How To Create An Irresistible Culture That Your Toxic People Will Hate

July 12, 2022

What’s impacting your campus performance more than you think?


Your culture.


Specifically, the culture you’re creating as a leader.


If you have been in your leadership seat for three years or more and are not in love with your campus culture… Look in the mirror. 


Leaders create (and allow) culture. 


In weekly table conversations, I hear campus leaders grumble about the growing number of toxic people they have who are negatively impacting their system. 

If you can relate to this reality, let me ask you a question. Is your problem the people or your system? 


Here’s the truth about systems. They are built by teams, and systems drive the overall health of your culture. 


Healthy teams build healthy systems. 


Healthy systems build irresistible culture. 


Create an irresistibly healthy culture, and your toxic people will leave.


Let your culture go flat or get toxic, and your high-capacity and healthy people will depart.


Why? 


Because:

   ➜ A healthy culture spits out toxic people.

   ➜ A toxic culture spits out healthy people.


Here’s the surprise. No one gets kicked out. They just leave when they feel they no longer belong. 


If your value of inclusion includes toxic people, I don’t think your best days are ahead. 


This truth runs more profound than you realize.


A raft of research agrees that people who leave their jobs quit their boss more than they quit their organization.


But remember that underperforming bosses create bad cultures. 


People also quit culture. 


Healthy people quit unhealthy cultures. And unhealthy people quit healthy cultures.


As a result, the overall culture you create as a leader has an awful lot to do with your organization's long-term success or failure.


You either create a campus culture in which healthy people thrive, or you experience the inevitable slide into accidental leadership that brews average teams who fall victim to average performance.


That’s just how human nature works, and great leaders must resist that gravitational pull at all costs. 


I was asked recently by a school leader what I thought the difference is between an unhealthy person and a toxic person. While there are nuances, here’s the bottom line and my response to him: 


Unhealthy people want to grow. Toxic people don’t.


Your organization should always have room for unhealthy people on the road to recovery. You must contain them, care for them, and challenge them to become healthy. 


Toxic people who resist all efforts to help are a whole other thing. And as Henry Cloud argues, you don’t need to keep them around, unless you want them to destroy everything.


So, what do you do about all this?


If you want to create a stellar organizational culture that attracts and keeps healthy people, here are four keys:


1. Focus on Your Personal Health


I have been a senior leader for nearly three decades. As much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s still true: During those 28 years leading within the system, my organization was only as healthy as I was.


Full stop. 


Ditto for you. Fight it all you want, but your organization will only be as healthy as you are as the leader. 


Don’t be offended, but if your system is not healthy… Tag you are it. 


Even if you’re not the senior leader, that’s true of the team you lead, the department you run, or the crew you manage. The health of the leader tends to be the health of the team.

I think of the health of a leader in five categories:


✅ Spiritual

✅ Emotional

✅ Relational

✅ Physical

✅ Financial


While health in each category is nuanced, one thing is true: health in each category means margin.


A healthy leader has a spiritual, emotional, relational, and physical tank that is more full than empty. They have the benefit of not being exhausted all the time, not constantly irritable, or not so over-consumed with the needs of others. 


This is the gift of margin. 


You may wonder what being financially healthy looks like. It’s simple: Living within your means and using the leftovers for the benefit of others. 


I know leaders who make $40,000 a year who have a bit of money in the bank and leaders who make $140,000 who are always strapped and out of money. When your financial situation causes stress, that toxin leaks out all over the place.


Healthy leaders tend to lead healthy organizations because they have the reserves to help others get healthy and have a lower tolerance for toxicity.


Finally, healthy people are attracted to healthy leaders.


That👆🏼might be the solution to your talent recruitment challenge. 


2. Invest in People, Not Just Results


I’m naturally a results person.


But I’ve also come to realize this: Results-driven leaders focus on what they can get FROM their team. Healthy leaders obsess over what they can do FOR their team.


Strangely, if all you think about is what you can get from your team, you always end up with diminishing returns. People feel used and eventually lose heart, start going through the motions, and become underperformers. 


But if you focus on what you can do FOR your team, people lean in and give you much more than you imagined.


