122. Doing Everything Isn’t the Job: Redefining School Leadership, Delegation, and Self-Worth with Rebecca Malotke-Meslin

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Aubrey: Welcome 

Tara: to 

Aubrey: Mindful School Marketing. 

Tara: I’m Aubrey Burch. And I’m Tara Clays. Today we’re joined by Rebecca Malki Messin. Rebecca is the owner of Pleasantly Aggressive Coaching and Consulting. We’re so glad to have her back as a leadership coach and speaker. She helps early and mid-career women leaders in schools and nonprofits lead more confidently, authentically, and unapologetically.

Welcome, Rebecca. Welcome back. 

Rebecca: Oh, I’m so glad [00:01:00] to be back with both of you. 

Aubrey: We’re excited to have you back. Uh, I always enjoy our conversations here on the show and off the show. And, and Rebecca, we’ve had so many great, you know, conversations especially about women leaders and women in schools. I’m curious, you know, we’ve, this has come up before like that, that women in schools are kind of the go-to person for everything in a lot of situations.

And so when you look across the leaders you coach, you know, especially right now. What are you noticing about their stress levels and the roles they’re being asked to play? 

Rebecca: Oh yeah, I, I think, you know, the, the old adage of, I wear a lot of hats. We hear this at schools all the time. I think from, from all of our leaders, men and women.

And yet it’s one of those things that a. Makes it more normalized to take on way too much and to do more with less. And that’s kind of what I’m seeing right now at small schools, at large schools. Frankly, and I also work in the nonprofit space as well, and I’m seeing [00:02:00] a lot of, Hey, we’re pulling back on the budget.

We have less, but we need you to keep doing more. And unfortunately, when I think about the women that I coach and the women that I’m talking to out in this space, what I hear a lot of is this kind of quiet. Acquiescence where we say, I love my school so much. I love the kids so much. I love this community so much that women keep giving and giving and giving.

And there really doesn’t seem to be an end in sight there, there isn’t this moment where it stops and we start moving in the other direction where we say, okay, now we’re gonna take these things off your plate. ’cause things have stabilized, or now we’re gonna give you more money because things have stabilized.

It usually becomes a trend in the direction of. More responsibilities with less resources. And, you know, my, the reason I started doing this work, because my fears were really realized and seeing women leaving their roles altogether and a. And burning out, like leaving or burning out or [00:03:00] some combination of both of those things.

And I think that trend for right now, I, I just see continuing on. And that, you know, again, that’s why I’m doing this work because I’m trying to create those supports for those women, but also really having more conversations like this where we’re making our, the most senior leaders, especially board members, more aware that that’s what’s happening in these spaces.

Tara: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. We all three are women and we know like that school culture and even the culture in our country celebrates, you know, a leader who can take care of everything. Right? We got it all. We can do it all. How do you see that that like praise or admiration of that approach masking a deeper issue that leads to burnout?

Rebecca: Well, I mean, I think first and foremost is that acknowledgement of. Women as caregivers, right? Like we’re kind of playing into and praising those things in women that are reinforcing a lot of gender stereotypes to say that [00:04:00] like, yeah, you can do all of these things and look how great you are at them. And it’s reinforcing the messages we’re getting from society and our culture that like, this is where you’re supposed to be.

This is what it’s supposed to look like. And so again, it normalizes it, which makes it really hard. To say like, this doesn’t feel right, or I feel overwhelmed. It’s become a badge of honor to say that I am burnt out in a lot of ways. Like, I’m so busy, I’m so overwhelmed, and you know, and it’s a delicate thing, right, of saying like, I don’t want women to feel alone in that.

I want them to hear that other women are experiencing that, but not in this way of like, oh, you got that too, me too. Oh, ha ha ha. Like I, I don’t want that to be the narrative either. I want it to be like. Yeah, I’m experiencing that too. And I don’t think this is, okay. Do you think this is okay? Because we both don’t think this is okay, so how are we gonna fix it?

Right? And then going into that, like I, I think it’s time to push back. Like I think it’s time that we push back and say like, thank you for the praise. And so in some [00:05:00] cases, like, thank you for the promotion, or Thank you for the raise and. What I really need is something different. What I really need is less of a workload is to not work.

