Category Archives: Deciding

Don’t Let Your Conscience Disappear, Especially If You Are A Leader…

24 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Actions, Character, Choice, Clear, Conscience, Consistency, Deciding, Decisions, Leader, Leadership

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On Friday, April 16, 2021, I wrote on the conscience in my blog titled: The Conscience… It’s For Others As Much As It Is For You. Since then, it has been on my mind somewhat and even more lately that I wanted to say more. The other day I made the statement, “I find it very disheartening that we even have to put the words ‘weak’ or ‘bad’ in front of leadership. Leadership should always be measured as positive. That is why it is so crucial that we have leadership with a clear conscience. If we do not, then we will continue to fail society.”

So, here are some new thoughts… 

The conscience. Your conscience. That “thing” that each one of us is supposed to have. Labeled as good, bad, or not having one at all. Our conscience, an essence of warning that triggers and monitors our lives. The “inner voice” that speaks to us when our minds need confirmation that something is wrong, out of place, weird. An intuition per se.

While I would say most people will equate their consciences with their hearts… then our hearts know our motives, our true selves. Lying to others becomes more manageable when we get comfortable lying to ourselves. And when that happens… like a magic trick… poof, our conscience disappears, and the audience sits with amazement, wondering where did it go?

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When it comes to leaders in our society, their consciences are not any more or less important than others, but I am beginning to see leaders’ consciences leaving them as quick as they can run away from it. It just disappears, or they hide it where it can only be found when they want it. Why? What has happened to a person where we wonder, “When did they start to think a certain way?”

I see the issue not so much growing more popular but more evident. Blame-shifting is so easy to do now. Especially with the anonymity of social media and hiding behind a keyboard. Imagine everyone being made a scapegoat because leadership will not hold themselves to the same standards as everyone else.

We live in a culture where the conscience of leaders is elevated to be valued as medal-worthy due to pride. Leadership has also reached a level where others need to be blamed for a leader’s failure instead of responsibility taken for personal faults. Leadership deflection is so prominent that it is now seen as the norm, and leaders are escaping wrongdoing by claiming that they are now victims of other’s misunderstandings, even accusatory. When leaders shun responsibility, they set rules that only acknowledge self-entitlements.

Our conscience is a part of who we are. We cannot escape it. It does not and will not disappear, regardless of how many times we put it aside. However, the more times we do, the more numb our consciences become; stifled, muted, callous, eventually dead at the end.

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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Stop all the noise, I’m distracted and can’t hear myself think…

03 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by in Captive, Classroom Leadership, Deciding, Decisions, Distractions, Importance, Intentional, Leader, Leadership, Teachers, Time

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Two ideas got my attention this week… One, I was listening to a radio segment this past Saturday morning. The topic was about freedom and being held captive; we can be captive to others, and we can be held captive to ourselves. The other idea is from a statement our pastor said this past Sunday about how we allow noise of the outside world in our lives. If we are not able to set it aside, it will hinder our focus.  When I combined these two ideas in my head…

Well, as you know… it got me thinking…

We now live in a world of instant information. What one time took days and months to reach our ears are now at the touch of a button. I will confess, I am fascinated with news of what all is going on “out there.” If I let it, it will distract me, and it does to an extent. Our willingness to put that aside, in some ways, speaks to our mindset. And it does not have to be technology distractions. There are so many things that distract us; other people, family, your job, financials, sports… that putt I missed last Saturday morning, etc…

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That said, it now leads to what holds us captive. Are we held captive to our distractions? Individual freedom can only exist when we are no longer captive to the distractions of our own minds. At some point, they can very well become weapons of “mass distractions.” 

Don’t get distracted 🙂 stay with me here…

As educational leaders (by the way, that is what all people in education should want to be), are we distracted from doing our jobs? What interferes with us so much that our minds are held captive? If they keep us from doing what we are supposed to be doing, it is not good. For me, one distraction is idle curiosity. I will Google almost anything. I will chase rabbits with or without meat on it. Does it benefit my life? In my world, yes, but big picture, not really.