The longer I guide and coach others, the more I realize that if you have competent people, the best thing you can do is care about the team as humans.


I’ve observed a few practical strategies that help immensely that you can start today:


➜ Ask team members HOW they’re doing, not just WHAT they’re doing. People want to know that you care.

➜ Invest in your leader’s growth and development.

➜ Do off-sites together. Invest in team retreats, conferences, events, and seminars.

➜ Invest in courses, books, and resources that grow your people and their skill sets.

➜ Invest in personal coaching and consulting support for your leaders and divisional teams.

➜ Give your leaders what they need to do their job well. Everything from slow computers and lousy WiFi to a crappy work environment demotivates people and creates unnecessary barriers. 


Cheap is always more expensive in the long run, right?


Bottom line? Create the kind of environment where the people working for you become better PEOPLE, not just employees. Grow THEM, not just their skills.


When your team grows personally, your progress grows exponentially.


RECLAIM IT!

As we move into the midpoint of summer, you can almost hear that collective “what-the…” from campus leaders across the country. 


“Isn’t July supposed to be when things slow up?”


Most feel that. 


The challenges left in the wake of these past two years have many leaders taking extended leave, and others left to do most of the work. 


The question is, “is it sustainable?”


I know how much this summer break is needed, and I trust that your calendar has some dates marked off for you to truly get away. 


But don’t be fooled. 


I’m here to remind you that many of those same problems and issues will await you and your team when you return in the fall.   


Leaders hate when I say this (while they shake their heads in agreement), but managing crisis was challenging but leading OUT of crisis will be much more complex and demanding. 


Healthy leaders and teams will be in high demand to build (not rebuild) the plans and strategies to navigate the unchartered territory ahead. 


You need to take action and Reclaim Your Momentum!


You may be one of the hundreds who requested and downloaded my free guide on reclaiming your momentum in the past few weeks and months. The feedback I’ve received from so many of you continues to be overwhelming. 


Because of that, I’m going on tour. 


I’ve turned this essential topic into a 2-hour LIVE keynote that I’m delivering to campus leadership teams across the county this summer and fall. 


If you’re like most campus leaders, you’ve spent countless hours these past years putting out fires, dealing with negativity, drama, and just plain old burnout across the board. 


And, like so many others, you’re fed up with feeling stuck. 


It’s time to take action.


For a limited time, I’m offering an Early Bird Discount for campuses that book our new 2-hour live keynote before July 30th! 


Click here for the details.


What are you waiting for?


It would be an honor to be your guide and help you and your team regain lost ground and Reclaim Your Momentum.


Joe


Dr. Joe Hill 

Founder, Higher Performance Group


P.S. Be sure to share this article with a team member or fellow leaders across your network who could use a nudge of inspiration and challenge. Together we can help raise the waterline of hope, stability, trust, and compassion for those doing the most good across our learning communities. 


Click here to learn more.





