Matt Pauls

I've been interviewing my mentors about decision making to improve my decision making skills. I have noticed a common thread in all these conversations with how they handle decisions. When making decisions, especially under pressure, step back. Take a moment, or sleep on the decision. Observe the context, be aware of the environment—sometimes environment forces a certain decision. Try to understand the pressures on the situation. Be as clear as possible on what is actually happening. Ask for help when making decisions. This is especially important during emergencies, if you have enough time. If you get stuck between options, pick a few that feel better and run it by a mentor or friend. Consider future impact your decision will have. Ask yourself: does this meet our department's vision? Does it fulfill the organization's goals? What impact will this have on us in the future? K-12 organizations are people organizations, and even small decisions can ripple through the o...

A form of self-leadership is not knowing all the answers but taking a step forward anyway. Sometimes the best way to get things done is to simply begin them, even with incomplete information or only parts of a plan. This takes courage, especially for people with perfectionist tendencies. People who want to develop self-leadership abilities are, by definition, interested in growing. Growth requires change, and change requires a first step. Perfection is not the goal; growth and meaningful, impactful work to affect positive change is. This doesn’t mean we have permission to break everything to build something new. A balance needs to be struck: things need to add value, but they don’t need to be perfect to achieve the goal. Plans and structure do matter. However, too much time looking at a problem to come up with a plan can result in paralysis. No forward progress is being made, nothing is changed—which means there is no growth and no impact.