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Three school leaders. One AP stepping toward the principalship. One principal in year four, rebuilding from the ground up. One veteran closing out a 20-year career and asking how to finish strong.

Different stages. Same underlying question.

Who am I as a leader — and have I made that clear enough to the people I lead?

The Situation

The AP was sharp, curious, hungry. He’d just picked up a summer school principal role, his first crack at the chair. He came with the right instincts: don’t take in too much at once, learn from people who’ve made the mistakes, figure out the potholes before you hit them.

But the deeper question surfacing wasn’t about logistics.

It was about identity.

The principal in year four said it plainly. She’d come into a situation where a beloved predecessor had been the entire system. When the predecessor left, a faction of the staff made it their quiet mission to see the new principal fail. Two years of second-guessing. Two years of leading from doubt.

I’ve been leading from a place of fear.

And then — almost as a confessional — she said the thing that connected all three conversations:

If you don’t define who you are, your staff will define it for you. And it’s never how you want them to.

What They’d Already Tried

The AP was building relationships intentionally. Handwritten notes, $5 Starbucks cards, genuine recognition. Not transactional. Just deposits in accounts he knew he’d eventually need to draw from.

The year-four principal had been planting seeds. She quietly invited a core group to a conference on conscious discipline, never announcing it publicly. Word spread. Eighteen staff members signed up. Nearly a third of her teaching staff, and she hadn’t sent a single email.

Both were doing things right. But neither had fully named their leadership identity. Not out loud. Not on purpose.

The Coaching Conversation

The question that shifted things for the AP:

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