24 7 is to feel some sort of balance, is to not be worried about my physical health, my mental health, right? Because I’m so overwhelmed. So it’s trying to bring women together again, have conversations and while we can see that we’re in this together, it’s not that it’s normal. It might be common. That doesn’t make it normal.

And so if it’s not normal, how do we get back to a place where it can feel a little more normal for, for the women that are experiencing that? 

Aubrey: Uh, I think I, I love this topic so much. It come, comes up so often. So I, I host monthly small school leaders meetups, which is just like a free networking thing for leaders.

This comes up all the time. It’s like. Okay. I have to handle the fundraising, the, the [00:06:00] admissions, the marketing, and all these things. And like, yet I can’t get my work done. And it’s like, what are the, what are the skill sets to get that done? But you, you can’t get that done. Right? You can’t get that done.

Rebecca: That’s the thing. And I, you know, I saw this, I’m sure it was a TikTok or something, but it was a guy saying like, I am not going to kill myself. Because of leadership that doesn’t allow you to hire more people. Like, I like the, the repercussions of, and I’m not gonna even say poor leadership ’cause I don’t even, sometimes that’s the case, but it’s really like this lack of awareness that.

There’s only so much that humans can sustain in the workplace, and leaning so heavily on their consciousness, leaning so heavily on their caregiving and leaning so heavily on these pieces of them that you’re, you’re breaking them down and saying, well, that’s all we can do with the money that we have, or That’s all we can do.

Right. I think is is cruel and at some point it feels like exploitation. I was having this [00:07:00] conversation with him. I’m like, when do we start calling this exploitation? Right. And, but like we’ve really normalized it in especially small, independent schools. And I I, I worry about those leaders like I’m sure in, in the groups that you’re having and that you’re hosting Aubrey, that, we, we’ve created a narrative where it’s like, well, that’s what it takes to, to lead, to be a head of school at a small school. And I just don’t buy it. I, I really believe that there has to be a better way, and it takes a collective effort to say like, something’s gotta give, something’s gotta change. And I do believe this is where women can be really powerful and their knowledge and expertise to say like, we need to problem solve this.

We need to find a different, we need to find a different path. 

Aubrey: I think that’s so important. Um, I, I see this all the time, and it, it is, it’s normalized. It’s like, oh, I too hold 15 different, wear different, 15 different hats and then juggle 16 different plates and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so [00:08:00] it’s like that normalization of like, oh, this is what it’s like to, to work in a small independent school or to work in, you know, this environment.

Um, and, and I think. You know, that is a very dangerous mindset if we’re not saying, hey, that hey, like, let, let’s just take a, a second and stand, you know, back up and like, let’s review. Is this the way to go? Like, is this helpful for both the school and the person in the position? I’m curious, like along those lines, if we’re thinking about it, like, can you, you know.

Share. Maybe it’s a story or just an example of like, let’s say someone is being that person who we, it’s like giving and giving, I mean, ’cause we at attract, I mean, you care about your school, right? So you’re doing the things you keep doing. You keep giving, you’re kind of like this selfless leader who’s, you know, you know, added all the time doing all the things, you know.

Have you seen them been able to like. Maybe put boundaries in place or have difficult conversation. And, and what sort of transformation have you seen along that way in the, and and did it help that, that leader, I’d love to, [00:09:00] you know, give that kind of example to, uh, someone right now, if they’re in this position, 

Rebecca: you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna share a story and it’s a little bit of a cautionary tale.

This hap this has happened in more than one of my clients where they had a, they started developing physical symptoms. One had to take a, a medical leave. That was stress induced. So phys, very physical symptoms, um, like an autoimmune disease that was very much because of the stress that she was carrying and the workload that she had.

And you know, those kind of inflection points I think are what we want to avoid. But for a couple of my clients, like it was that moment that they said like. The I This is not sustainable, right? Like this is not sustainable. I think one of the, the sad parts though still is that they were blaming themselves.

That they were very much putting themselves like, I wish I, then they were like beating themselves up about it, right? So like, they’re sick and now they’re beating themselves up about being sick. [00:10:00] And so like so many of our conversations around like. I, I love that you wanna take responsibility for your actions, and I think we all should feel that way.

