Clarity of Purpose (Finding Your Why): Session 1 / 3

I'll survive. I will survive. I will survive.

Hello, everyone. See if we— hello, everyone. I'm Blakely Nielsen, the Director of Marketing at Parallel Learning. Before we get started, I want to take a moment to recognize and thank each of you and want to say a special thank you to Parallel's district partners who are here with us today. As special education leaders, you are the architects of change in education. And special education leadership isn't just about policies or programs, it's about people. It's about seeing potential in every student, even when the path forward isn't clear. It's about rethinking what's possible and breaking down barriers one child at a time. You create environments where every child feels seen, valued, and capable of success. At Parallel, we believe supporting our district leaders means ensuring you have access to the best providers, resources, and insights. We don't just offer staffing solutions, we integrate directly with your districts. That's why we host conversations like this, so we can learn, grow, and keep pushing the boundaries of what's possible together. Today, we're honored to have Corey Gollum with us, someone who not only understands the challenges but also reminds us of the why behind everything that we do. This is the first of three sessions, and we hope you will join us for the entire series and invite a friend or two along the way. So let's get started. Let's be inspired, and most importantly, let's keep making a difference. And we want to make sure that you know that you can put Q&A questions in the chat throughout the session. We want this to be really interactive and fun. So with that, I would like to introduce you to Corey Gollum. I've had the pleasure. I've had the pleasure of working with Corey over the past 3 months as we put together this program for you, and one thing is clear: she's incredibly passionate about this work. She cares deeply about special education and, more importantly, about those leading it so they have the tools they need to succeed. Some people work in education, others transform it. Corey Gollum is the latter. With 41 years in education, starting as a special education teacher and then to assistant to As superintendent, Corey has not only seen change, she's led it. Her passion: empowering special education leaders from all backgrounds, where leadership isn't just about decision-making, it's about making a difference. Corey specializes in all things that truly move the needle: leadership development, communication strategies, the kind of decision-making that changes lives. She's on a mission to help leaders like you discover their purpose and turn that into action. And for the— for those of us in special education, Corey has always been an advocate passionate about creating inclusive environments where every student has a chance to succeed. Today she reminds us of our why and inspires us to keep pushing forward. Please welcome Corey Gollum.

Well, hello everybody. So this is going to be such a fantastic webinar. I'm so excited, but I want to tell you, um, just a little bit. This is just a Just a disclaimer, because we're gonna do educational training, which doesn't mean that it's all legal and things like that. So I just wanted to put that in because these focus on leadership skills development and implementation. So let's talk about some of the things that we're gonna learn. And I wanna tell you right from the start, this is gonna be a different kind of webinar. We're gonna do a little bit of engagement activities. I wanna make sure that you get kind of the full— as if I was there in person, which I know is hard to do because I'm not. So with using all of our little technology, we're gonna make it as engaging and informative as we we can. So over all the years that I've done it, I don't know about you, but I remember when I first started in the very first leadership position I had. And I remember most of the team was already hired. So I didn't get to do a lot of hiring. I remember my first day, I was put— they didn't even have a room for me. So they put me on the top floor in this tiny little office. Didn't have administrative support. It didn't have anything. And I was just sitting up there. And I didn't know what to do. And so after many, many years and going through all these things, I came away with several frameworks and little techniques to help me. And so you won't have to go through this as you're a new leader. And the first framework that I did was called the CEO framework. Kind of clever, right? Because we're CEOs in our own mind. But— and it really basically is clarity of purpose. That's the C, so that we know why we're doing what it is that we— we know what we do. We know how we do it. But we can't always communicate the why. And this will help you when you're leading so that it's all about passion and conviction and authenticity. And the E is for enhanced communication. And we'll do that in the 2nd module, the next webinar we do. And that's when we'll talk about effective communication skills. And then the O in the CEO framework is the optimized decisions. And that's strategic decision-making and problem-solving so that, you know, in this position— and I'm sure many of you have already been able to go through this— that many struggles you have as emerging leaders is struggling to address all the different kind of requirements that you have in a specialized population in your district, finding it may be difficult to communicate effectively with through the different levels within your district and external stakeholders. Sometimes the leadership skills could— you might be lacking confidence. I know I was when I started. To be able to— you want— your goal is to be able to lead with authority and empathy. And of course, problem solving is always difficult because we get some very complex issues that We want to solve creatively and decisively, but they're so complex. Sometimes there is no book or manual to help us get through it. And more than anything, I want to make sure there's a work-life balance for you. So right now, as you're going through