Professional Learnings NSWPPA Educational Leadership

Everyone Can Be a Leader : Muriel Summers, The Seven Habits, and Real School Turnaround

• NSW PPA Professional Learning • Season 3 • Episode 16

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A single year to turn around a struggling school. A principal willing to listen, let go, and lead with courage. That’s the spark behind Muriel Summers’ journey at A.B. Combs Elementary: The birthplace of a movement that made student leadership the heartbeat of school culture and the Seven Habits a living language for kids, teachers, and families.

We sit down with Muriel to unpack how a community-defined vision—what should our ideal school look, sound, and feel like?—became a focused plan with just two or three goals executed with fidelity. She shares how borrowing from world‑class organisations like the Ritz‑Carlton inspired daily “huddles” that aligned teams, built trust, and celebrated small wins. You’ll hear the story of a custodian turned “leader of keeping the school clean and safe,” tracking five positive interactions a day with pocketed pennies—a simple system that proved culture is built in moments, not memos.

Across the hour, we explore why “everyone can lead, everyone has genius” isn’t a slogan but a design choice. Muriel explains the non‑negotiables—love children, know your why, collaborate generously—and how high expectations only work when matched with high support. We talk wellness as strategy, not lip service, and why empowering students to take on real work can shift 68% of daily tasks, reducing burnout while deepening belonging. The long‑term impact is clear: alumni credit the Seven Habits with landing jobs, navigating conflict, and choosing to stay and serve in their communities. As leadership shifts from command‑and‑control to trust and inspire, Muriel shows how to build systems that honour empathy, transparency, and shared ownership.

If this story nudges you to pick one habit, set two bold goals, and start a five‑minute huddle tomorrow, we’ve done our job. Subscribe, share this with a colleague who needs a lift, and leave a review to help more school leaders find these ideas. Your support helps bring global voices in educational leadership to principals across Australia and beyond.

Links and References:

To view our Professional Learning Offerings, visit:
https://www.nswppa.org.au/professional-learning

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Drew Janetzki:

Welcome back to Professional Learning's the New South Wales PPA Educational Leadership Podcast. It's great to have your company. This podcast aligns to the values of the New South Wales Primary Principals Association. That is the values of principal well-being, principals as lead learners, as well as supporting principals to lead school operations. And they are underpinned by support, empower, advocate and lead. Now if you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe for further updates. Now let's get into today's episode. Today you're going to hear from a true pioneer, Muriel Summers, former principal of A. B. Combs Elementary in North Carolina and creator of Franklin Covey's Leader in Me framework. Muriel transformed one of her state's low-ing performing schools into a model of leadership and excellence, truly inspiring a global movement that has reached thousands of schools and millions of students.

Muriel Summers:

Because often I think as principals, we think we've got to know all the answers. And that we've got to be the only one going in and making change happen. And that's a huge mistake. My gift was building relationships with other people.

Drew Janetzki:

So welcome, listeners, to the New South Wales PPA Professional Learnings podcast. It's an absolute pleasure to have Muriel Summers, one of the co-creators of The Leader in Me, a former principal, A. B. Combs Elementary in North Carolina, and a pioneer in embedding leadership into everyday school life. Welcome to our podcast.

Muriel Summers:

Thank you, Drew. I'm so honored to have this opportunity. So thank you so very much.

Drew Janetzki:

Just to give you context, in our part of the world, it's the New South Wales Primary Principals Association based in Australia. So, Muriel, if we can go back, go back in time, go back to take us back to your early days as a school principal, and what were the challenges you were facing at A B Coombs and sparked the idea of leader and me?