We wanna take responsibility for the things we have done or haven’t done to create and set those boundaries and to keep them. And we also need to like take a beat and say, these are systems we’re working in. Like these are systems and cultures within these organizations and environments that, again, have been praised and normalized in a way that.

It makes sense that you would do what you have done, right? Like in in, in some ways it was an expectation of you. So it’s a little bit of an act of defiance to say like, I’m not gonna do these things. And that’s where that push and pull comes in. If you’re not really a confrontational person, it can feel like internal or external confrontation.

And so I think setting of those boundaries really for them came down to like. I need to stay well, like my first responsibility is to, my wellness is to my physical wellness. And so I gotta get that straight first. And once I have that [00:11:00] straight right, I can start to say, okay, I’m feeling better now. What were those, what were those things that activated me or triggered me?

What were those things that really were causing the most stress for me? And I think that’s a scary process to go through, is defining what parts of our jobs are requiring the most of us. Whether that’s, you know, like. When I was in admissions, right, I knew that during like the height of admission season, we were putting out decisions was gonna be the most stressful for me, and it was very much a necessary part of my job, but I had to start creating systems around it to say, okay, during that week when those decisions are going out, like I am working nine to five and I’m delegating as much as I possibly can and all the other realms.

Whereas before I had kept doing all of the other things and then big decision week with big emotions, lots of difficult conversations. And then I would run myself ragged, and then I’d be like useless to everyone, especially my kids and my family for like the next two weeks. [00:12:00] And so by, by taking some of those other things off my plate and saying, this is the one thing that I really need to be doing right now, how can I move some other things away?

Push them off, delegate to somebody else. So boundaries for me isn’t just about like. Saying no to things. It’s about really like looking at the landscape of what you are responsible for and not, you know, not doing that thing that we sometimes do where I think we’re the only one that can do it all.

But saying like, okay, this piece I need to be doing and these other things, I, it doesn’t necessarily have to be me and there might be some logistics we gotta figure out, but I don’t have to do all of these things even though I think I’m awesome and great. 

Tara: Yeah, that’s a perfect segue to what I wanna ask you next, which is about de delegating.

Um, I mean, I think part of the, I can do it all is part of that story of not delegating, but also I think we probably all have a little bit of, nobody can do it quite as well as [00:13:00] me. Or I know for me, oftentimes it’s gonna take me just as long or longer to teach somebody or assign this than it is for me to just jump in and do it and check it off my list.

So let’s talk a little bit about delegation and, and what’s happening there and maybe how to overcome those mental hurdles that prevent us from doing what, what we should do, as you were just saying. I think, Tara, the things you just described are like the most common things I hear from clients. And I actually give like a talk that’s just about delegation because I, you know, my experience has been that men are really good at delegation.

Rebecca: I would say I’ve also worked for some men who like over delegate and I bring that up because. It is a, a very masculine trait that, you know, I always like, feel like, did, did like, did boys get like pulled aside and taught how to do this in like elementary school and like, like they’ve just kept doing it for their whole careers in a way that like we [00:14:00] weren’t.

But I think I’ve seen over delegation and I think. Whether we consciously or unconsciously have seen that in the past. It looks a lot like being put upon. It looks a lot like being dumped on. That can be one of the hurdles for women is that they don’t wanna be that guy or that person. They don’t wanna be the one because they’re so aware of how hard everyone around them is working.

And so this idea of like. Who am I? Who am I to take it off my plate and go put it on somebody else’s, like they’re working just as hard as I am. We’re in this together, like right, so I’m gonna hold onto it. So that’s one of the barriers that I see. It’s faster if I do it myself. Yeah. I mean, I’m guilty of this still.

Like I have a VA and I still am like, ah, I’m just gonna do it myself. Right. So like, I, I don’t listen to my own advice sometimes and I get that why that’s such a barrier. Here’s the way that I shift that one in particular is, you know, as you’re thinking about delegating to a person in particular, [00:15:00] the.

There’s two things to remember. One is that that person is not you. And what I mean by that is I’m bringing 20 years of experience to something and I’m expecting this person who has no experience or very little experience to be at my level. And so my patience is thin and like how long it’s gonna take them to get on board and to figure this out and to, right?

And so I have to remember clearly that like, oh. Yes, it’s gonna take me time to explain this to you, and it’s also gonna take me time to check in with you and also gonna take me time to teach you. And that is a worthwhile investment in the long term. I know in the short term, it doesn’t compute in the long term.