this, be sure to have your cup of coffee, your tea, or whatever. It's cold here in Texas. I don't know about you. We're— I moved from Canada to Texas to get out of the cold, and we're struggling here. So get comfortable and let's go. So one of the things I want you to be able to do by the end of this whole series is lead with purpose. I want you to be able to know the core principles in leadership and connect your personal motivations to your role, and so that you have well-defined purpose. And that's what we're going to focus on today. And then next time, we'll talk about communicating with impact so you can articulate your vision clearly and actively. And you want to have trust because trust is one of the main things I always required on my team. That's how I had a well-oiled machine. My team was fantastic. And solve problems creatively. And you're probably thinking like, why is this important? Well, if you can be— if you know how to do solutions for diverse needs, you can provide strategies and insights for effective managing, and every student's needs are met. If you know how to communicate well, you're going to have tools to improve your communication and foster better relationships with your staff and your community. You want to be able to guide emerging leaders, have confidence and skills in leading, and with, like I said before, with empathy, because many times we lead with authority, but we don't have the empathy to realize what's happening with our team and the people that we serve. All right, so let's move on. Let's talk about the C in the CEO framework, the clarity of purpose. Let's talk. We're going to start a little bit with why leadership is so important. Now, I know you probably did all of this theory in your courses because that's how you got to be where you are. But now we're going to put that theory into practice because leadership involves guiding, influencing, and inspiring others to achieve these shared goals. We know there's challenges balancing competing demands and managing your team dynamics and evolving as a leader. So let's— we're gonna understand the foundation principles of leadership. In this, we're talking about this session today, we're gonna identify personal motivations and your why, and then we wanna connect that why to your leadership roles and your responsibilities. So for right now, I'd like you to— there's a code at the top for the Mentimeter. You can either type in the code or you can scan the QR scan and share a word that represents your vision for school leadership. I'm gonna have a sip of my tea while you're all doing this. We should start to see some words coming in. So there's 63 of you so far. I haven't seen any. So let's try to get one in here. Oh, good. I see positive change. Nice. They're coming. Let's see, is the most common one. Oh, all right, you guys, here we go. Collaboration is a big one. It's so fun to see this. I can see the numbers. That's when you see me looking up. It's because I have a big screen up on top to do this, so I can see how your, your words are coming through. Y'all are doing great on this. We got 18 people coming in. Let's see if— I know we may not get all 63, but let's see if we can get at least up to 30. Authenticity is great. That's one of my ones that I truly believe is a vision for it. You have to be authentic. Transparency is good too. All of these are good. It looks like collaboration is our big one, isn't it? All right, guys, you can still enter them, but I'm gonna go on. But collaboration— I'm so glad you all put collaboration in there, because I think honestly, collaboration— you can't do this. This is not a single man's job. You might be the leader, but you cannot do this alone. So that's great to have that. Okay, guys, you can keep putting them in, but I'm just gonna move along just a little bit here. Oh, it's still coming. Nice. Oh, they're still coming. I'm like, so I get enamored with this stuff. I think it's fabulous. All right, we'll move on. But you can still keep putting your responses in. That's great. Looks like collaboration, communication, authenticity, and transparency are our big ones. So I wanted to find out a definition. It's really hard to find one that's educational in leadership. But this one came from McKinsey and Company. And it was done in 2004. It's one of the newest ones I've seen. And basically, to me, the big keywords here is that it's the mindset and behaviors that we want to align people in collective direction. So it's a set of mindset to put people in one direction so that they work together. So there's your collaboration and accomplish a shared goal so that we can change the environment. And so when you think of leadership as being highly complex, I want you to think of the leadership at— what is that leadership that you hold? And do you think it can impact the leaders on students, and it can, because your main function is gonna be provide direction and exercise the influence so that we can have successful school districts. And that could be through strategic planning, organizational oversight, evaluation of programs or policies, any resources. So that's why we wanna know about the concept of leadership and helping you identify your personal why. So here we're gonna do one more. Tell me, I want you to type in the top 3 qualities that you look for in an educational leader. Let's see how many we can get on this one. Thoughtful. Remember, you can use the scan, the QR scan, or you can use the code at the very top, that 27734810. And see if we can get some responses in. Okay, guys. Okay, listens. Oh, good. Okay, servant. Nice. Good. Look, the scan, that QR scan kind of gets in the way, but I can see influencer integrity. Good. Problem solve. This is great. So if you notice, the first one was about what you thought, like one word to describe a leader. These are the qualities, and I'm gonna tell you why we're doing that in a second. I just wanna see a few more responses here. This is great. Okay, well, I like this. We're up to 20. Okay, problem solver. Good. Some of these are things that— now, as we do this, I want you to think, are you Are these things that you personally think you