See What Reclaim Your Momentum {LIVE} is All About

More Blog Articles

By HPG Info September 2, 2025
Your convocation was exceptional. Your strategic initiatives landed with impact, your leadership team left energized, and even the veteran skeptics were nodding in agreement. You walked away confident about the transformational year ahead. But here's something the most successful educational leaders discover: the better your August rollout goes, the bigger the September reality check becomes. It's not because your vision was flawed or your planning inadequate. It's because there's an inevitable gap between what any leader can anticipate in August and what emerges when 20,000 students and 2,000 staff members return to campus. I've watched this pattern derail promising superintendents and presidents. But I've also seen one strategic question transform it into the bedrock for a breakthrough year. The Confidence Trap Dr. Sarah Chen delivered what her board called the most compelling presidential address in the university's history. Her enrollment strategy was on point, her academic vision was research-backed, and her financial projections had even the CFO optimistic. The cabinet left last Tuesday's retreat aligned and energized. This weekend, Dr. Chen feels confident about the semester ahead. Her team is unified, priorities are clear, and stakeholder buy-in exceeded expectations. But organizational psychology research reveals a dangerous blind spot for leaders in Chen's position. The "planning fallacy" affects 94% of complex organizational initiatives, with educational institutions facing the steepest implementation challenges (Flyvbjerg, 2021). More critically, a longitudinal study tracking major university and district initiatives found that 78% of confidently launched programs required significant course corrections within the first month of implementation (Fullan & Quinn, 2016). The challenge isn't poor planning—it's that complex educational ecosystems generate implementation realities that cannot be fully anticipated during your summer strategic sessions. Recent data reveals the leadership disconnect forming right now across educational institutions: 76% of district leaders feel disconnected from campus-level operational challenges (NASSP, 2024) 71% of college deans report that senior administration doesn't understand their departmental realities (ACE, 2023) 68% of department chairs believe executive leadership lacks awareness of day-to-day implementation barriers (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2024) Michael Fullan's latest research reveals why August confidence often predicts September struggles: He states, "executives overestimate their operational awareness by an average of 340%." (Fullan, 2024). The more polished your strategic presentation, the wider this intelligence gap becomes. The Intelligence Deficit That's Undermining Your Leadership Here's what your team is thinking right now: "That vision was inspiring, but I'm already seeing challenges that weren't addressed. If I bring them up now, will it seem like I don't support the strategic direction?" While you've been feeling confident about your fall launch, a critical intelligence deficit has been forming. Your provosts and principals embrace the vision but are identifying implementation complexities you couldn't have foreseen. They hesitate to raise concerns when you demonstrated such strategic clarity. Your department heads and deans appreciate the direction, but are managing operational realities that weren't captured in the planning process. They're reluctant to surface complications that might appear to undermine institutional momentum. Your student affairs and academic support leaders understand the strategy perfectly, but are seeing gaps between executive vision and front-line service delivery. Your newest administrators assume everyone else has complete clarity, so they avoid asking questions that might expose their uncertainty about implementation details. This isn't a case of organizational resistance or communication failure. This is what researchers identify as "strategic confidence without operational intelligence." Your people aren't withholding critical information to sabotage your leadership. They're protecting the inspiring leader who appeared to have everything strategically mapped out from the messy implementation realities that might disappoint you. The Question That Reshaped the Internet Kyle Schwartz faced the classic educator's dilemma. Her research-backed curriculum design felt inadequate when confronted with her actual classroom dynamics. Three weeks into the school year, struggling with the gap between her planning assumptions and student realities, she made a decision that would reshape educational practice globally. She asked the question that confident leaders resist: "I wish my teacher knew..." The student responses demolished her planning assumptions: "I don't have pencils at home." "I haven't seen my dad in years, and it makes me sad." "My family and I live in a shelter." "I walk to school by myself, and I only feel safe when I get to school." Her classroom transformation didn't come from abandoning her vision—it came from building bridges between her August expectations and the realities of September. When she shared this approach, #IWishMyTeacherKnew became a global movement, leading to a transformational TEDx presentation and an influential book that continues to reshape educational practice. The breakthrough wasn't superior planning. It was strategic questioning. Why This Amplifies Rather Than Undermines Authority The counterintuitive truth: asking "What do you wish I knew?" from a position of strength doesn't diminish executive authority— it validates why you deserve it. When educational leaders combine strategic confidence with genuine curiosity about implementation intelligence, organizational dynamics shift dramatically: ✅ Institutional trust accelerates 4x faster when leaders demonstrate both vision and vulnerability (Zak, 2022) ✅ Innovation capacity increases 67% when confident executives show learning agility (Brown, 2023) ✅ Leadership retention improves 45% when administrators ask "What do you wish I knew?" from positions of strength (Dutton & Heaphy, 2023) ✅ Student outcomes improve 2.3x in systems led by confident, adaptive executives (Hattie, 2023) Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety shows that when leaders create environments where staff can share operational intelligence safely, institutions become dramatically more resilient and adaptive (Edmondson, 2019). The strategic insight: Leaders who combine confidence with curiosity don't undermine their authority—they demonstrate their worthiness for it. Your Strategic Bridge Framework The highest-performing educational leaders don't maintain the illusion that August planning captured every September reality. Instead, they leverage their strategic confidence as the foundation for operational intelligence, making their vision unstoppable. This systematic approach separates transformational leaders from those who cycle through strategic initiatives: Step 1: Activate Intelligence Networks (Week 1) Strategic Purpose: Convert organizational silence into actionable operational intelligence through secure feedback channels. Executive Process: Deploy this message within 48 hours. [ Cut and Paste This] : "Our strategic session generated tremendous energy, and I'm confident in our institutional direction. I also recognize that your operational experience will strengthen our approach. Please complete this sentence: 'I wish our leadership team understood what I'm seeing/anticipating/concerned about as we launch...' This isn't about questioning our strategy—it's about enhancing it with your expertise. Anonymous participation welcomed." Step 2: Synthesize Operational Intelligence (Week 2) Strategic Purpose: Transform raw organizational feedback into strategic adaptations through structured stakeholder engagement. Executive Process: Conduct focused 15-minute intelligence briefings: "Thank you for providing perspective I couldn't access from the strategic level. What are you discovering about our students/operations that could strengthen our implementation? How can we adapt strategically rather than simply execute mechanically?" Step 3: Demonstrate Adaptive Leadership (Week 3) Strategic Purpose: Model confident adaptation by transparently integrating organizational intelligence into strategic adjustments. Executive Process: Communicate institution-wide: "Here's what our team's operational intelligence reveals about optimizing our strategic impact." Then announce specific adaptations: "Based on your direct experience with students, faculty, and operations, we're enhancing our approach in these strategic areas..." Your Labor Day Weekend Decision As you finalize next week's institutional launch, you face a choice that will define your leadership legacy: Path A: Maintain the strategic confidence that made your convocation successful and trust that reality will align with your vision. Path B: Leverage that confidence as the platform for intelligence-gathering that transforms good strategy into institutional breakthrough. Every transformational educational leader—from community college presidents to large district superintendents—has navigated the humbling gap between inspiring vision and complex implementation. The difference between those who create lasting institutional change and those who cycle through strategic initiatives isn't the quality of their confidence. It's their courage to bridge confidence with operational curiosity. Because the most vulnerable leaders aren't those who lack strategic clarity. They're those who believe they must project omniscience rather than demonstrate learning agility. The intelligence framework is ready. Your people possess critical insights. Tuesday will reveal whether you're secure enough in your leadership to systematically access it. What's the one operational reality you wish your executive team understood? Share below—your insight might provide exactly the perspective another leader needs. Ready to Transform Institutional Intelligence? Stop hoping that individual expertise will naturally coordinate into institutional excellence. Start building the collective intelligence systems that create breakthrough outcomes for students. Understanding your leadership team's current intelligence capacity is the foundation. In just 5 minutes per executive, discover: Where your team defaults to siloed rather than integrated thinking Which cognitive approaches naturally enhance collective intelligence How to transform challenging dynamics into collaborative breakthroughs  Assess Your Leadership Team Intelligence → Complete the Executive Leadership Intelligence Diagnostic
By HPG Info August 26, 2025