It absolutely will, and that’s for most of us in our schools and our businesses, like that’s what we’re thinking about. Um, we just lose sight of it in the moment, and so we have to recenter it. The second piece of that is, you know, when you’re in a school. You’re not delegating because of that, it’s, it’s gonna take too much time.

The [00:16:00] phrase that I always use is, you’re robbing your people of the opportunity to learn. You’re taking that away from them. And if you actually are trying to build an organization that’s sustainable and you want people to have diversified skills and you wanna be able to hand these things off if you don’t start the delegation process early, right?

And often you’re gonna have a workforce that doesn’t know how to do anything except for the very small thing that you taught them when they first started. And the last thing I’ll say about this, ’cause I’m very passionate about this, I’m glad you brought it up is that I try to help have people. I try to remind my clients like, when was a time where somebody gave you something, right?

Delegated a task to you that maybe you weren’t quite ready for? Um, and you learned so much. You learned so much from it. Somebody had faith in you. They gave you this task, you did it right, and you learned from it. If you hoard everything, you’re not giving somebody else that same [00:17:00] chance. And the repercussions will be great, right?

You have more on your plate. But also those people, like nobody wants to stay in a job where they’re not learning new things. So if you can reframe it really around this idea of I’m not dumping on people. I’m not demanding things of people. What we’re really doing is training, teaching, and yes, there’s the added benefit that like, ultimately I’m gonna move this task off of my plate and onto someone else’s so that I can focus on things that, that truly, truly only I can do.

And that distinction, I think is one of the harder things too.

Aubrey: That was so interesting. Thank you so much. It’s such a good refresher. I think we all need it. And I love the part about the growth like that. I mean, I remember being so hungry for learning new things and like people would give me things that I was like, I don’t really know. I don’t really know why you know what I’m doing right.

But I was really driven to learn and grow from that [00:18:00] experience. So I love that because I think that appeals to our educators and people working in schools, obviously our students are growing and learning, giving other people opportunities to do the same makes a lot of sense. Right. Absolutely. Um, so, um, I am so curious because there’s, this kind of leads into the next question I have, which is, you know, this comes up all the time.

It’s like. And I mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast, like I am now taking on more, let’s say our school restructured. Like things happened, we lost a person. They, they, they left for whatever reason. There’s a, all of a sudden like things are landing on my plate that I wasn’t doing before. I’m curious, like, you know, uh, a lot of people just kind of.

Accept it. Right. Um, but their role has technically expanded. So how, especially our women leaders, how are they supposed to kind of navigate that and advocate for what they’re worth knowing that their role has expanded. 

Rebecca: Yeah, and I think this also, you know, goes, also goes back to our, the start of our conversation, [00:19:00] which is that this.

You know, kind of notion that like, well, we’re all pitching in and we’re all doing more. Right? I think that can deter women from saying, well, no, you actually have to pay me more to do this. Like it feels, like the opposite of being a team player. It feels like the opposite of being a giver. And those things really cut to the core for a lot of women because that’s not who they want to be.

That’s not how they wanna show up at work. And so, and sometimes it gets reinforced by like others in our community, even other women sometimes to be like, well, we’re all giving more. And you’re like, yeah, I’m not going to unless I get paid. And you, and then you kind of can be. Subtly ostracized, right?

For like not being a team player and not joining in with everybody. Like, you just don’t care as much as everybody else. And so we need to be aware of that, that narrative that can exist and how it can reinforce. So I, you know, really try hard to talk to women about, like, if you are being, I’m gonna say voluntold, or told or [00:20:00] asked, whatever it looks like to take on more responsibility, you always have the opportunity to say.

What pay increase does that come with, right? Like these are choices you get to make. You can say no. I’m not saying there’s no repercussions to it, I’m just saying these are choices. So you have to rate, weigh the risks of it all, but being able to say, like, talk to me about that. Here’s the crazy thing.

A lot of times. Your CFO head of school person is anticipating that conversation. Like they probably have a number ready, like, oh, we actually have this stipend ready to go. ’cause we’re kind of expecting it. The people who don’t ask don’t get it. The people who ask, get it. There is always pools of money at schools.

