Redesign Yourself First: The Summer Opportunity Most Leaders Miss

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”— Mahatma Gandhi

When school leaders think about summer improvement, they often think about changing something around them: schedules, PLCs, intervention structures, professional learning plans, etc.

And those things matter.

In fact, in our next post we'll focus entirely on redesigning the systems and structures that support improvement.

But before we can effectively change those systems, there is a more important question:

What needs to change about ourselves?

Leadership is interesting because much of our work involves influencing other people, improving organizations, and creating change.

Yet the one thing we have the most control over is ourselves.

• Our habits.

• Our routines.

• Our skills.

• Our thinking.

• Our responses.

• Our growth.

Good leaders work to improve their schools.

Great leaders know that the most powerful change is in their own capacity.

Because every system they lead, every conversation they facilitate, and every change they attempt to create will ultimately be influenced by the person they bring into those situations. The most important redesign work this summer may not be the master schedule. It may be you.

In the last two posts, we explored reflection and recovery as critical parts of summer leadership.

• Reflection helps us understand where we are and where we want to go.

• Recovery helps restore the energy required to do difficult work well.

Now comes the next step:

Redesign.

Many leaders immediately think about redesigning school systems. We will discuss that in the next post.

Before redesigning the organization, great leaders spend time redesigning themselves, because the future of a school is heavily influenced by the growth of its leader.

The Gap Between Current and Future You

In the Reflection post, we discussed projecting toward a future state.

Questions like:

• What kind of school do I want to lead?

• What outcomes do I want for students?

• What culture do I want for staff?

• What impact do I want to have next year?

Those questions naturally lead to another:

What kind of leader will that future require?

That question changes everything, because many leadership challenges are not solved by working harder. They are solved by becoming different.

A leader who wants to build stronger teams may need to improve facilitation skills.

A leader who wants to create more ownership may need to ask better questions.

A leader who wants to lead change more effectively may need to strengthen communication skills or learn how to surface problems before presenting solutions.

The goal is not simply achieving a future outcome. The goal is becoming the leader capable of creating it.

One of the Secrets of a Change Agent: Growth Before Change

One of the secrets of a change agent is understanding that organizational growth often follows personal growth.

We spend a lot of time asking:

• What should the staff do differently?

• What should the system do differently?

• What should the district do differently?

Great leaders also ask:

• What should I do differently?

• What should I do differently to support the staff change I want?

• What should I do differently to successfully implement the new system?

• What should I do differently to influence district decisions and priorities?

• What should I do differently to create the culture I hope to see?

This is one of the most important leadership questions because it sits directly at the center of our locus of control. There are many things leaders can influence, but relatively few things they directly control. We cannot force teachers to change. We cannot force district leaders to agree. We cannot force systems to improve.

We can control our own learning, behaviors, habits, responses, and growth.

This mindset creates humility. It creates ownership. And, it prevents leaders from expecting organizational growth that they are unwilling to model themselves.

The Research Behind Personal Growth

This idea is not just philosophical. It is also supported by research on school leadership. One of the most influential researchers in educational leadership, Kenneth Leithwood, proposed that a principal's effectiveness is heavily influenced by a set of underlying personal competencies that shape how leaders think, make decisions, solve problems, and interact with others. He referred to these as Personal Leadership Resources.

These resources include areas such as:

• Problem-solving

• Systems thinking

• Emotional intelligence

• Optimism

• Self-efficacy

• Resilience

• Proactive thinking

What is fascinating about this work is that these competencies are often invisible. Staff members rarely talk about a principal's systems thinking or self-efficacy. Yet those underlying capacities influence almost every leadership action that follows.

In my own dissertation research, I explored the cognitive side of these leadership resources and found that highly effective principals spent much of their time engaged in problem-solving, prioritizing, strategic thinking, and determining how best to respond to challenges. The quality of those decisions was directly connected to the personal leadership resources they brought to the work.

The research reinforced an important lesson:

Leadership effectiveness is not simply about what leaders do.

It is also about the capacities they bring to those actions.

Leithwood has suggested that as much as 50 percent of a principal's effectiveness may be attributable to these underlying leadership resources.

If that estimate is even close to accurate, it has profound implications for summer leadership.

