Ready to manage my boss

Kristin Gilger
Associate Dean Cronkite School

I was really happy with the session Kristin Gilger lead over managing your boss.  I was involved in our school's 2014 leadership academy, where we met once a month to help nurture us to be some of the go to people on campus.  It was a great program, but we didn't have any instruction at the level Ms. Gilger presented.

I appreciated her discussion over those difficult conversations.  We went over some of this in our leadership academy at Molina.  What I liked most about her presentation, was that she incorporated the role playing and coached the situation.  I'll probably take this back to my principal and maybe he can incorporate it into the next academy.

Sutton Casey (left) acts as a principal and Mandy Stewart plays a yearbook teacher in trouble
during a role playing exercise on how to handle a difficult conversation. 

I'm still apprehensive about my students posting something that will get me in hot water with my administration.  So with this in mind, anything super controversial, I'll probably still go to my principal to discuss it before publishing.  Our principal is a really good guy and easy to talk to so I don't feel uncomfortable bringing this to his attention.    

Hopefully I won't need to have any difficult conversations with any of my superiors, but if I have to, I feel more prepared now that I did in the past.  When I first started, my principal wanted to see our work before publishing.  He was a little more relaxed about it this past year as far as him not reviewing everything.  I'm hoping this year he will be more open to real reporting and will trust my staff to publish the news responsibly and not have just an online newsletter.    

Victoria Tijerina
Moises E Molina High School
Dallas, Texas