This is the dirty little secret, like our CFOs don’t want us to know, but like, there’s always pockets of money to make things happen. And when something needs to happen, when it is a strategic initiative, when it is something that the board wants, when it is something that is like everybody is driving forward on this, they will put the money [00:21:00] there, right?

And so if you’re being asked to serve on a, you know, on to do all this extra labor. And it’s being added to your roles and responsibilities. The question is simply what is the compensation for this and driving that point home. Here’s why this is so important. Number one, imagine this happens, right? And there’s five women at a school and all of them are asked to do more with, with no pay increase, right?

There’s no mention of a pancreas. You’re just asked to do more and none of them speak up. None of this, everything. And you might have a school leader who’s like, great, like we were able to do this, right? And again, not necessarily intentionally exploiting them, but that’s the end result. And this continues on.

So five years later, this happens again. This is the expectation. This keeps happening. The roles continue to change. It becomes harder to recruit for those positions because now the laundry list of roles and responsibilities for that position without an increase in pay is significant. [00:22:00] Okay. One of those people leave and they try to rehire for the position, and now they’re gonna have to pay that person a huge salary increase to replace that person.

And you slowly see these five women, right, leaving and to just go off and do other things maybe for more money. Once they’re all replaced, you just suddenly saw a bump in your budget of like, we’re gonna say a hundred grand, and now the board is upset and the budget’s off and we don’t know what’s happening and why can’t right.

It was doing your school a disservice because they did not have a balanced budget. In my mind. They were not accounting for that additional labor. They were not compensating for that additional labor. And so for me it’s a, it’s a problem for your school’s budget when you don’t ask for the money because it doesn’t account for it in the budget, and yet that work is being done.

And should that one individual leave. It’s going, you’re gonna have somebody who comes in who wants that compensation and they’re gonna have to meet them because they gotta fill the role. And so that’s how my brain thinks about these things, [00:23:00] is that you’re not, I want you to do it for yourself. I totally want you to be selfish and get what you deserve.

And also there is a greater good that you are serving. So when you feel like it’s a push and pull and that the, the language I always use is that there’s, um, when women ask for raises in schools. We know that our end product is children and we know that like dollars go to kids, right? And serving kids in programs that there’s this thing we have in our heads where it’s like, well, if I get a raise.

That means like the kids don’t get new kick balls in the playground or that the kindergartners have old crappy crayons. They won’t get new crayons. That is not how this works, right? That’s not how budgets work. But we like have made and told ourselves these stories about this, and I will tell you when I’ve talked to women in groups about this, like they start laughing.

Because that’s how they felt. And they’ve never said it out loud, but they very much are like, I don’t like the kids need the money. The kids need this. Our, our teachers need this money. I’m not saying that they don’t. I’m [00:24:00] saying they do. And you do too. You deserve that. You are serving with great value to your institution.

Right. Like that deserves to be compensated. There’s a huge, we gender wage gap, like we’re all underpaid people. Like, like the statistics show it. So like it’s not selfish in that regard and it’s not taking crans. Out of the hands of kindergartners and we need to, again, have these open conversations about it so that women see that that’s not what’s actually happening and that this, all these dollars come out of very different buckets and you need to be compensated for the work that you’re doing and the value that you bring in a, on a much greater scale.

Aubrey: I feel like there should be a poster about the cranz thing that was like really powerful, right? I, I like we talked about just feelings, you know how, I mean, as women, I, I mean, I don’t wanna stereotype, but like, we feel a lot and we’re connected to, you know, the work. We obviously are there for a reason. I’m gonna bring up [00:25:00] like uncomfortable feelings and uncomfortable feelings in relation to this com.

This has been coming up a lot in my groups. I mean, with, you know, a lot of schools are struggling in many ways, like when your school is financially struggling. Right. So you have a, a school finance that they’re, they’re financially struggling. They have told you they’re gonna either have to raise tuition, they’re gonna have to do all these things, and now you’re at that you can feel in your gut.

I can almost feel that feeling. This happened to me when I was like working in schools during the session. Like, you’re like, I just got more added to my plate. But, oh, the school’s in a, in a financial pickle. Like, do I ask for a raise or do I just skate by until it’s better and I can ask for like, you know, like that that feeling of like, you know, you’re doing more and you need more, but like, you’re also like, but, but the school, it doesn’t have the money.