Muriel Summers:

Well, you know, uh Drew, I am reminded of the quote through challenge and difficulty often comes great opportunity. And that certainly does capture the essence of my career in the very beginning as a principal. I was assigned the lowest performing school in our district. I was issued the challenge of recreating, transforming the school in an effort to improve. I had a year to do it, and that was the charge from the superintendent. We need you to go in there and clean that school up. You've got a year to do it. Um, and um, if you don't do it, you know, get the results we're looking for, then um it's going to be taken over by the state. So there was a little bit of fear there. There was a little bit of uh challenge and motivation, I must admit. I always have loved a challenge, but nothing in my professional life had ever prepared me, honestly, for what I was about to embark upon. So I had heard that Dr. Stephen Covey, the uh New York Times bestseller, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, would be speaking in Washington, D.C. I decided that I would go and hear him. And little did I know um at the time that I would be sitting in an audience of over 3,000 people at the front row table, not by design, mind you, but the really the only place left to sit. Uh, but I have to believe it was um intended for me to be there that day, sitting where I was sitting. As I listened to him go over these seven habits, I thought how differently my life might have been if I had learned these habits earlier. I was also sitting in that audience as a single mother with a uh daughter who was seven years old and a son who was five. And I was thinking, how in the world am I going to um raise these children the way I want to on my own? So not only was I faced with a professional challenge, I was also faced with a personal challenge. It was sort of like the perfect storm of everything happening that could possibly happen to someone at the same time. But what I realize now is that um being given the gift of principal of A B combs was perhaps the greatest professional gift I've ever been given. You know, it's easier, Drew, easier to um lead a successful school. It is extremely difficult to transform a low-performing school. And I've often wondered, you know, it it's hard either in either place, but when you've got a great school, you've got to take it to extraordinary. Where you've got a low-performing school, you've just got to get it better in the meantime, and then take it to extraordinary. So um that was what I faced, but then there was no leader in me. There was just a framework of these seven habits. As I listened to Dr. Covey, I um finally mustered up enough courage at the very end to ask him the question: Do you think you can teach these habits to little children? I know you have had Sean Covey on your podcast, and as I listened to Sean's interview with you, he references that his father mentioned to me that he was just in the throes of writing the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens. But I was working with children five to ten years old. His response to me was, well, if I don't know why you couldn't teach it, so if you do anything with it, let me know. I went back to our community, our teachers, our our main stakeholders, um, teachers, students, parents, uh, community leaders, and university professors, and I asked this one question. If you could create your ideal school, what would it look like? What would it sound like, and what would it feel like? And so each of those stakeholder groups had very specific things that would warrant them saying this was an ideal school. Students wanted teachers who believed in them, who would forgive them if they made mistakes, who would um also understand, and mind you, these are children five to ten years old, but would forgive them if they didn't get their homework in on time. Parents wanted more than anything for teachers to really get to know their child, their hopes, their aspirations, um, what they were interested in. Teachers wanted students who would respect them and um work hard and have a work ethic. And they also wanted parents who would partner them in helping educate their child. Business leaders were looking for a skill set, um, never once mentioning high academic performance, although I know that academics was certainly a consideration, but they were looking more for the softer skills of leadership, collaboration, creativity, empathy, working well with others. Um, and then university professors were saying, send us students that are prepared, that are prepared academically, but also are prepared to be resilient, critical thinkers, problem solvers. And so we compiled all of that feedback. And mind you, that was done within a week. Um we had to come up with a theme to reinvent ourselves. And so it just screamed leadership. You know, I reflected back on um what I had learned in that symposium with Dr. Covey. I reflected on what the parents were saying, the teachers were saying, the students were saying, and it all just screamed leadership development to me. At that time, there was just the dial-up internet. And so I said to our technology teacher, you know, see if you can find any other leadership elementary school in the United States of America, because that was one of the charges that we also had before us, that we had to come up with a theme that was like none other in our in our district, in our state, and better yet, the United States of America. Now there were leadership high schools, but there were no schools that were focused on leadership development in elementary school. So we checked those boxes. We said we wanted to go forth um teaching our students to be leaders, and we were going to do that through the framework of the seven habits of highly effective people. Dr. Covey was just getting really well known at that point in time. So business leaders had certainly heard of him, um, even had the training in their corporations. Um, university professors were teaching the seven habits in their coursework. So um it just seemed as though the stars were aligned for us to launch something new. Within a few months, we were seeing an incredible difference in school culture, in the morale of our teachers, in the excitement of our parents. Um, and we did a lot of self-promoting what we were doing because it was part of our survival was to really start to promote what we were doing well. Um, at the end of that first year, our scores, our test scores, not that that should be the only measure of a school's success, but we went from 30% of our students being at or above grade level to 65%. Within three years, we were at 98% of our student population, one of the most diverse in our district, excuse me, one of the most diverse, uh, high socioeconomic levels of poverty. Um, and so we were not, I mean, we were we were a school that um needed a lot of attention and repair, but we were also a school that was extremely diverse socioeconomically as well as um culturally, but yet and still we did it. And we only had a few goals through. So we were able to drill down, and this would be some advice I would give your listeners. When you're trying to uh improve any anything, if you have 10 goals, you're never going to get there. If you have two to three goals that you are very strategic about and you implement with fidelity and you are checking your progress as you go, you're going to see improvement. So the one thing that we changed that first year was uh creating a culture of leadership. So we knew that the other things we were doing were still what had been done before. But the one thing we changed was we um implemented a culture of leadership for all. So we knew that had to be one of our keys to our success was that, because we could sift through uh just two goals to figure out which one got us the results we were looking for.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah. Yeah, what a what a fascinating story. Like you I heard the start where you said if you could create your own ideal school, what would that look like? And then you've unpacked those layers further and further, and with a framework of seven habits of highly effective people as the lead, but I could always hear what is it like for students and what is leadership looking like? And you had you look far and wide from what I heard there, and you were seeking to see what is the framework, and that's where you worked through that seven habits. Was that so were you in that frame before you came into seeing Seven Habits, or were you like was Seven Habits the Yaha moment for you and went and giving the permission to explore that further?

