In last week’s colorfully titled blog post, I shared a little bit of the story about how I ended up in my current role as a high school administrator. Today, I’d like to share another big chunk of that story, and I want to tie it in to a really important topic… Loyalty.

Flash back to two and a half years ago when my wife and I decided it was time for me to pursue a position in campus administration. As I said previously, we knew which school district we really wanted to get into for that transition. However, knowing how difficult it could potentially be to break in to that district, I applied in several surrounding districts. One of my mentors told me that getting that first assistant principal position is a lot like trying to get your first head coaching position. If you really want it, you have to be willing to take the first one you get offered no matter where it is. I wasn’t necessarily ready to shotgun my resume all over the DFW metroplex. I had a good job with a decent amount of leadership responsibility, and I really liked the people I worked with. I wasn’t going to take a job just to take it, so I selectively applied to a few reputable districts that were close to the area we wanted to relocate to.

First, let me give you a little bit of context before we get any further into my story.

If you do not work in education, you may think that schools have a weird calendar when it comes to hiring and movement. It is very cyclical. For obvious reasons, there isn’t much movement in the fall. The school year starts, and everyone gets on with their business. Generally, the months of February, March, and April are the biggest months in terms of interviewing and hiring, and during that window, most people are ok when you tell them that you are looking at other opportunities. When you start creeping into May, depending on the situation, anxiety levels start to rise. Interviewing for a job in June creates a whole different level of anxiety for you and your current employer, and there actually comes a point in July where your current school district can hold your teaching certificate for up to a year if you try to resign. It can get pretty intense.

Now, back to my story.

Administrative positions are interesting. Most school districts in this area require you to apply for these positions in January even though you will not begin working until July or August. That being said, I applied at about five different districts that January. I only heard back from one. It was a very large, reputable school district, so I was excited about the prospects. They have a very lengthy screening process that requires two separate panel interviews and an essay submission before you can even get into “the pool” of candidates.

In the final interview (I wrote about part of it 3 weeks ago), they get to the final question, “So, what questions do you have for us?” It’s late March. I’m right in the middle of “job season.” My current bosses have been really supportive of me thus far, and I want to make sure that I can give them a solid timeline for what might be happening because if I leave, they have to hire a new head wrestling coach, a new defensive line coach, a new special teams coordinator, and a guy who can come in and pick up the three classroom preps that I had. This might not be a good question to ask, but I felt like I needed to ask it. “How many administrative positions do you have to hire, and when will you hire them?”

They didn’t seemed bothered by my question, but I was very bothered by their answer. “Well, we don’t have any open positions right now, but we know we will have several come open this spring. In a district our size, we always have openings. We probably won’t actually hire them until June or July.”  I asked a few more questions, but all I could really think about was “June or July.” We wrapped it up, and they told me that they’d call me to let me know if I made it into the pool or not. I hadn’t even made it out of the parking lot before they called to let me know I had made it and that I’d be getting calls to interview for specific positions as they came open. I was excited, but the excitement was short-lived because all I could think about as I sat in the Dallas traffic for the next two hours was “June or July.”

June or July…

In the coaching world, it can be hard to hire great people. The really good ones have a lot of opportunities, and they usually find jobs early during the “job season” if they’re even looking for a job at all. I had lot of responsibility on the staff that I was on at the time, and there was no way I could wait until June or July to see if I was going to find an administrative job. I am by no means irreplaceable, but in July, it’s hard to replace anyone with a quality candidate. I could not do that to them with a clear conscience. I felt bad enough that I was looking for a job after just being there for just one season. That was the moment that I finally decided that I had to change strategies (read about that in last week’s blog).

I shifted gears quickly, and I secured a position as a head wrestling coach in early April in the school district that I now call home. Before being offered that job, I had a conversation with the campus principal. She knew that I was an aspiring administrator, and she had legitimate concerns about whether or not I would be there a year later. Was I using her or her school? Would I just stay for one season and then start pursuing administrative opportunities again? I understood her concerns, and I understood how important this opportunity was for me to get back into the district that I wanted to be in. I assured her that I would not even apply for an administrative position until I had her blessing. As long as she was helping me grow, I would be patient, and I would be the best head wrestling coach possible for her school.

When I accepted the new job, I also assured the head football coach I was working for at the time that I’d do anything he needed for the rest of the school year. I did not tell my players that I was leaving at that point because I wanted them to continue to take advantage of the coaching that they were receiving. If I had told them that I was leaving in early April, they probably would have shut me out, and they would have missed out on two months of getting better. That would not have been fair to them. I would end up telling my kids that I was leaving, but it was very late in the year after most of the work was done. (I don’t want you to think I just snuck off like a thief in the night. I had that happen to me once when I was a student-athlete, and I was really upset about it. Another story for another day, maybe…)

I coached spring football as if I was going to be there during the fall, and I ran the wrestling off-season program as if those young people were going to be wrestling for me again the next year. I owed all of them the opportunity to get better, and I never wanted anyone to say that I just “checked-out” once I accepted a new position. That’s a character thing as well as a loyalty thing. They hired me to do a job, and I was going to do it until they no longer needed me. That was never in question.