So I’m curious, like, have you seen that? Like what, how, how does one navigate that? ’cause I’m just putting on my, my school leader hat, and I know this comes up a lot. [00:26:00] Yeah, and I think, yes. So have I seen that? Absolutely. It’s something that I talk to my clients about a lot. I think there’s, you know, and it comes in a couple different forms.

Rebecca: Like if you’re in advancement or you’re in admissions and you haven’t met your numbers, like how, how could I possibly ask for a raise in those situations? Or you’re a teacher and you’re relatively new and you’re like, I don’t, like, I don’t know if I can ask for this. And then there’s this overarching narrative, right?

And I think the teachers feel it when we get the speech from the, you know. The finance people talking about, like everybody’s classroom budgets are either frozen or reduced this year. And so the messaging is very much like there’s no money. There’s no money. There’s no money. There’s no money. And it, to be honest, a lot of that I believe is just a deterrent.

Right? We don’t wanna be frivolously spending on anything. We want to batten down the hatches. Yes. I, I don’t believe that messaging should be taken so literally. Right. Um, that were like, I can’t ask for anything because again, as a senior administrator, I’ve realized, oh, there are pockets of money that we can use when [00:27:00] necessary.

Now, when we’re talking about salaries, I think the challenge is that, um, again, we go back to like, how am I more deserving right than a classroom? Or how am I more deserving than something else? Here’s the deal. You don’t get to decide that. That’s not for you to decide. That is for your school’s leadership to decide.

That is for your head of school to decide. He, they won’t know that you are interested in a raise. They won’t know that you’ve done all this extra work, that you’ve added all these things to your plate and that you believe it needs to be compensated unless you go after it and tell them, they can ultimately say no.

When we said we had no money, we really meant it. We have no money in the budget for this. Right. Let them make that choice. Don’t give yourself a no before they have. But I know that that process of going in and being rejected is what prevents a lot of women and people in general from making that ask, from going after it.

I’ve really gotten to that place where I say, no, I, I [00:28:00] firmly believe that I deserve this, and I have. Added so much to my plate that when I look at comps, when I look to see like what other administrators at this level are making at a school this size are making, I’m well below the average. I have a compelling argument, I’m gonna go in and make it.

And if they say, no, it’s not because I’m unqualified. It’s not because I didn’t do what I said I was gonna do. It’s not because I’m uneducated. Right? It’s simply because it’s a budgetary issue. Right. It’s not personal. And I say all of this because. A lot of times when we do go in to make that request, we make it very personal and that goes back to those emotions that we’re feeling about all of this.

We make it very personal and so if what’s preventing you is truly the budget, then when you go in and get a rejection and they tell you be, it’s because of the budget, it should feel like, okay, affirmed. It really is the budget, but I’d still advocated for myself. And here’s the other fun fact. You’ve just greased the wheels, right?

Like now they know that you’re [00:29:00] thinking about it and that you’re curious about it and you want this. And so when you go in and ask the next year, now there’s a cycle for you of like, okay, I’m coming in, it’s time I’m gonna ask again. Eventually they will break. Like eventually they’re gonna get to the point where we’re like, okay, like, we hear you, we see you, and yes, we’re gonna, we’re gonna make something happen.

But the squeaky wheel gets the oil and you’ve gotta grease those wheels. So even a rejection is not. As hard of a rejection sometimes as we make it out to be, it really opens up a conversation. And here’s the other thing, like, sorry I’m going off, but like, it’s not just for you, it’s for the other women at your school and at other schools.

When you start that conversation. And we kind of put our foot down and say like, I’m not gonna keep working for peanuts and have you keep adding to my plate. You are speaking up for all the other women in your institution who are feeling the same way. And you’re hopefully, hopefully you can have conversations with them too, to say like, Hey, like if we all come together, right?

Those same five women, if we all came together and said [00:30:00] like, yeah, we’re not doing this unless we’re getting a stipend or unless we’re getting compensated. It’s really much harder for them to say no to all five of you than it is to say no to one of you. And again, they might still say no to say like, no, legit, we have no money in the budget, but if there is money, they’re gonna find a way to make it work.

