As leaders, we cannot tell others they should be innovative while we continue to do the same thing. The characteristics we look for in our teachers and our students—empathizing, problem finding and solving, risk-taking, networking, observing, creating, bouncing back, and reflecting—should be embodied in our work as well. As a principal, I did not simply recreate what my former principals did. Instead, I constantly asked the question, “Would I want to be in a community where I was the principal?”
