Category Archives: Culture

Leadership Courage Is Imperative

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by in Actions, Character, Courage, Culture, Know Your Why, Leader, Leadership, Relationships, Value

≈ 2 Comments

Courage is something that we all hear a lot of nowadays. The courage to speak up, or sometimes for me, the courage not to say something. I have recently thought that courage, like faith or confidence… is courage a thing? Can you have more or less of it? I’m sure you have heard the statement, “You have to have more courage.” Well, I figure you either had it or didn’t; more or less is a non-factor. I will say this, in our society, the courage to do and stand up for the right ideals is needed more than ever.

Every month, I receive the magazine Acts & Facts from the Institute of Creation Research in Dallas, Texas. For March/April, one of the articles was titled Christian Courage Is Imperative.¹ As I read the article, I thought that there are many leaders who need to have courage. In what ways, you ask? That becomes subjective, but in the article there is a section, Biblical Courage: Five Practical Truths (I’ll keep the actual points but will add my thoughts as to how they could pertain to leadership…)

Courage is proportional to preserving what we deeply love. 

Love of self destroys leadership. If we are not willing to love others, how can we ever ask them to believe in the path we want to lead them? 

Courage is proportional to commitment.

Today, our commitment only lasts long enough as long as everything is going well. We see it every day, the waffling of leaders.

Courage is proportional to hope.

A great quote by Napoleon is, “A leader is a dealer in hope.” One ideal that I’m passionate about is that you have to give hope to the people you lead. Small victories here and there, finding ways to foster success.

Courage is inspired by other courageous people.

For me, courage is contagious. This is why it is so important to be around like-minded, kindred-spirit people.

Courage is given as divine enablement.

There are many examples in the Bible where God equips people to be courageous. But… those same people must trust that God will keep his word. I think the same can be said for us as leaders. Are we enabling others to have courage and, at the same time, know that they can trust us to help them?

I really believe you could take these same truths and apply them to any leadership level and use them as a template for the thought of “Leadership Courage Is Imperative.” I see the courage to lead becoming less and less. Those afraid to lead need to see great leaders who model courage. Let that be us…

¹ Guliuzza, R. J. (2022, March/April). Christian courage is imperative. Acts & Facts, 51(2), 4-6. https://www.icr.org/article/christian-courage-          is-imperative/

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2022 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on… Twitter @thebookchamber or follow the blog directly.

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Challenges… They tell a story of who we are…

28 Friday Jan 2022

Posted by in Change, Consistency, COVID-19, Culture, Decisions, Leader, Leadership, Observation, Purpose, Value

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Challenges… Like them or not, our comfort zone rises to the occasion with them. Challenges are the one constant that cannot be avoided, and there is not a manual that even touches the surface of how to handle it all. What is important is learning how to handle those challenges. We either do that by trial and error or by learning from others. One key thought here is who are we learning from or should be learning from?

Every challenge we face is a pitfall or an opportunity. We either look like a genius or a goat (which does not mean “greatest of all time” in this context). Challenges make leaders make decisions. The one thing we cannot do is not make a decision when faced with a challenge.

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We are living in a time of society where “self-preservation” is up close and sometimes personal. Now, that does not go against the idea that we must do what is right by ourselves (we have to take care of ourselves), but… What are leaders doing to do right by others? Too often, we see leaders who are putting their own success before the success of others. The social and emotional effects within organizations are at a point that many leaders do not want to acknowledge. They see it, while at the same time hoping it is a mirage.

We are hit with challenges every day, and they come in all forms and fashions. How will you handle them? One aspect of this 3+ years of the COVID pandemic challenge I have seen thus far is that many leaders do not know how to lead. The flip side of that statement is very true also. Many leaders have shown what leadership should look like. As true as they are, the realization of both views can be seen by and in the organization’s people. It does not take long to see what “moods” people are in as it reflects the culture established by the leadership.

Great leaders have a gravitational pull. They are consistent and always keep their feet on the ground with gravity. You are either pulling others toward you or pushing them away regarding leadership. Challenges are a way of showing others how strong your pull is. No one likes leaders who float themselves around and allow others to do the same.

It will be interesting to see where leadership goes in the next few months. As much unknown that lies ahead, challenges will certainly be there. Let’s make sure our feet are where we want them when challenges are staring us in the face before we decide to stand firm on our leadership.

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2022 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on… Twitter @thebookchamber or follow the blog directly.

Want to share this leadership thought with others? Click on one of the social media sharing buttons below and help spread the good…

An educational slide becoming a constant…?

01 Friday Oct 2021

Posted by in Circumstances, Connections, Culture, Decisions, Educational Leadership, Encouragement, Engagement, Leader, Leadership, Value

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Let’s start today’s blog off with questions…

Is our society becoming incapable of understanding what education should be? Can society think in terms of what is good or bad for education? Has relativism taken over?

