Have you ever found yourself in a difficult situation where you needed to lead but you weren’t the one in charge? Throughout my career, I’ve dealt with numerous challenging situations. Let me share one with you where CPR worked for me…

As a site leader, I was responsible for providing emergency shelter to the community during hurricanes. The problem I had was I wasn’t the one in charge…

Running a shelter is challenging! I was responsible for providing food, shelter, medical service, and security for more than 1,000 individuals. As you can imagine, it was a stressful situation.

I used every tool in my leadership toolbox when we provided shelter to over 1,200 individuals during Hurricane Irma. Once all of our temporary guests departed from our facility, we transition to a cleanup operation and prepared for our students to return.

When the campus was ready for students, my team met to conduct a debrief. To guide the conversation, we used a protocol I learned as a member of the United States military. Using the questions from the After Action Review protocol, we analyzed each phase of the operation.

As we concluded our process, I opened the meeting for final comments. My head custodian asked me an interesting question. He asked, “if I had ever run a shelter before?” My answer was a resounding no! He then asked, “how did I know what to do?”

Well, I told him I did what I do every day. As a leader, I solve problems. I looked at the task of operating a shelter as a problem to be addressed. It was my responsibility to instill order and comfort during a difficult situation.

Once our students returned, our lives returned to the regular rhythm of education. During a weekly staff meeting, one of my staff members raised the topic of how to respond during a crisis.

I reminded them of the shelter operation. During our discussion, one individual asked, what do you if you are not in charge? I responded, “leaders lead!”

Although an NGO (non-governmental organization) was technically in charge of the shelter, it was my role to provide the leadership which assured order and comfort for the community.

No matter what situation you find yourself in, you can step up and lead. In his book “How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge,” Clay Scroggins offers a three-step process, CPR, to help you lead when you are not in charge.

  1. Choosing – don’t wait for someone to give you a problem to solve. Choose a problem and develop a solution.
  2. Planning – offer ideas with a plan to implement the ideas to solve problems
  3. Responding – respond to what’s important to your boss.

Scroggins reminds us you don’t need to be in charge to lead.

“Do what you can, with what you’ve got, where you are.”

Theodore Roosevelt

Are you using CPR to lead when you’re not in charge?

#YourLeadershipGuide
Kim


View the “MOORE Leadership Moment” podcast HERE

Lead Confidently | Expand Influence | Achieve Significance

  • Good Advice from one of my favorite Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt! Hope all is well, Kim and James!

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    About the author

    I'm Kim, your Educational Leadership Guide. I equip educational leaders with research-based and experientially learned educational leadership principles and best practices to promote student success.


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