or staff member.

And that’s unique. I think that’s that’s not every professional development program would would be able to bring about as much personal change as it would bring about professional change. And, you know, I just saw something recently on, on Instagram from the Regulated Classroom, great follow for any educators listening.

And it said teacher wellbeing matters for learning. And when I saw that, I thought about the dare to lead stuff right away. And I thought that again, the alignment, you know, that, that it supports supporting teachers means giving them more than just textbooks, just training about how to teach Singapore math or whatever it is that that is all important and it’s needed and let’s invest in them as people just as much as schools are saying we want to invest in children as people.

And then to the point about retention of families, you know, I think that the Dare to Lead work really supports a collaborative school environment, you know, part of the training is helping people have hard conversations and there’s a lot of curiosity starters that are provided, right? Help me understand, walk me through You know, the story I’m making up is this.

Tell me what you’re seeing, you know, and these are all ways that teachers can strengthen and administrators can strengthen their relationships with families so that it’s truly collaborative. And everybody feels like you’re moving in the same direction. You’re on the same team. And I think that’s invaluable to keeping families and students in place in an independent school.

Tara: Thank you. Such great information. I want to come back to the marketing question because we do talk about marketing and I mentioned it earlier. So, I am wondering not just for dare to lead, but just but for your leadership and the mindfulness and things like that. How, how is marketing related to that?

Right? You say that it does make your school unique, but how, how much do you lean into that when you are in an independent school that’s doing that? How do you. Do it so that it doesn’t seem maybe too woo woo or something for, for prospective families. Is there a balance in that? Did you find, did you find something that really worked for you in your school when you were doing that?

Nicole: Yeah, that’s a really good question. And yeah, it’s so funny you say that about WooWoo because I feel like so much of marketing and independent school is talking about it like it’s magic and hoping that people see that too. You know, I remember talking to families and just thinking these people must think I’m, you know, in another planet.

And I know what I’m saying is true because I’ve seen it. Yeah, so I think it’s a couple of things there. I think I think there’s marketing efforts that can be done kind of on a rolling consistent basis. As one small example we had, we, the school where I was at the time, we had a very active Facebook and Instagram presence, and we’ve created an album on our Facebook page that was professional development.

You know, for example, last year, professional development, 22, 23 school year. And every time we did a professional development session, whether it was dare to lead or something else, we would post about it and we would share that. And so, you know, that’s something the current families were seeing. And they’re like, okay, great.

You know, I like to see our teachers are learning. I like to know that these days that the kids are not in school, the teachers are doing something that matters. Right. And that’s also there for prospective families, because we certainly know prospective families go to social media. So I think that’s a very small, low level thing.

I would say also, in terms of the dare to lead and mindfulness, really, as well I think it’s more about if you go through this training, what kind of a leader are you showing up as? And then how is that helping you to promote your school? So I think it’s a little bit of indirect connection there.

You know, if you go through the Dare to Lead program, Say use that as an example, and you’re suddenly showing up with more curiosity and more empathy and you are comfortable with vulnerability. I mean, there’s so much vulnerability in a school every single day. So you really have to be I think when you when you work in a school.

I think that makes your school a more appealing place right and and that also allows you to connect better with everybody who’s at that school and and perhaps those people feel Trust in you more trust in you and they feel safer to to be part of the community. And so I think there’s those kinds of benefits as well.

And it also just as a plug for the full Dare to Lead training. When you get the full training with the full curriculum, you do get a badge on your LinkedIn that you can say now I’m Dare to Lead trained. And so it is something you can say, our, our staff, our faculty and staff, or our admin team, all Dare to Lead trained.

And, and that can, you know, flow from there. If people know what that means, they’ll ask. And and it will be it will mean a lot to them. And if they don’t, you can find ways to Plug it in and little pieces of it.

Aubrey: Thanks so much. This is really exciting to talk about. I’m curious, you know, All this has to do with it has to do with many different things, you know, but I’m thinking about leadership in particular. So, when we’re looking at our school leaders who are facing many challenges, what are the biggest challenges for them in terms of being a good leader, you know, because they’re the challenges they’re facing every day.

And then there’s the challenge of being a leader. And where does leadership fit into the rest of the school administration’s responsibility? 

Nicole: Yeah, I think that’s such a good question because I, you know, as I reflect on that, I think about just what comes up right away. I mean, I’ve said it a few times showing up with curiosity, really listening to people making decisions based in integrity and with courage maintaining boundaries, right?