3-minute read | Educational Leadership | AI Transformation The reckoning is here. And it's magnificent. 😬 The registrar who spends her day manually processing enrollment data is nervous. 😬 The high school principal who hides behind email instead of classroom visits is sweating. 😬 The college professor who's been using the same lecture slides since 1987 can't sleep. 😬 The chair who measures success by committee memberships is updating his résumé. 😬 The superintendent who counts meetings instead of measuring student growth is reconsidering retirement. This exodus, while painful, is creating space for purpose-driven professionals to thrive. The Beautiful Disruption We've Been Waiting For Since Horace Mann opened the first public school in 1837 and the Morrill Act established land-grant universities in 1862, we've been building something extraordinary: educational systems designed to serve every learner, whether a kindergartner taking their first steps toward literacy or a doctoral student pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. The most audacious social experiment in human history—accessible education from cradle to career. But somewhere along the way, we drifted from our purpose. People began showing up for paychecks instead of transformation. Summer breaks became vacations instead of preparation time for K-12 educators, while higher ed treated sabbaticals as escapes rather than renewal opportunities. Children became test scores, students became enrollment numbers, and learning became box-checking, whether in elementary classrooms or lecture halls. AI is about to change that. And those who've lost sight of education's true purpose are discovering their approach no longer works. If you're feeling unsettled reading this, that's understandable. Change this significant challenges everyone—even those doing exceptional work. The question isn't whether you're "good" or "bad" at education. It's whether you're ready to evolve into the professional you became an educator to be. 🔍 The Jaw-Drop Research Ninety-four percent of educational technology leaders see AI's potential for positive impact (CoSN, 2025), but here's what they're not telling you: Industry analysts predict nearly half of entry-level administrative positions could be automated within five years (Amodei, 2024). MIT researchers discovered something profound: AI tools reduce brain activity in memory-related areas by 25-40%, with measurable decreases in creativity and recall when used as cognitive substitutes rather than amplifiers (MIT Technology Review, 2025). Translation: If you're using AI as a crutch, you're becoming less capable. If you're using AI as a tool, you're becoming superhuman. The human cost is staggering: 44% of K-12 teachers report frequent burnout, making education the profession with the highest burnout rates in America ( Research.com , 2025). Meanwhile, 73% of higher education faculty members report feeling overwhelmed by administrative demands that divert attention from teaching and research. Teacher turnover reached 23% in K-12 schools during 2023-24, while universities face record faculty departure rates with 30% of new assistant professors leaving within five years (Education Resource Strategies, 2025; National Education Association, 2025). But here's what the data doesn't reveal: The right people are staying. The system is sorting itself. ⚡ WHAT TRADITIONALIST EMPLOYEES WILL HATE The Data Entry Professionals Every registrar whose primary value lies in moving information between student information systems faces obsolescence. Every admissions coordinator manually tracking applications. Every academic affairs assistant updating spreadsheets that could sync automatically. AI processes this data faster, more accurately, and without coffee breaks. But the ones worth keeping aren't worried—they're excited about focusing on what humans do best: solving complex problems, building relationships, and making meaningful connections with students and families. The Content Recyclers K-12 teachers who mistake busyness for learning and college professors who've taught the same course identically for decades are discovering that AI generates both worksheets and lecture content more efficiently than they can. The beautiful irony? Students immediately recognize AI-generated materials. When a machine can replicate your primary teaching tool, what unique value do you bring to learning? The Meeting Multipliers School administrators who confuse leadership with scheduling more meetings and university department chairs who think governance means endless committee work are finding that AI can summarize, synthesize, and strategize without the performance theater. Real leaders don't fear this—they celebrate it. More time for what actually moves the needle: developing people and creating conditions for growth. The Curriculum Controllers District bureaucrats who believe K-12 education occurs in pacing guides and university administrators who think learning happens in course catalogs are watching their empires become increasingly irrelevant. AI writes curriculum and designs degree programs faster than committees can approve them. The crucial question emerges: What do you actually contribute to the learning process? 