have or things that you look for when you look in a great leader? You know what's— did we see trust too? Trustworthy. Perfect. OK. I like it. OK. I'm going to go on to the next one. But this is really, really great, guys, because I love this open to feedback too. And at the end of this, you'll see I do a little feedback thing too. So in all the things that I'm doing, you're welcome to do with your team too. Now, I know that we talked about— or I'm sure you talked about leadership styles when you did your coursework and you got your degree. But when you look at these types of styles, let's think of the kind of leader that you are, because research shows that many leadership styles are conducive to the leaders in business. Now, maybe when you look at this list, you might say, well, some of these are better to align to educational leaders. So when you look at these, I want you to see which one matches your style. And then look at your reflecting on your personal and your professional values. You can type it in the chat. And we're gonna look at the chat and see what most of you think. So I want you to think about, if I took all of these styles, how could I align them to benefit central administration leadership? And so what I did was I looked, because when I look at these, I think, well, I do coaching. I wanna be a servant visionary. Like, I combine them all. And, and here's why it will— knowing what kind of leader you are and the style that you wanna have. Will help you with central administration and when you're in that role, because it will, it will improve student success and focusing on the needs and providing resources. It'll help you ensure schools meet local, state, and federal requirements. And then, of course, knowing your style will help you identify ways of improvement and implement your strategies. And sometimes you have to use a variety of styles depending on the situation. So that's your benefits and the type of style. But what if we look at a different perspective? What if we think about the qualities you have that you emulate as a leader? Like, remember we talked about the very first one we did about what are those things that you look for in a leader? And then how do you take the greatness in you, the qualities that you think are important, and bring that out in the best of the people that you're supervising? So look at these styles, and then I want you just to think about If you had to do the, you know, I know the latest, I'll say what's in vogue or the latest fad maybe for leadership. People think of all these adjectives for leadership, like I'm an instructional leader, I'm transformational, strategic, distributed. Well, many times you have to be a distributed leader because you can't do it on your own, and you have to count on the support of others. So the goal of this is that we match the style of leadership that you have with the qualities that you have. So if you see the greatness in yourself— many times we don't see the greatness in ourselves— but the greatness you see in you is probably what others will see in you as well. So if I was going to use myself as an example, which is very difficult sometimes to say the greatness I see in myself, but I know I like to be very honest and trust is really important to me, but I'm also data-driven. And I'm also like to— I like to have a growth mindset because I think we can always improve. And in my style, I'm more of a— I would say I like to have a whole group teamwork approach. So very different when we're looking at that. So now we're gonna take these 2 things that we just looked at, and we're gonna bring those together, and we're gonna talk about the why statement. And I'm gonna be honest with you, when I first did this, it was in, I wanna say, 2016, in a district that I was just new to. And they had all of administration. They had all the principals and all of the central administration. We were all in one room and we did this why thing. I don't know if you— how you can see this, but there's a book, Simon Sinek. He wrote that in 2009. It's not new. And it was starting with the why. And back then I thought, why am I doing this? This is so silly. I know why I'm working. I don't need to have a— do all this stuff. But then several years later, I did it again. And I'll tell you, This is what I started realizing when I did it, and it took me probably a good half a day to do this, and we're not gonna have time to do the whole thing today. But I wanna tell you why this was so interesting to me. There was research done by the National Association of Independent Schools, and back in 2009, they did a survey that showed that 69% of educational leaders intended to leave their position within 10 years. That was the time that that book This book that I told you, the Start with the Why, that's when that book was written. So give it another few years. In 2021, they did another survey. 80% of the schools had leaders who hadn't even been in their position for 10 years, right? Over half were considering leaving. More than half of those, they left either within that next few years, either to retire or just get totally out of education. So if you think about it, you know, 60% of administrators are going to transition out of their job. I wanted to find out what makes a good leader because I was in the leadership role. And I read Jim Collins' Good to Great. I read John Maxwell and all of those things. And for me, I wanted to know, like, how can I expect people to follow me if I don't even know what my own purpose is or my own belief. Because we know that happiness comes from what we do. But if you really want to be fulfilled, it's going to come from why you do it. And that was actually from Simon Sinek from his book. So we want to be able to inspire people to act. So I went over. I did all these things. And you look back. And I started thinking of, well, who were the great leaders that I admire? I loved Apple. I mean, I'm probably a lot older than you. I even remember when the first Apple computer was built, when Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak— 2 great Steves— did it of the garage. And the— they weren't so great because