Self-Care is an Essential Responsibility of School Leaders During a Crisis
During a crisis, your decisions have greater than usual consequences. Your ability to make good decisions is directly related to your physical health and well-being.
You also have an opportunity to deepen a culture of care and competence as a school leader. Making the best possible leadership decisions starts with these essential elements of self-care for you and your team.
When your schools are hit with a crisis, you are called upon to navigate uncertainty, make important decisions, and create stability for the community. In these high-stakes moments, our body reacts by kicking the adrenal system into high gear. These brain chemicals are great for giving us a burst of energy to deal with a challenge and can help us focus.
But these benefits come at a cost. Our natural stress response slows or shuts down a number of internal systems, from basic body functions to a higher-level critical and creative thinking. (Fun fact: our stress response gives us tunnel vision - literally and figuratively.) As a result, our initial adrenaline-fueled reaction might not be as strong as our considered response.
“Self-care is a strategic leadership decision” –J.Marie
We often devalue good self-care because our culture places a greater emphasis on looking busy than it does on being strategic.
When working with organizations in crisis, I remind leaders to take good care of themselves, not just because I care about them (although I do), but because a person’s ability to make good decisions is directly affected by their physical well-being.
As a school leader, you have an opportunity to deepen a culture of care and competence in a crisis situation. The decisions that you make during the crisis will have a greater impact on your community than your everyday, routine decisions. Sometimes these decisions are remembered for generations.
The quality of the decisions you as a school leader make during a crisis will suffer if you haven't attended to your body's basic needs.
You can mitigate the effect of your adrenal system’s response by intentionally slowing down. Start by remembering to breathe deeply and exhale slowly.
Exhale Slowly
We are often told to take deep breaths during times of stress. Actually, the secret to using your breath for brain management is to attend to your exhale. When we intentionally exhale slowly it sends a signal to the brain that we are not under threat and it changes the structure of the chemicals that our brain secretes.
While there are many different counting techniques for inhaling and exhaling, the bottom line is you will have a calming effect on your brain if you exhale longer than you inhale. Slow down your exhale and you will reduce your body’s stress response.
The other great part of exhaling slowly? No one has to know that you are doing this. You get the benefits of meditation while you maintain a professional outward appearance.
Get back to the (body) basics
We are school leaders. It might feel silly to say this, but we are also biological beings and we need to take care of our body to be at our best as leaders. In addition to slowing your exhale, other aspects of self-care entail getting back to the basics:
Make sure you stay hydrated. It has been shown that even being 10% dehydrated has a measurable negative effect on the quality of the decisions you make.
Attend to your blood sugar. Make time for healthy snacks, especially during a hard day. Consider providing a basket of snacks to your leadership team and others assisting that day.
Move your body regularly. Don’t stay behind your desk during a crisis. Get up and walk around. This is also a good opportunity to connect with others who are working through the crisis.
Protect time for rest and sleep. Our brains use rest and sleep time to consolidate memories and information from the day. Without sleep you go into the next day in a deficit, with a tired and cluttered mind. Be disciplined about turning off your screens and giving your brain time to wind down. Even if you can’t sleep, give yourself time to rest.
Model good self-care and encourage your team to do the same
Within schools, any crisis we’re dealing with is affecting people. Your job as a leader is not just to attend to the logistics of the crisis, but also to attend to the people affected by it.
This starts with you. People will take their cues from you, so as a leader it is important for you to talk about the fact that you are taking good care of yourself and why. You also need to be clear that you expect others on your team to do this as well.
By modeling these good behaviors, and expecting your team to do the same, you have the opportunity to create a ripple effect and culture of good self-care throughout the organization. This is not just good for you and your team, it is ultimately good for your students, their families, and the community at large.
The quality of the decisions you as a school leader make during a crisis will suffer if you haven't attended to your body's basic needs.
Start by remembering to breathe deeply and exhale slowly.
Be well, friends
I care about you as a person and I care about your ability to take care of your team and community. You have a responsibility to make good decisions and to model that behavior so your leadership team can make good decisions, too.
Your work as a public school leader is important. Thank you for all you do … and be well, friend!
J.Marie is the founder and principal of J.Marie & Associates. She is a nationally recognized communications strategist, facilitator, leadership trainer, and presenter with more than 25 years of experience helping organizations, teams, and leaders build strong, purposeful relationships. Contact J.Marie to discuss how she can help your school district or organization.