I’m a big fan of educational cartoons. One that I often use in my college class is the pic for today’s blog. Yes, it is dated, but the idea from 2010 has not changed any, I believe. Can you see the slide? Has society taken education out of the hands of educators?

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The most gloomy aspect of our educational slide is that the problem continues to feed itself. This past week, the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) released the 2020-2021 District and School-level Assessment Results, and in it was the 2020-21 Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) Executive Summary.

When I dove into the findings, the two areas that caught my attention were comparing the top ten and bottom ten schools of 2020-21 and preceding years of reported results. Guess what? Not much changes. While there is a resorting, per se, the top ten and the bottom ten are usually the same schools. Now, let me say that I acknowledge that the last quarter of the 2019 school year and the 2020-21 school year were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Just think, we have students who did not set foot in a school building for almost 18 months. However…

Now, here is the interesting part… If you take the map of Mississippi – Census Low Response Score that predicts the mail return rate of the 2020 census based on the return rate from the 2010 census, you will find that the top ten schools are primarily in communities with a high self-reporting census rate. The bottom ten schools are primarily in communities with a low self-reporting census rate. Connection, correlation, thoughts? Is it, or the lack of, leadership, money, teachers, students, parents, community buy-in? It has to be something, right? Is blame even the right word to use?

While each one of you, I’m sure, will have conclusions of your own, I suggest that no community wants their educational setting to be low-performing or in the bottom ten. Why would they? The money winning questions has to be, though, what has to change? What needs to happen? Talk about hitting your head against the wall enough times to make your head hurt and then saying you don’t have a headache… Maybe the better question is, why is it happening? For change to occur, hard questions must be asked, and answers must be found to say that we want a fair and equitable education for all. The notion of “the better we all do, the better we all do” works.

As educators, what we do and do not do matters. As for educational leaders, teachers, students, parents, community, the same is true. Remember, the slope of a slide only goes downward. Let’s find ways to help everyone climb and reach for what education should be… for all.

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2021 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on…

Twitter @thebookchamber

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“A Great Teacher” is what I want to be…

14 Friday May 2021

Posted by in Actions, Authentic, Character, Culture, Education, Educational Leadership, Effective, Encouragement, Engagement, Heart, Inspiration, Leader, Leadership, Legacy, Memories, Passion, Purpose, Reality, Reflection, Servant, Sincerity, Teacher Appreciation, Teachers, Value

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Do you ever wonder if you make a connection with your students? What will they remember about you? With teaching being as much about classroom psychology as it is knowing your subject matter, how students remember us lasts forever in their minds. In a previous blog Memories so thick…, I mentioned the idea of how educators/leaders can create an atmosphere where students make memories, but today, I wanted to take a different look at the same idea.

One of many joys I have as an educator is being able to adjunct teach at the college level. One of my running statements is that I try to “positively corrupt” future educators on how the educational world actually is. It’s harder than you think, by the way. And then there are those current teachers who are working on an advanced degree in education… more than anything else, I try to convey to them the much-needed characteristic of being a servant-leader.

With saying all of that, I have to be minded of the educator I am as well. In my own mind, I think I know what type of educator I am. However, the students throughout my career are the ones who can testify as to what type of educator I actually was.

I love how movie snippets that can say exactly what you are wanting to say, and I have one for us. I highly encourage you to watch the Emperor’s Club with Kevin Kline, if you have never seen it. I believe it should be required of all educators. There is one scene near the end of the movie that sends a message for the type of educator I hope I am and the type of educator I want to be. The message sent is what I wish all teachers/leaders in education would strive to become and be. Not only for themselves but for their students as well. I believe this one clip to be so powerful; I show it at the end of each semester to the class of future educators in hopes they will understand the passion I have for teaching and educational leadership.

Please take 2 minutes and 4 seconds to watch what I am talking about… Maybe get a tissue ready?

Emperors Club – “A Great Teacher” Clip

Here it is in print…

“A great teacher has little external history to record. His life goes over into other lives. These men are pillars in the intimate structure of our schools. They are more essential than its stones or beams, and they will continue to be a kindling force and a revealing power in our lives.” 

This is about as good as it gets for me. This is the type of teacher I hope I am. This is the type of teacher I want to be. I have been very fortunate to have some teachers and mentors like this and they have had an ever lasting influence in one way or another on my life. This is the type of teacher education needs, now more than ever. As we begin to wrap of this school year, make an effort to be this type of teacher. 

Go be a great educator and leader today… Our future needs it…

Remember… Think Leadership and Be For Others…

©2021 J Clay Norton

Want more Leadership Thoughts? Follow me on…

Twitter @thebookchamber

Want to share this leadership thought with others? Click on one of the social media sharing buttons below and help spread the good…