It means that one of the highest-leverage investments a principal can make is not simply redesigning schedules or improving systems. It is intentionally developing the personal skills, habits, and capacities that influence every decision they make throughout the year.

That is why redesigning yourself is not separate from school improvement.

It may be one of the most important school improvement strategies available.

Redesigning Leadership Habits

Many leadership outcomes are driven less by major decisions and more by daily habits.

Consider questions like:

• How do I spend my time?

• What consistently gets my attention?

• What conversations am I avoiding?

• How often am I in classrooms?

• How frequently do I provide feedback?

• What routines help me stay focused on priorities?

These small patterns accumulate over time.

Summer provides an ideal opportunity to identify which habits should continue and which need redesign before the next school year begins. Changing a habit in July is often much easier than changing it in October.

Redesigning Leadership Skills

The summer is also a rare opportunity for skill development.

During the school year, leaders often consume information quickly but have limited time to deeply study and practice.

Summer creates more space to reflect.

What skill would create the greatest impact next year?

Rather than trying to improve everything at once, consider which personal leadership resource would create the greatest impact next year.

Possibilities might include:

• Difficult conversations

• Change management

• Instructional leadership

• Coaching conversations

• Facilitation

• Strategic planning

• Communication

• Data analysis

• Building collective efficacy

For some leaders, the highest-leverage growth area may be communication. For others, it may be strategic planning, resilience, facilitation, or systems thinking.

You do not need ten new skills.

One meaningful improvement can dramatically influence your leadership next year.

Redesigning Leadership Routines

Great leaders often have routines that protect what matters most.

Summer is a perfect time to evaluate those routines.

Questions to consider:

• How will I begin my workdays?

• How will I protect thinking time?

• How will I stay connected to instructional priorities?

• How will I prevent constant urgency from taking over?

• What systems will help me remain proactive instead of reactive?

These routines become the infrastructure that supports effective leadership. More importantly, routines are where new habits and skills become sustainable. Many leaders attend workshops, read books, or identify new growth goals, but those improvements often fade because they never become part of a routine. The best way to make a new habit stick is to intentionally embed it into an existing routine.

For example:

• A principal working on instructional leadership may build two classroom walkthroughs into their daily schedule.

• A leader focused on coaching skills may intentionally add reflective questions into every one-on-one meeting.

• Someone improving communication may create a weekly routine of sending a short update to staff.

• A leader working on relationship-building may establish a routine of connecting with a different staff member each day.

When new skills become part of recurring routines, growth becomes much more likely to last beyond the excitement of summer planning.

Growth Happens in Cycles

Just like recovery and reflection, redesign is not a one-time event. It happens in cycles.

The strongest leaders spend the first part of summer identifying growth priorities. Then they intentionally revisit those priorities throughout the summer through reading, practice, coaching, thought partnership, and reflection.

This creates continuous growth rather than a single burst of inspiration.

A Personal Leadership Growth Plan

One of the most valuable summer activities a leader can create is a simple personal growth plan. Not a complicated document. A focused plan.

Consider identifying:

One Skill to Strengthen

What leadership skill would most improve your effectiveness?

One Habit to Change

What recurring behavior is helping or hurting your impact?

One Routine to Establish

What system would support your priorities next year?

One Resource to Study

What book, coach, mentor, or learning opportunity could support your growth?

Small, focused improvements often create the greatest long-term impact.

Why This Matters

Before organizations change, people change.

Before cultures shift, leaders shift.

Before systems improve, someone has to think differently, act differently, and lead differently.

This is one reason Gandhi's famous quote has endured for generations:

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

The principle applies to leadership just as much as it applies to society. If we want different outcomes, we often need to become a different version of ourselves first. That is why redesigning yourself is not separate from school improvement. It is one of the most important forms of school improvement.

Many leaders will spend this summer redesigning schedules, structures, and plans.

Those things matter.

But one of the greatest opportunities of summer is far more personal. To become a stronger version of the leader your school needs next year.

In our next post, we'll explore how leaders take the insights from reflection, recovery, and personal growth and redesign the systems that create the conditions for success.

Because lasting improvement requires both.

• A stronger leader.

• And stronger systems.

Reflection Question

If you could improve just one leadership skill, habit, or routine before the next school year begins, which would create the greatest impact for your staff and students?