Resolutions for a New SCHOOL Year

By Dr. Barrett Mosbacker

July 06, 2014

I do not make New Year’s resolutions; I make New School Year resolutions. I have never found New Year’s resolutions particularly helpful because my life revolves around the school year, not the calendar year. This makes summer an ideal time to pray, reflect on the past year, and plan for the next. Over the summer I reflect on and assess two areas: my leadership and my life-work balance.

Assessing My Leadership: Fair but Rigorous

Fair

Fairness means that I do not exaggerate my weaknesses and failures. Fairness means that I do not expect perfection; I am merely human.

It also requires that I assess my leadership based on my God-given natural and spiritual gifts, not the gifts of others or gifts that I wish I possessed. For example, I am a mild introvert who must extrovert for a living. There is no profit in comparing my leadership style to that of extroverts. While I can glean helpful insights and profitably incorporate some of the practices of extroverted leaders, I will never be an extrovert. I must assess and adjust my leadership to maximize my effectiveness based on how God has made me, not how he has made others.

Rigorous

In Good to Great, Jim Collins defines rigor as “consistently applying exacting standards at all times and at all levels, especially in upper management.” Upper management means you and me. We are to apply exacting standards at all times to our work and to our leadership. No excuses, no minimizing, no shifting of responsibility. The proverbial buck stops at our desks.

Being rigorous with ourselves is painful but necessary for growth. We cannot improve, nor will our schools improve, unless we are rigorous with ourselves. And to be rigorous with others but not with ourselves is hypocritical. We cannot — we must not — expect more of others than we expect of ourselves.

Assessing My Life-Work Balance: Realistic and Honest

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” This proverb means that without time away from work, a person becomes both bored and boring. I can easily fall into this trap. In fact, I have boasted about how hard I work. This is both stupid and sinful. It is stupid because God did not make us to be mere working machines. It is sinful because bragging — even about good things such as working hard — is a reflection of self-serving pride, which is always wrong.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Greg McKeown observed:

We have a problem — and the odd thing is we not only know about it, we’re celebrating it. Just today, someone boasted to me that she was so busy she’s averaged four hours of sleep a night for the last two weeks. She wasn’t complaining; she was proud of the fact. She is not alone.

Why are typically rational people so irrational in their behavior? The answer, I believe, is that we’re in the midst of a bubble; one so vast that to be alive today in the developed world is to be affected, or infected, by it. It’s the bubble of bubbles: it not only mirrors the previous bubbles … it undergirds them all. I call it “The More Bubble” … we have been sold a bill of goods: that success means being supermen and superwomen who can get it all done. Of course, we back-door-brag about being busy: it’s code for being successful and important.

Resolutions

I am sharing some — not all — of my resolutions with you, in the hope that they will encourage you to take stock of your own leadership and life-work balance. You will be better for it, and so will your school.

My Leadership

• Spend more time cultivating personal and professional relationships with board members.
• Schedule monthly “Lunch and Learn” leadership training with my Executive Leadership Team.
• Cover each chapter of The Christian Mind: How Should a Christian Think? during this year’s faculty devotions.
• For the sake of building relationships, incorporating the practice of managing by walking around, and maintaining good health, walk the campus every hour for ten minutes. This will require me to extrovert when my tendency is to work without pause in my office.
• To improve productivity, respond to emails only twice a day and keep the email program closed at all other times.
• Turn off all notifications on my computer and mobile devices.
• I will not humblebrag.

My Life-Work Balance

• Unless providentially hindered, begin every weekday with prayer and time in God’s Word.
• At a set time each evening, turn off all electronic devices, unless I am monitoring weather for a possible school closing or delay.
• With the exception of after-hours meetings and school events, restrict work at home to no more than one hour per day and no more than two hours on Saturdays.
• Do no school-related work on the Sabbath, unless there is an emergency. Spend Sunday in worship, rest, reading, and enjoying the family.
• Read one new book per month.
• Exercise five to six days per week.
• Devote time weekly to my photography hobby.

A Closing Encouragement

Do you reflect on your leadership and your life during the summer in preparation for a new school year? If so, consider committing some of those reflections to writing. Your resolutions may encourage others to become better leaders and to live a more balanced, wholesome, God-honoring life.