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Respect, Education, Teachers, Leadership, Educational Leadership, Leader, teaching, school, Learning
I heard a statement the other day that has stayed with me: “Things you hope for make you act.”
Let me offer an analogy. I have never thought I could learn how to ride a bicycle by sitting on the couch and watching a video about it. At some point, I would have to get up, get on the bicycle, and start pedaling. I might wobble. I might fall. I might even decide there has to be an easier way to learn. But if I really wanted to learn how to ride, eventually I would have to do something.
The more I have thought about that analogy, the more I believe the same principle applies to hope and, particularly, to educational leadership. We can hope for something, talk about it, read about it, and even develop a fairly clear picture of what we would like it to look like, but at some point our hope has to influence what we actually do. We spend a great deal of time in education talking about what we hope will happen. We hope our students succeed, our teachers grow and feel supported, our schools improve, our families become more engaged, and the decisions we make today create better opportunities tomorrow. Those are worthwhile hopes, and I am not sure any of us could lead very long without believing that something can be better than it is today.
However, the real question is whether the things we say we hope for are important enough to cause us to act. Just as I cannot learn to ride a bicycle while sitting on the couch, I cannot expect meaningful change in a school simply because I believe that change would be good. At some point, hope has to influence my decisions, my priorities, and the work I am willing to do. Eventually, if I really hope to go somewhere, I have to get off the couch and start pedaling.
Benjamin Franklin captured much of this idea in a few words when he wrote, “Well done is better than well said.” In education, we certainly do not suffer from a shortage of good intentions or good ideas. We develop mission statements, establish goals, write improvement plans, attend meetings, and spend countless hours discussing what needs to happen. All of those things have value, but they only matter if what we say we hope for eventually becomes visible in what we are willing to do.
If I hope every child becomes a strong reader, that hope should influence how I use resources, protect instructional time, examine student progress, and support teachers. If I hope good teachers remain in the profession, then that hope should affect how I listen to them, encourage them, develop them, and respond when they struggle. If I hope every student feels known and valued, then that hope should become evident in the decisions I make and in the culture I help create.
Horace Mann, one of the most influential figures in American education, wrote, “Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate.” His words remind us that seeing what needs to be done is only part of leadership. We also have to be willing to stay with the work long enough to move what we hope for closer to reality. That work may be difficult, progress may be slower than we would like, and there will certainly be times when our approach needs to change, but hope gives us a reason to keep moving toward what we believe is possible.
Perhaps that is one of the most important connections between hope and educational leadership. Hope allows us to see what could be, but genuine hope should also affect what we are willing to do today to help make that possibility a reality. If the things we say we hope for never influence our priorities or our actions, then perhaps we need to ask ourselves whether we really hope for them at all.
So maybe one of the questions we should occasionally ask ourselves as educational leaders is not simply, “What am I hoping for?” Instead, we might ask, “What is my hope causing me to do?”
Because if the things we hope for never affect the way we lead, the decisions we make, or the work we are willing to do, then perhaps what we have is not really hope at all. It may simply be a wish.
As you step into your role today, remember that you are not just an educator and leader but a shaper of the future. Your actions and decisions profoundly impact the lives of those you guide. Go, be the great educator and leader that our future needs.
Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…
©2026 J Clay Norton
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