🚀 WHAT PURPOSE-DRIVEN PROFESSIONALS WILL LOVE The Relationship Builders Teachers who understand that learning is fundamentally relational are becoming invaluable. AI cannot build trust with a struggling student. It cannot recognize the flash of understanding in curious eyes. It cannot provide comfort when a child's world falls apart. As digital connections increase and human connections become scarcer, relational depth and authentic care grow exponentially in value. Sarah, a third-grade teacher in Denver, discovered this firsthand. When AI began handling her lesson planning and worksheet creation, she found herself with an extra hour daily. Instead of more paperwork, she used it for one-on-one reading conferences. Her students' engagement scores increased 40% in one semester—not because of better worksheets, but because of deeper relationships. The Learning Architects Educators who design experiences rather than deliver content are gaining superpowers. AI handles information transfer efficiently. Humans handle transformation masterfully. Suddenly, you can focus entirely on what only humans accomplish: making meaning, fostering curiosity, inspiring growth. Principal Marcus in Phoenix restructured his entire approach when AI began generating his weekly reports in minutes rather than hours. He now spends those reclaimed hours in classrooms, coaching teachers, and observing learning. The Vision Keepers Leaders who actually lead—who cast compelling visions, develop people, and solve complex problems—are discovering that AI eliminates the administrative nonsense that's been distracting them from their real work. Adaptive leaders who focus on agility, resilience, and proactive problem-solving are thriving like never before. The Student Advocates Everyone who entered education to transform lives is finding that AI removes the barriers keeping them from their purpose. Less paperwork. Fewer compliance hoops. More time with students. Superintendent Dr. Lisa in Portland and University President Dr. James at a regional state university implemented AI for routine data analysis and discovered something remarkable: their leadership teams went from spending 60% of their time on administrative tasks to 30%. She redirected that energy into professional development and early literacy initiatives; He focused on faculty research support and student mental health programs. The Transformation We've Been Waiting For Here's what most education leaders don't understand: AI isn't changing education. It's revealing education. For the first time since Mann and Morrill, we can actually deliver on education's promise across the entire learning continuum: Truly Personalized Learning - Not the superficial kind, where K-12 students receive worksheets with their names printed on top, or where college students receive mass emails addressed "Dear Student." Real personalization where AI handles individual practice, feedback, and pacing for both the struggling third-grader and the advanced graduate student, while educators focus on the irreplaceable human elements: motivation, meaning-making, and growth mindset development. Authentic Assessment - When AI can generate any content instantly, memorization becomes meaningless, whether in elementary school or doctoral programs. We finally must assess what actually matters: critical thinking, creative problem-solving, collaborative communication, and adaptive learning. The skills that make humans irreplaceable at every educational level. Teaching as a True Profession - Research consistently shows that both K-12 teachers and university faculty stay when they feel engaged, supported, and professionally empowered (PowerSchool, 2025). AI eliminates the clerical drudgery that's been crushing educator morale across all levels. Suddenly, teaching becomes what it was always supposed to be: a professional endeavor focused on human development and intellectual growth. Leadership as a Service - When AI handles data analysis, report generation, and routine decision-making, leaders from elementary principals to university presidents can focus on their actual purpose: developing people, casting vision, and creating conditions where learning thrives. 📊 Your AI Readiness Assessment: Where Do You Stand? Take this diagnostic to understand your current position in the transformation: FOR K-12 TEACHERS Rate yourself (1-5) on these statements: I'm excited about AI handling routine tasks so I can focus on student relationships I see technology as amplifying my teaching rather than replacing it I regularly update my skills to stay relevant in changing educational landscapes Students seek me out for guidance that goes beyond content delivery I focus more on developing thinking skills than transferring information FOR HIGHER ED FACULTY Rate yourself (1-5) on these statements: I view AI as freeing me to focus on mentoring and original research I'm adapting my courses to emphasize critical thinking over information recall I actively engage with educational technology to enhance student learning Students see me as a guide for intellectual development, not just a lecturer I'm excited about spending less time on grading and more time on meaningful feedback FOR K-12 ADMINISTRATORS Rate yourself (1-5) on these statements: I spend more time developing people than processing paperwork I use data to inform decisions rather than just comply with reporting requirements Teachers actively seek my feedback and guidance for professional growth I regularly question whether our systems serve learning or just tradition I can articulate a compelling vision that inspires action beyond compliance FOR HIGHER ED ADMINISTRATORS Rate yourself (1-5) on these statements: I focus on institutional mission over administrative efficiency I support faculty innovation in teaching and research methods I see technology as enabling our educational purpose, not driving it Faculty and staff come to me for strategic guidance, not just operational direction I'm actively preparing our institution for the future of higher education Scoring 20-25 : You're positioned to thrive in the AI-enhanced educational landscape 15-19 : You're on the right track, but need to strengthen your adaptive capabilities 10-14 : Significant mindset and skill shifts required for future relevance Below 10 : Time for honest self-reflection about your purpose in education 🗓️ The Implementation Roadmap: Your Next 30 Days Week 1: Assessment and Awareness Days 1-3 : Complete the readiness assessment above with your entire team (department for higher education) Days 4-5 : Identify three routine tasks AI could handle more efficiently (grading, data analysis, scheduling) Days 6-7 : Research AI tools specific to your context (K-12: classroom management, assessment; Higher Ed: research assistance, course design) Week 2: Experimentation Days 8-10 : Try one AI tool for a routine task (ChatGPT for meeting summaries, AI tutoring platforms for student practice, automated grading for objective assessments). Days 11-14 : Document time saved and quality improvements from AI assistance Week 3: Strategic Integration Days 15-17 : Meet with your team/department to discuss AI integration possibilities and concerns. Days 18-21 : Develop protocols for AI use that enhance rather than replace human judgment and maintain academic integrity Week 4: Vision Alignment Days 22-24 : Revisit your core educational purpose and how AI supports it (K-12: student growth; Higher Ed: knowledge creation and transfer). Days 25-28 : Create a 90-day plan for deeper AI integration across your institutio.n Days 29-30 : Share your learnings with other leaders and commit to continued growth The Great Sort Is Already Happening On average, 23% of K-12 teachers left their school in 2023-24, while higher education sees 30% of new faculty leaving within five years (Education Resource Strategies, 2025). Sixteen percent of K-12 teachers report an intention to leave by the end of the 2025-26 school year, and university departments are struggling to fill open positions (WeAreTeachers, 2025). But here's the hidden truth: The right people are staying and thriving. K-12 teachers who love learning are energized by AI tutoring that frees them to focus on inspiration and connection. University faculty who love research are thrilled by AI literature reviews that accelerate discovery and free them for original thinking. School principals who love leading are excited by AI analytics that eliminate data drudgery and enable authentic instructional leadership. College deans who value transformation are energized by AI insights that enable more effective resource allocation and informed strategic decision-making. Superintendents and university presidents who love institutional growth are discovering how AI removes barriers to their visionary work. The people leaving? They were never aligned with education's true purpose anyway. Why This Is the Best Thing Since 1837 Public education has been carrying misaligned weight for decades. People who prioritized job security over student growth. Who counted down to retirement instead of up to impact. Who saw students as problems instead of possibilities. AI is the perfect sorting mechanism. It eliminates the tasks that shouldn't define us (mindless compliance work) while amplifying the roles that matter most (human connection, creative problem-solving, wisdom development). For those misaligned with purpose: This feels threatening because their value proposition just vanished. For those aligned with purpose: This feels liberating because they can finally do what they came here to do. The Fear and the Joy If you're reading this with dread, ask yourself: Why? If you're worried about AI replacing what you do, perhaps what you do was never the real work of education. If you're excited about AI enhancing what you do, you're exactly where education needs you. Those misaligned with purpose fear AI because it exposes their irrelevance. Those aligned with purpose celebrate AI because it amplifies their impact. Public education is about to become what it was always meant to be: a place where humans help humans become more fully human. The machines will handle the machine work. We'll handle the miracle work. What Happens Next The transformation is already underway. Eighty percent of districts have active generative AI initiatives (CoSN, 2025). The question isn't whether this is happening—it's whether you'll be part of the solution or part of the exodus. For K-12 leaders: Stop managing information. Start developing people. Focus on creating conditions that enable both students and teachers to thrive. For higher education leaders: Stop administering programs. Start catalyzing discovery. Create environments that foster learning and research. For all educators: Stop delivering content. Start inspiring transformation. Whether teaching phonics or quantum physics, focus on developing human potential. For everyone: Stop doing what machines can do better. Start doing what only humans can do—connect, inspire, and transform lives. The great sort is here. And for those of us who love public education—really love it, for the right reasons—this isn't just change. It's redemption. What do you think? Are you part of the transformation or part of the exodus? 💬 Share your thoughts: How is AI already changing your leadership approach? 📤 If this resonated, hit share - your network of education leaders needs to see this. 🔔 Follow us for more insights on leading through transformation in K-12 and higher education. 🎯 READY TO LEAD THE TRANSFORMATION? Stop hoping AI will solve your problems automatically. Start building the collective intelligence that turns technological disruption into educational breakthrough. The first step is understanding where your team stands. In just 5 minutes per leader, you can discover: Which roles AI will enhance versus eliminate in your context How to identify and develop your "AI-amplified" professionals Where to invest resources for maximum student impact Discover Your Team Intelligence → Take the 5-Minute Educational Leadership Team Assessment
Show More