Muriel Summers:

You know, Drew, I have given a lot of thought over um at least the last decade as to why I was so drawn to lead a school um in the development of leadership. And so much of it came from um my own background as a student. You know, I did okay academically, but my gifts and talents were more in um leadership, class offices, um participating in drama and music and all those other things that um make a school so special. Um and I wanted to make sure that children, if I were ever a principal of a school, I would want to make sure that children's gifts and talents were known. And not always do they fall under the category of academics. So I wanted to make sure that our teachers would get to know the students so well that they would know what their passions and interests were. And then we worked from that, and the end result was the academics just kept rising when we really got to know our students well. And you see, everyone can be a leader, everyone has genius. Uh, but if we're only looking through the lens of academics, we're missing out on about 80% of people who have genius in other areas of art, music, athletics, kindness, compassion. You know, and um I wanted children to love coming to school, and I wanted them to be part of helping us create and transform our school. So that's where the voice and the empowerment of students came into the design that we would go to our most important stakeholders first, and those were our children. And I'll tell you, the children gave me the best ideas of transforming a school. And I'd go back to encouraging every administrator, school administrator to ask every single year, if you could create your ideal school, what would it look like, sound like, and feel like? And then are we doing what you want us to do? Because often I think as principals, we think we've got to know all the answers, and that we've got to be the only one going in and making change happen. And that's a huge mistake. I learned very quickly that if I could surround myself with people that were smarter than me in the areas that I wasn't as smart in, then I could build this unstoppable team if I gave everyone an opportunity to use their gifts and talents toward the recreation, if you will, of A. B. Combs. You know, um, principles cannot be um the masterminds behind everything. Of course, we have to know a little bit about everything, but to, you know, for me, it was to be my gift was leadership. My gift was um building relationships with other people. But I'd been out of the classroom for several years, and my skills in reading, for example, reading instruction or math instruction weren't as strong as those teachers who were getting that instruction several times a year, that professional development. So the moment, Drew, I went to them and I said, I need you to be the expert. I need you to lead this school in literacy development, or I need you to lead this school and having the best math instruction any elementary school could have. That's when we started to see not only our students thriving, but our teachers thriving as well, because everyone in our school was a leader in something, whether it was the arts, keeping the school clean and safe, which was our custodian, whether it was child nutrition services, preparing the most amazing meals for our children. Everyone was starting to see themselves as leaders because I went to them and asked them for their opinion, their expertise. And when I humbled myself to say, I don't know it all, but I've done one thing right. I've hired great people. Now let's go forth and let's let's kill this thing. Let's let's make this a school we can make anywhere in the world. And it was this um belief that we could. I get emotional thinking about it. You know, it was um the same people. It was just seeing them differently, seeing the teachers differently, seeing the children differently, through the those paradigms that we have in the leader and me that uh everyone can be a leader. Change starts with us, um empowering everyone um to have a voice and a say, soliciting the help of our families um to help us be the best school we could possibly build be. You know, those paradigms that we have in this framework are really the essence of what all teachers should be doing. We should all be looking at students through the lenses of these paradigms. And when we were able to shift, that's when the greatness started to happen.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah. You could really see that you've completely flipped the model, the traditional leadership model on its head, so to speak. And that would have taken some courage and so forth. But it was when did you think in that process, when did you say, yep, I'm actually I s I heard in a year's time you saw that, but I'm sure you would have had processes or feedback loops when of this culture's changing. We're really this is starting to really shift in the right direction.