Nonetheless…

As we educate, as we lead, our minds really need to be clear of distractions. I know, easier said than done. Can we hone in on our objectives? There is a clip in the movie “For the Love of the Game” where Kevin Costner’s role is a baseball picther. When pitching, he mentally says, “Clear the mechanism.” It is often very hard to do this, but I believe we are at our best when we do.

Bottom line… distractions disengage us. I would suspect that most people would want us to be engaged and the flipside of that as well. I guess, in the end, it boils down to what we are willing and not willing to control in our minds. What do we want freedom from? Don’t be held captive to the noise.

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…

The Conscience… It’s For Others As Much As It Is For You

16 Friday Apr 2021

Posted by in Actions, Conscience, Deciding, Decisions, Leader, Leadership, Value

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You know when you have the “gut feeling” about something? Or that “inner voice” you sometimes hear? Call it what you want, but you cannot say that something is not happening… Maybe a tingly feeling.

Your conscience, it’s there… but the question of the day is, “Do you listen to it?” Yes, or no… the decisions you make because of your conscience affect others as well.

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The value of our conscience is a repeated theme throughout our leadership. Clear or muddy, a value is placed. However, how much weight do we put on having that clear conscience in leadership? (We are not speaking of relativism here) External factors aside, no one can really say what they would do regarding the decisions we make. They might say, “Well, I would have…” Yes, that is true, but they really, really cannot say.

We all have, at one point or another, struggled with decisions. Those decisions that keep us up at night, make us fidgety, cause stress… it happens in leadership. While we might see this as a nuisance, I think we should welcome it instead of seeing our conscience as a hindrance in our lives. Decision-making starts on the inside, and for leaders who lead without a conscience, well… it affects others, and it flies in the face of many. So often, we see self-absorbed leaders whose decision-making only affects the results they want. If there is a conscience, it is not working, or they are deaf.

Our conscience is essential in leadership and the role it plays with decision-making. It’s a beacon that keeps us on the right path, alerts us of dangers, and eases our minds. However, I also believe that our conscience is programmed with a life of reflection of our actual selves. How we live our lives, in some ways, determines our decisions and many of those are conscience-driven. Needless to say, everyone’s conscience is not the same.

Nothing is more destructive in leadership than a conscience that relishes self. In the end, our conscience is our witness to our leadership, seen by the decisions made and the long-term effect they have on others.

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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The 4th Nine Weeks Stretch…

26 Friday Mar 2021

Posted by in COVID-19, Deciding, Encouragement, Intentions, Leader, Leadership, Momentum, Motivation, Purpose, Teachers, Useful, Value

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Well, here we are. We have made it—the 4th nine weeks. Just like the 7th Inning stretch in baseball, the end is in sight. For 27 weeks, educators have taught like they never have before. In our teaching, we have dug deeper, gone further, taught harder, and almost exhausted every bit of teaching methodology we know. And, one more thing… most educators have now perfected what I call “Eduzoomcation.“

With all of that being said, we are still not done. As I have spoken with other teachers, many are trying to fit lessons in on top of regular lessons just to get their students where they need to be to progress to what they need to know. The idea of incremental development of lessons has never been more important, but the time factor has many teachers pressing.

More importantly, what we cannot do is compare our teaching and pacing of our subjects to years past. If you do, it will devalue what you have done and accomplished this year. It may not seem as much, but considering everything, it is much. Many teachers have turned into accepting minor roles of psychologists while they teach, asking themselves what they can do to reach one more student and trying to figure out the best way forward. As I told someone the other day, teaching this year during the COVID pandemic is worthy of a resume bullet.

This time last year, we found out that we would not be coming back to school for the 4th nine weeks. Now here we are at that same point one year later. The good news… we still have an opportunity as educators to make good on what we do. It does not matter if students are still on Zoom or in the classroom. What matters is that we stay committed to the values of what education should do… to help better society by educating students for the future.

The 4th nine weeks stretch… Go ahead and stretch… but know, like baseball, there are a few more innings to play, and they matter. If you get complacent, odds are your students will also. And please do not get into what I call the “hook-slide.” While we are rounding third-base, per se, beat the throw at home plate. Don’t try to “hook-slide” in; you might just get tagged out.

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…