Tara: This is so interesting and helpful. It’s somehow reminding me of buying a car, 

Rebecca: you know, negotiating the negotiating. Yeah, absolutely. It’s super uncomfortable, right? 

Tara: Yeah, it is. Yeah, it is hard. And something else that’s hard is saying no. Right? So that’s the other part of this, right? Delegating and also saying no.

So what are some scripts or some phrases that leaders can use? To say no or maybe no, not right now, while still honoring their relationships and their obligations. 

Rebecca: You know, there’s a, a, you know, a great quote out there that says something like No is a complete sentence, [00:31:00] and it absolutely is. That is grammatically correct.

And I don’t necessarily recommend that to just be like, no, when somebody asks you to participate in something or do something. So that’s at one extreme is just the like flat out, no. The other extreme is the like, over-explaining like, no, I mean, I can’t really, I’m not really sure if I can make this work right?

Like where we open up a negotiation that maybe we don’t wanna enter into. And I think that middle ground is finding that language. So, you know, for instance, I know that I had to go and ask as I was leaving my last school, I was, uh, advising a club. Students and I had to find an advisor to take over for me.

And you know, when again, everybody’s so busy and I, I said, you know what, like, I know everybody’s busy. I’m gonna ask some people, and I’m gonna hope that they are honest with me about their boundaries, right? And so I went to our, um, school counselor who I thought would’ve been great for this, and she said, can I, can I think about it?

So that’s [00:32:00] my first thing to say, is when somebody asks you to do something, your first response should be, let me think about it. Right. I’m gonna tell you, most women are really uncomfortable saying no right away. And so I kind of take that off the table for a lot of this stuff and just say like, think about it.

Like I want you to think about it and I want you to craft a script that you’re gonna feel good about when you respond. So she said, can I think about it? And I said, absolutely. And she came back to me and she said, you know, Rebecca, she’s like, I really, I don’t have the bandwidth to do this right now. And I said, you know what?

I’m so grateful that you set such a clear boundary for yourself. Because I wanted to reinforce to her like, well done, because this was so, it was student facing, which is the hardest thing to say no to. Right? When like, you see a club that’s gonna maybe not have an advisor. And she was like, yeah, I just, and I was like, you don’t have to explain yourself.

I so appreciate you being honest with me and getting back to me quickly so that I can go like find somebody else and. Do you have anybody else in mind that could do [00:33:00] this? So, so many of the things we’re asked to do committees and review, you know, groups and, you know, uh, being the advisor for the play or the Thanksgiving Pro, right?

All of this stuff. What you can do is, number one, if you, if you feel uncomfortable saying no and say, can you give me, can I just take a little bit of time to think about it? Two is getting back to that person quickly. Not three is not feeling the need to overexplain, but drawing your boundary to say, I do not have the bandwidth, which is gonna be most of our answers.

I do not have the bandwidth to do that right now. Four is offering. Another person’s name or another solution, which could be helpful. I think for women, that feels good to be able to say no and offer like another solution. Working in admissions, if I had to say no to a family, if I could refer them to another school, I felt so much better about it.

’cause I didn’t feel like I was leaving somebody in the lurch. It’s not necessary, but I think it’ll make you feel good about saying no. And that’s what I [00:34:00] really want is like how can I ease the friction of saying no. For women and so they can get what they need, um, while also feeling good about it.

Because if you just went off and said, no, sorry, Charlie, right? Like, that’s not gonna maintain the relationship that you’re hoping to maintain. But I think those those few kind of steps, we’ll leave both of you feeling like the relationship is very much intact. You feel really helpful and you’ve also kept your boundary.

Aubrey: That’s so wonderful. That’s like a step by step of like all, all the things that we can think about. And I, I love the idea of like, we don’t have to say no right away, right? Say let, hey, let me think about that. And then it gives you a time to think and respond appropriately. Thank you for that. I’m curious, you know.

I, I think about all the school leaders out there who have to navigate, you know, the people they report to, uh, a lot of times the heads of school and then [00:35:00] also the boards. You know, what is like one conversation or thing you would have loved to tell every school leader? About like how like either atone to set some boundaries to set, or, um, something that they can have, like a conversation they can have with their board chair or head of school.

Either from the start of their position or where they are right now. Oh my God, there’s so many things. You know, we talk so much about communication and you know, we use the term like open or clear communication. For me, the, the clarity of communication around. Roles and responsibilities. And I don’t just mean a job description, although I do mean a job description too.