they built a computer, because we had computers. But their whole purpose was to have put the computer not in the hands of business, but in the hands of people like you and me in our homes. And their whole thing was, let's think differently. And that's why people, you know, right now are doing apples. It gave them a sense of purpose. And they did things because what they did It was— Steve Jobs always said it's like how the things fit by design, not by default. So here's my— I wrote— I went through this. It took me hours and hours. So I'm going to read my purpose here. I don't know if you can see it on the screen very well. But my purpose was to lead with transformational servant leadership, emphasizing humanity and compassion in education. And I'm dedicated to making a difference in children's learning experiences by ensuring every child has access to the right environment and tools tailored to meet their unique learning styles. And I went into education to demonstrate that all children have the potential to learn and thrive, and given the right support and opportunities. Well, that's a mouthful. I couldn't do that on an elevator speech if I had to. So I went back and read some more and looked at more assignment snacks and thought, you know what, I want a one statement. And I think that's the goal that we'll have. I want you guys to think about what is something, if it was an elevator speech, that you could do? What do I want to do? So that— so my whole goal is I want to drive change by honoring diverse ways of learning so that all people can excel. And you're probably thinking, where did she even come up with that? Because I wonder that too. But I'm— we're going to do something. We'll do an exercise with you because I went through the 7 steps of why. And when I got to the very bottom of it, it took me way back to a story. It was like an emotional thing. And it was like, there'll be times, you know, you get overwhelmed and you start thinking. And it was when I was in the first grade, I had a teacher called Miss Fleming. I grew up in Canada, so I don't even know where she is these days, but I remember this. And we were all sitting in rows back then, and we were all told to read to ourselves, right? And she gave us a chapter we were supposed to read to ourselves. So I took my book and I started reading, and I just like started reading something, you know, and I'm going like this, you know. There are many talented executives with the ability. Well, she yells my name out and she goes, Corey, I told you to read to yourself. And I'm thinking, well, I did read to myself. Nobody else is listening to me. And because I was a smarty in school, I said, no one else is listening to me. And she goes, well, silently, so I don't hear you. Well, if you don't communicate and say what it is you want people to do when you're teaching them to do something, how do you expect them to understand? You're assuming everybody understands the directions, right? Well, That's when I realized that we don't all learn the same. We all don't dress the same. We don't eat the same. We have different tastes. We're all unique individuals. And I think that's what my passion started to become. I wanted to help others because I knew what it was like to struggle sometimes. And then now it turned into driving change in different kinds of learning so we all can excel to promoting the next generation of leaders. And when I looked at the different styles I have, I wanted to be visionary and purpose-driven. I love mentorship because I wouldn't be where I was today if I didn't have great mentors. So that's where I wanted to take us today so you could see that. Now, this is what you can do. Now, we don't have a lot of time, so I'll just give you kind of like a minute or so, because really, like I said, it took me hours to be able to develop mine. And if we had a lot of time, we'd go into more depth on this. But there's a link on here so that you can have a little bit of time. And right now, we'll just do 1 minute so you can get the link and you can see what it is. And it's an exercise called 7 Levels Deep. And it will go through the time that you could create this. If we had more time, I would— we would stop and we'd go into a focus room and you could do this. But when we go into the Q&A section and the breakout rooms, we'll talk a little more about this. And then I'd love to hear some of your different why statements. when you get to that. Because the whole purpose that we do this is for clarity, to drive authentic leadership so that you'll have confidence. So there's a lot of good leaders out there. But I want you to think about the people— when there's great leaders, do you follow them because of what they do? Or do you follow them because why they do it? And I think about when you're in a restaurant and you're so excited about the experience. Say you went somewhere, you had a great steak, and it was fabulous and juicy and wonderful, and the service was incredible. And you come back to tell people about it. They can see the excitement in your face because you're so excited about the experience you just had. That's what the 7— it'll take you back to an event. What event in your life stood out the most? And think about an experience in your life that really stood out. What did you learn from that? Just like I shared with you about when I was in the first grade and what it was like to have a teacher call my name out because I was reading out loud. How did it impact you? How did it influence you? How did it make you feel? And you can put this in the chat too, because we're going to go over the chat later. But I want you to think about what is it about that experience that you had that you loved? And what is it about that really mattered to you that made it a special event? And how did it affect you? So when we go in the breakout, we'll talk about these different why stories and maybe get some feedback from you guys. And then eventually you'll get your purpose statement like I did on the last one. Okay. So I'm hoping everybody got that down. I'll give you 1 minute just to go through it. And feel free to put stuff in the chat if you want.