These are things that we’re doing all the time. And I would say that those are some of the skills of a daring leader. And then when I think about, okay, what are the actual things that a school leader is doing every day, right? You’re having a hard conversation with a parent, you’re redirecting a child, you’re collaborating with a teacher, trying to help them grow, To me, all of this is intrinsically linked, you know, if you, if you want to be a leader, a daring leader and somebody who, who leads with integrity.

When you have a parent meeting, you know, you are going to try to practice some of these skills where you’re going to show up with more curiosity than more assumptions. If you’re in the middle of a capital campaign and you’re trying to figure out, you know, who, who’s going to be the ask. I mean, there’s so much courage that’s required to do that.

And I mean, it just goes on, you know, in, you know, one of another tenant of the dare to lead curriculum is clear is kind so many applications of that in a school, right report cards, parent conferences, meetings, not just with parents also administrators with teachers, and then you think about all the communication that a school leader has to put out to their, to their constituents.

So, For me, it’s completely intertwined. There’s no separation. I will say though, to the, to your point, because I think, I don’t know that everybody thinks of it quite like I do. I acknowledge that. And the Dare to Lead work is so powerful and it’s most powerful when you can continue to keep it in the forefront.

So when a school goes through it together or an admin team does it together and you have those touch points where you can keep talking about it and you can pull some of the language because they’re shared language after you explain it. experience it together. There are so many benefits to that as well.

Tara: Wow. I think we could do a whole episode on clear is kind. Oh my gosh. So many ways that that fits in. Yeah. I might also like to share that with my husband. But 

Nicole: it’s investing in you as a person. 

Tara: Yes, exactly. Exactly. Well, on the topic of Brene Brown, as we mentioned before we started recording, we were, we’ve been inspired by Brene when we started our podcast.

And so we have rapid fire questions, just like she does on her show. And so we’re going to move into those now. And we’re going to start with the first one, which I always say is my favorite one, because we have a Goodreads list that is. Just full of amazing books. If anybody’s looking for a, a good book to read and you’re stuck, check out our, our Goodreads list, a little plug for that.

It’s on our website. You can find it there. But the question for you is, if you could put one book as mandatory reading in the high school curriculum, what would it be? 

Nicole: So I’m gonna stay on brand, and I’m gonna say Brene Brown Book, . The Gifts of Imperfection is the one I would choose. I am a big supporter of anything that even at a young, for a young child and a young adult in high school, that helps a, a student develop a strong sense of self.

Anything that we can do to keep working on that, I think is so important. So that’s, I think that book helps to do that. It’s 10 guideposts for wholehearted living. 

Aubrey: Thank you so much. That’s a great one. 

Nicole: What is one app you couldn’t live without? Definitely insight timer, which is a meditation app. I use it every day to meditate in the morning and I usually fall asleep with it as well.

It’s free. And what I like best about it too, is that it tracks my number of days of meditation. So today was 2, 559. 

Tara: Wow. Oh, my gosh. That is amazing. How many years is that? 

Nicole: I’m not a math person, so I’d have to figure that out later. 

Tara: Is that the number of meditations or the number of days that you’ve meditated?

Number 

Nicole: of days. Oh 

Tara: my gosh. Wow. Congrats. Okay. What are you reading right now? 

Nicole: Right now I’m, I’ve got the other one right here, build the life you want by Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah. He’s a happiness researcher. It’s interesting. I’ve had this book sitting around for a long time and finally last week I said, okay, I got to start.

It’s good. 

Aubrey: Great. I’m not that one. That should be a fun one to add to my list. And our good read list. What is one great piece of advice you’d like to lead us, leave us with? 

Nicole: Yeah, I think it’s so hard. One piece of advice. And I think what I would say is meeting people where they are makes such a huge difference as you try to build connections and for people to be seen.

And I think when you can meet people where they are, whether it’s a young person or a a person your same age, somebody older than you, I think it creates a space that’s very conducive for courage, for creativity, for productivity and for accomplishment. 

Tara: Wonderful. Thank you so much. This has been great.

I am very inspired. I appreciate all that you’ve shared. Where can people find you online, Nicole? 

Nicole: Yeah. You can find me at nicolemcdermott. net also, or on the, and, or on the educational directions website and on LinkedIn as well. 

Aubrey: Great. Thank you so much, Nicole, for being a part of our show and sharing all this great info with our listeners.

Nicole: Thank you both so much. Thank 

Tara: you. Have a great day. 

Aubrey: Bye.