Rebecca: The vast majority of the frustrations that I hear in my clients is that they were, they’re in a position with very unclear expectations. And my question is, how do you review that person? How do you measure that person? How do you promote that person? You can’t do any of those things. There’s also a lot of duplication of [00:36:00] work, which then is like a poor use of resources.

So, for, for heads of school in particular I think, you know, especially for heads who are coming new into a position or maybe have had like some turnover in their leadership team, um, and that, you know, org chart changes and things like that is. First priority is getting everybody really clear about their roles and responsibilities, like crystal clear individually, and then crystal clear collectively, meaning sit down and talk and make sure that like this is in my line item, so I know who to go to for that thing and I know I am not responsible for it.

Right. Hands off. I’m shocked at how frequently this, the, the messiness is still occurring. And I think it is because of turnover, and I think it is because of leadership changes. But if that’s a piece of advice I could give to every head of school because the people who are in those senior leadership positions and those director roles.

Typically don’t have the autonomy or the authority to be making changes in their roles, right? Like they’re still at [00:37:00] the mercy of what their head of school and that vision is. So the heads are really responsible for that. So that that could have huge impacts on everything from morale. To budgets because we’re using resources more properly, right?

And more strategically to the wellness of your employees, the efficacy of their work. Like it seems so simple and yet it again is, I see it rarely executed well on a consistent basis.

Tara: Yeah. This is so helpful. Thank you for all of this information, Rebecca. Really appreciate it. We are gonna move into rapid fire questions now as we’re coming up on the end of our time. Are you ready? I’m ready. And you did this last time. We should look up what your answers were. Let’s see. I know, that would be interesting.

The first question is, if you could put one book as mandatory reading in the high school curriculum, what would it be? 

Rebecca: I probably could remember what I said last time, but, uh, what would I say this time? [00:38:00] This time I would say unreasonable hospitality. Not just ’cause it’s top of mind, because it’s just amazing and I think it, it would be great for high schoolers to read.

Aubrey: I love that, that I just, yeah, I just read that book for a book club. Fantastic book. What is one app you couldn’t live without?

Rebecca: My calendar, I just live and die by it. I wish it was more interesting than that, 

Tara: but that’s just it. No, that’s okay. And lastly, what are you reading right now? Well, second to lastly. 

Rebecca: I have, like, I’m reading like three books right now. Um, I’ve, I’ve gotten used to reading more than one. The two that I’m listening to most actively right now are 10 to 25, which is, um, a book about really like the motivations of.

Adolescents from a teacher’s perspective, from a a leader’s perspective, how to motivate people in this age group. It’s really good. Heard him speak at [00:39:00] the EMA conference and, uh, the author speak at the EMA conference, he was phenomenal. The other one is fans first. Which is written by the owner of the Savannah Bananas.

Uh, kind of in that unreasonable hospitality frame. But how to create an experience. ’cause now I’m a business owner, how to create an experience for your clients but really how to like, create fans for your business. And I think it would really apply to schools as well. All right. 

Tara: Your answers last time you said the sum of us and then the confidence code Yeah.

And audible material. And I thought I said the Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. Very good stuff. Last last question, Aubrey. Yes. So what is one great piece 

Aubrey: of advice you’d like to leave us with?

Rebecca: That as women, we have the blessing and the curse of being deeply caring and we get to choose how much. We [00:40:00] give that caring and who we give it to. It is a resource and we need to be more mindful of how we use that resource.

Great. 

Tara: Thank you. Wonderful advice, great tips. Thank you. We really appreciate your joining us, um, and sharing some good insights and some good things to think about as we, uh, as we move into a new year. So thanks. 

Rebecca: Thanks so much, ladies. It’s always a pleasure. 

Aubrey: And where can people find you, Rebecca? 

Rebecca: I am pleasantly aggressive everywhere.

So, um, pleasantly aggressive on TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook but you can mostly find me on LinkedIn, uh, as Rebecca Mulkey Mess. That’s where I love to live and share my insights and my writing and tips and strategies or@pleasantlyaggressive.com. 

Aubrey: Thanks again, Rebecca. We’re so grateful. Thanks.

Have a great day.

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