All right.

I know it seems like a long minute when you're waiting, but I hope you got that. So let's look at a scenario of how this can go into effect. And we talked about, as a leader, you have to consider the style that you have that you want to emulate and what characteristics reflect the type of leader you want to be. So think about in this one, you want to define so that it'll drive your work. So in this scenario, there's a promising young director who's struggling to inspire his team, even though they've all met their performance goal. So then he had some self-reflection. And exploring his why, he discovered that he had a passion for mentorship and personal development that could transform his leadership approach. So when you're thinking about this— and I'm going to give you an A, B, C, or D, and you can put it in the chat— what initial challenges did the young director face with his team despite achieving performance goal? A, did he lack personal satisfaction? B, difficulty in inspiring his team? C, resistance from higher management? D, budget constraints? And I'm not sure, I guess maybe if you can't put it in the chat, so I don't see anything in the chat. You could put A, B, C, or D. I think we're going to work on this thing a little bit so we can get— oh, there's one. Oh, chat's not working. Okay, so we'll have to try this another time. We're going to work on that for the next one. So we'll just go. So in this case, it was difficulty inspiring his team. So on the next one, when you look at this scenario, how did exploring his why help the director change his leadership approach? So if you're thinking about this, do you think it was increasing his personal wealth or transforming his leadership approach, making him work longer hours, or helping him find a new job? Well, hopefully it was transforming his leadership approach. And then on the last one, why would— why is personal development, or what role does personal development play in effective leadership? A, does it improve technical skills? B, does it foster inspiring and engaging environment? Does it, C, ensure compliance and protocols? Or does it guarantee promotions? Well, I'm hoping that it fosters an inspiring and engaging environment. So the goal of this scenario was to just understand that the core principles of leadership connect with your personal motivations in your role to help you guide with actions and a well-defined purpose. So here's some resources that I use so you can understand some of the concepts that we talked about. Sorry, I had to take a little sip of my tea there. I hope you know the Golden Circle. This, like I said, this was written in 2009, but it's had like 48 revisions or printouts of this book. So it's still popular today. If you have time, there's a video so you can see this chapter 4 that talks about the concept of the Golden Circle. But I think the biggest thing you can get from the concept of the Golden Circle Is that we all know, if I asked you right now, if I said, can you tell me what you do? You probably could say, yes, I'm the director of special education and I serve this, this, and this. You probably could even tell me how you do this. You could probably go down and say, I have this team, I have several people that do this, I'm organized this way. So you can— it's very easy to tell what you do and how you do it. Which I used to get, especially near the end of my career, is why do you keep coming back? Why are you doing this work? What's the reason that you want to keep doing this? So when we go into the breakout part, one of the things I want you to be able to look at is what is your why? And we'll share a story or an example of where your understanding is and what made that impact on your decision. And then we'll think, how did your— how did this influence your style? So there's a book, like I said, Simon's Next, which look at the concept of that. And we'll look— we'll go to that next part. So we're really— we've come to the end of this part, and then we'll go into the breakout. But before we go into the breakout, Blake's gonna— Blakely's gonna come back on and just talk to you for just a second, and then we have some discussion questions we're gonna go through.

Corey, thank you so much for this incredible presentation. There were so many powerful takeaways. I love that you referenced Steve Jobs and Apple. Let's Think Different campaign is one of my favorites, and I'm actually reading his biography right now. So if anyone needs a good book recommendation, it's a great one. At Parallel, we believe that— we believe in thinking differently when it comes to special education. We're not just a staffing solution. We're an extension of your team. We know how much you're juggling as a district leader, and our goal is to keep you on the prepared path with a flexible and customized approach. So, we have top-tier accredited SLPs, school psychs, school social workers, and special education teachers, and we help districts build solutions that truly work for your uniquely— your unique needs. So, I'd love for everyone that's on this call to hopefully have a virtual coffee with one of our district partnership team members at some point, and even if you don't have an immediate need, we'd love to connect, and who knows, you may have a colleague who could benefit from parallel support. So with that, we're going to go into the breakout room where you're going to be able to ask Corey live questions and do a workout workshop. So bear with me as I assign everyone to the room, but we will all head over into the breakout room.

So, um, I'm going to