The school year ended, and we began preparing to move. One day in June I was at home packing up boxes, and I got a phone call. It was that district calling to ask me to come interview for an assistant principal position. “June or July.” I was fired up about the opportunity, BUT I do my best to be a man of my word. I felt like I now had a responsibility to be loyal to a new school district even though I hadn’t even started working for them yet. They took a chance on hiring me, and there was no way I could bail on them in June even though the difference in pay would probably be somewhere in the $20,000 range. I couldn’t even entertain it. I politely declined the interview. They called me two more times in the next week to come interview for different assistant principal positions. I turned down all of the interviews, and I actually ended up asking them to take me off of their list.

Legally, I absolutely could have jumped on those interview opportunities, and I was well within my rights to accept one of the positions without penalty. I was within the timeframe that the state of Texas allows for that type of movement. Morally or ethically, however, I could not pull the trigger. Maybe I’m old fashioned. I believe in loyalty. I know there are some people reading this that might think differently. I have, after all, been in 5 different school districts in my 16 years as an educator. Where’s the loyalty in that, right? Well, all I can say to that is that every opportunity that I took was a promotion or a much better situation for my family, AND I was open, honest, and timely with the process each time. I never hid my intentions from my employers, and I ALWAYS made those decisions to leave early enough in “job season” that they would be able to find a quality replacement.

Am I just old fashioned? I know a lot of people would have jumped at the opportunity to interview for those assistant principal positions in hopes of attaining a difficult position and a hefty pay increase. As a matter of fact, I saw that same situation play out several times this summer with other people. Who’s wrong? Them? Me? Neither? I do not regret my decision at all, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they would be wrong in their actions either, does it?

I have a friend who was doing everything he could to get an administrative position. He interviewed for several spots, but he just had trouble breaking in. He finally got offered an assistant principal position in another district (let’s call them District B). He accepted it as soon as it was offered, and he was really excited. A month later, he got a call, and he interviewed for a slightly higher-paying position (a couple thousand dollars) in yet another district (District C). He accepted it, leaving the District B in a bind in June trying to hire a quality assistant principal. Was he wrong? He took the best job for him and his family from a financial standpoint, and he hadn’t started working for District B yet. Even though he’d accepted their job offer, does he have an obligation to be loyal if he can still legally make a change?

What about another acquaintance of mine? She is a teacher/coach in District A. She didn’t like the sport she was coaching, so she started interviewing for other positions. She was after a tough-to-attain coaching position, and after a lot of interviews, she finally got offered the job that she was looking for in a rural district about an hour away from where she had been living. She accepted the job. That was in June. In July, I ran into her, and she told me that she had interviews set up in a couple urban districts for the same position. What?! I was shocked. However, both positions would be a significant pay raise, and they would cut her commute down by 45 minutes if she were to take either of them instead of the rural opportunity she had already “accepted.” I’m not judging her. I do not know her situation. I just know that my stomach hurts thinking about having to call the other district to let them know that I took a different opportunity in July.

A friend of mine asked me the other day what my goals were. I don’t really like that question because I feel like people judge me when I tell them that I don’t necessarily have a “5-year plan.” I am just trying to grow and learn as much as I can in my current role, so that if and when an interesting advancement opportunity that fits my strengths and skill set presents itself, I might be ready to pursue it. Outside of that, I just want to grow where I am. I explained that to my buddy, and then he asked me, “If District D called and offered you a campus principal position, would you take it?”

Good question. Campus principalships are very hard to attain. However, my district has been so good to me over the last two years. My superintendent has been incredible. He’s allowing me to intern for him this year as I go back to graduate school to start on my Ed.D., and I am learning a ton. It would be really hard for me to accept an opportunity in another district anytime soon. My answer to my friend… “I’ve never been offered a job that I didn’t apply for.” How do I keep from having to worry about loyalty or having to make a really tough decision? I simply don’t apply for jobs in other districts right now, so I don’t put myself in that position. There may come a day way down the road where the only way to get to the next milestone might require me to put myself out there, but we’re nowhere near that point right now.

One of my best friends used to think very much like me. He was loyal to a fault. However, over the years, he feels like he has gotten burned a few times by the people that he was most loyal to. Several years back, I was discussing some of my concerns as I was struggling to work through the process of deciding whether or not to leave the best teaching/coaching position I ever had. I was shocked the first time he told me, “Don’t worry about anyone but you and your family. They’ll fire your a** in a minute if they felt like they needed to. They won’t be loyal to you when it matters, so you don’t need to worry about them.” The first time he said that, I thought I was talking to stranger. However, his experiences had taught him some very different lessons over the last few years. Loyalty should be a two-way street, and it wasn’t really being shown to him. Why should he worry about being loyal to his employer?

The purpose of this post is not to provide answers. Instead, I want it to spark questions. Loyalty is a big topic, and it is weaved into all of the various relationships that we have in one form or another. I know this was long, and if you’re still with me, thank you for sticking it out. I’d love to hear your thoughts on loyalty. Is it subjective? When should you show it? When should you not? An even bigger question for leaders (and this is probably going to be a topic of another blog sometime down the road) is how do you build it? If we can nail down how to build loyalty within our organizations, that certainly provides solutions to many of the problems we might encounter.

Reach out on social media or in the comments section, and share your thoughts on loyalty. I’d love to hear them!

Thanks again for reading. See you next week!