Ep #394: Asking “How”: 3 Ways to Shift from Questions to Action
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
Release Date: 07/15/2025
Ep #399: One Thing at a Time: A Principal's Guide to Productivity
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
The beginning of a new school year brings a familiar flood of tasks, responsibilities, and mental chatter that can make you feel like you're drowning in urgency. In this episode, I'm exploring the reality that you are only ever doing one thing at a time, despite what your brain tells you about multitasking and efficiency. As you prepare for the upcoming school year, join me today to discover how to use this time as a window into your leadership pattern. You’ll learn how, by focusing on the one thing in front of you, you can build your capacity for the emotions that...
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Ep #398: Drop the Rope: How to End Power Struggles
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
Have you ever found yourself caught in an endless back-and-forth with a challenging staff member? You know the type - where no matter what you say or do, it feels like you're being pulled into a defensive game of "prove you're right"? Tune in this week as I share a powerful metaphor that's changing how principals handle difficult conversations: instead of playing tug of war, drop the rope. You'll discover how to recognize when people are using blame as a delay tactic, why defensiveness keeps you locked in unproductive battles, and most importantly, how to maintain your alignment...
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Ep #397: The Adventure of Creating Impact
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
The business of education is the business of creating impact. School leaders step into their roles with dreams of transformation, yet impact doesn't automatically materialize with credentials or titles. It emerges through conscious creation - a co-creation between you and a higher power when you're tuned in and aligned with yourself. Join me this week to learn how the path to creating lasting impact involves processing emotions in real time rather than avoiding them. You'll discover how to separate your identity from others' behaviors and criticisms, fuel your desire for...
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Ep #396: Everything Planning vs. Focused Priority Planning
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
School leaders everywhere face a critical decision as they plan for the upcoming year: tackle every problem that needs fixing or focus on what truly matters. The pressure to improve student attendance, boost test scores, enhance behavior management systems, and implement multiple district initiatives simultaneously creates an impossible burden that leads to burnout and resentment across entire school communities. The reality is that while you can improve anything you want this year, you cannot improve everything you want. This episode explores the fundamental difference...
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Ep #395: From To-Do to True Purpose: Outcome-Based Planning
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
Are you caught in the endless cycle of deadlines, to-do lists, and meetings? If you're like most school leaders, you probably measure your success by how many tasks you complete and deadlines you meet. But here's the truth: that approach is keeping you stuck in a loop of doing without ever feeling truly accomplished. As we enter a new school year, I'm inviting leaders to shift from purely deadline-driven planning to outcome-based vision that considers not just what needs to be done, but who we need to be while doing it. Find the full episode show notes and...
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Ep #394: Asking “How”: 3 Ways to Shift from Questions to Action
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
School leaders constantly face situations where they need to expand their skills, build new systems, or navigate challenging conversations. The natural response is often to look outside ourselves for answers, seeking the exact steps someone else took to achieve success. But this external search for solutions can actually limit our growth and keep us from tapping into the wisdom and expertise we already possess. In this episode, I explore why we ask "how" questions and what they reveal about our beliefs in our own capabilities. I share three powerful options for handling those moments...
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Ep #393: An Empowerment Meditation for School Leaders
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
The chaos dial in your mind is turned all the way up. Your nervous system is hijacked by the latest crisis, your thoughts are racing through solutions that feel impossible, and your body is vibrating with an intensity that no amount of positive thinking can override. This is the reality of school leadership - where the challenges pile up faster than the successes register, and where your mind's ability to coach itself through the overwhelm sometimes falls short. In this special episode, I'm offering something completely different from my usual teaching and strategies....
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Ep #392: The Purpose of Conflict
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
When parents storm into your office demanding that you eliminate all conflict from their child's school experience, they're operating from a place of fierce love and limited perspective. They see their kindergartener struggling with a classmate or their fifth grader being harassed, and their protective instincts kick into overdrive. Suddenly you're being asked to create an impossible reality where children never experience discomfort, rejection, or disagreement. These situations reveal a fundamental gap between what parents expect (no conflict ever) and what we know as educators about...
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Ep #391: How School Pulse is Keeping Students Safe Year-Round with Iuri Melo
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
Disclaimer: Please be advised that this episode contains content related to crisis situations. If these topics are challenging for you, you may wish to skip this episode or seek support. When students are struggling with everything from friendship drama to thoughts of self-harm, the gap between needing help and getting it can feel insurmountable. And school leaders carry the weight of hundreds or thousands of students' well-being on their shoulders, knowing they can't possibly reach every child who needs support. In this episode, I'm joined by Iuri Melo, a licensed clinical...
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Ep #390: The Rage of Injustice
The Empowered Principal® Podcast
Leadership requires processing both professional and personal experiences, particularly when faced with injustice. As school leaders, we encounter unfairness in various forms - from promotion decisions to resource allocation to systemic inequities affecting our students and families. I've found that managing these experiences requires understanding how our minds and bodies respond to perceived injustice. In this episode, I share practical insights for acknowledging and safely expressing these difficult emotions without causing harm to ourselves or others. While solutions aren't...
info_outlineSchool leaders constantly face situations where they need to expand their skills, build new systems, or navigate challenging conversations. The natural response is often to look outside ourselves for answers, seeking the exact steps someone else took to achieve success. But this external search for solutions can actually limit our growth and keep us from tapping into the wisdom and expertise we already possess.
In this episode, I explore why we ask "how" questions and what they reveal about our beliefs in our own capabilities. I share three powerful options for handling those moments when your brain offers up questions like "How do I build culture?" or "How do I manage my time?" And you’ll learn an approach that will transform the way you view your own expertise.
Find the full episode show notes and transcript, click here: https://angelakellycoaching.com/394