Muriel Summers:

You know, it it took several years, and I'll be honest, Drew, not everybody was on board. Um, because this is a total, as you said, we had education on its head, and I had to let go of whatever power I thought I had now as a principal. I had to let go of that to empower other people to grow and develop as well. Our teachers, in turn, the moment I started to empower them, it was a trickle-down effect. They started to empower their students to have a voice and a say. Because in education, we really work for children. Children don't work for us, we work for them. And so giving them an opportunity through systems. Now, you know, I can't say enough about identifying your systems for excellence in a school. And one of those systems for us was the system of communication. So we had a constant communication feedback loop with our parents, with our students, with our teachers, and our community leaders. We would bring community leaders in once a year and say, these are things we're doing. What do you know about leadership? What are the latest things you know about leadership? You know, this is some of the things we're struggling with. Help us. You know, we learned how to collect data and look at systems for making an organization extraordinary through businesses. You know, so very so much of our success was also learning from the best organizations out there. Drew, we went to the Ritz-Carlton. Not that any of us had ever stayed there before, but it was sort of the benchmark for excellence in customer service. So we went to the Ritz-Carlton and we asked them, how do you create a culture so when people hear your name, there's an automatic image of the service that they will receive if they attend, if they stay at the Ritz-Carlton. So we learned from them about culture.

Drew Janetzki:

We um Wow, can I just sorry to interrupt that is such a such a that's such a unique framework that you've just framed. And I'm thinking of any principles that would have gone and done that with their that exercise with their staff, but when you how you've explained that is it's it makes complete sense because as educators we are there to serve the students and community uh uh who we serve. And was that your thinking in terms of going to to that next level? And then what was the buy-in from the staff around doing that?

Muriel Summers:

You know, Drew, I have thought about this a lot, and I um often get emotional when I think about the pioneers of A Bcoms who were so willing to support this vision that we could have could perhaps pull ourselves out of the slump we were in where no one wanted to send their children to that school. We had a theme that was no longer attractive and attracting people, you know, but there was something magical about recreating ourselves and honestly thinking that we actually could pull this thing off. And we knew if we wanted to culture like no one else had, we probably needed to look to businesses that had incredible cultures, just like I'm sure you have in Australia. There are companies that when you hear their name, you think, oh my goodness. And so one of the things of of course, you know, we couldn't purchase all the certain things that we would love to have to make our school beautiful. We didn't have that kind of money. But we could put into place a system of what the Ritz-Carlton did every day when they first got started as a um leader in the hotel industry, and that was a haul, what they called huddles. And they would come together as a hotel, and everyone who was running the hotel, from the laundry to the front desk to the restaurant to the cleaning staff, they would huddle at the very beginning of each shift, and they would talk about what their goals were. They they said their mission and their vision. They said, this is what we want to accomplish today. And their mission statement was ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. So whoever was given a problem, they didn't go to the manager or the head of the department. They were empowered to solve the problem for the customer. So we started to institutionalize hallway huddles within each grade level. And it was building relationships, it was reviewing the goals of the day. It was one teacher saying, Oh, I found a great idea last night to go with our science unit. Here it is for you. And then birthdays or special announcements were celebrated in a 10-minute chunk of time at the very beginning of our school day before the bell rang and the children came in. Some of the children who were in an early morning care program who were actually inside the school and would witness the hallway huddles, they would go outside during recess and they would start a huddle. So we saw that um what we were doing was really having an impact and an influence. I would encourage all educators to look at whatever model you have that you want to learn from and draw from, whether it's in the business industry, whether it is a restaurant, um uh whatever that if it they've got something great going on, learn from them. The second thing I did, we did, we started looking for signs of leadership everywhere we went. And we found leadership in the most unexpected places. Um, I will never forget Drew, observing um what's mostly known as a custodian, the role of a custodian. But we called Mr. Ricky the leader of keeping the school clean and safe. And just by changing his title, he walked a little taller and a little prouder because of his title. And I would watch him going down the hallway, and he would reach in one pocket and he would have an exchange with someone in the hallway, and he would put whatever was in his hand in the other pocket. And I was intrigued by this. And he would stop and speak and engage as he went down the hallway. So one day I said, Mr. Ricky, well, you reach in your pocket and then you pull something out and you put it in the other pocket and you stop and you talk to people. He said, Well, Miss Summers, I've been encouraged, because I am a leader in the school, I've been encouraged to make five people's day. It's a system I have of spreading joy, if you will, across the school. So I put five pennies in one pocket, and as I interact with someone, and it's a positive encounter and it's a relationship-building encounter, I put that penny in the other pocket because my goal is to have all five pennies in my left-hand pocket at the end of the day. I learned so much from him, and he was our leader in keeping the school clean and safe. We often think that only people who are in charge are leaders, and what a mistake that is, because we can all lead and learn from one another. So we set out as a staff to look for leadership in unexpected places, and then we would share those stories at our faculty meetings. So we were constantly being inspired by one another and by the things that we saw as we continued our journey in leadership development.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah, yeah, amazing story. And thank you for sharing. And I'm sure you've got hundreds of stories like that. And in terms of if we go to the global impact, I mean, started from there, and now we if we move into it's now a globally recognized program. Leader in me, I see, is now in thousands of schools worldwide. What is the common thread you see in the United States, Western worlds, and in Australia or everywhere with the Leader in Me program?

Muriel Summers:

I am so inspired, overcome with um amazement that um, and mind you, Drew, I grew up in a very rural area of North Carolina. You know, I was a son and daughter of um a granddaughter of a cotton farmer. And so to think that I would ever visit the countries that I had visited as a result of this work was not even a dream that I had. I couldn't even imagine being in some of the places I have been. But what I have learned, um, and it was the request of Dr. Covey, my last conversation with Dr. Covey, when this work was starting to really take hold and really uh have impact. I said, Dr. Covey, you know, did you ever think that we would be getting these results? And he said, I he had hoped that we would, but he would too was surprised that little children as young as five could learn how to be leaders. But he also said, Muriel, I really want you to devote the rest of your life in putting this work in the hands of children all over the world. At 70, almost 70 years old, I am so motivated and so inspired and feel such a sense of urgency that it's hard to explain, to help fulfill that vision that he had, because he knew that if we could teach children how to be kinder to one another, to take charge of their own little lives, to know that they could make a difference and an impact, to think win-win, which our world needs to so think of. That is the one habit, along with seeking first to understand one another. What I learned is that we are so much more alike than we are different. And it's through those differences that we are richer if we will allow ourselves to learn from one another. You know, Australia has a reputation, Drew, globally, as being a leader in literacy like no other place around the world. And so sometimes you have to go out of your own country to hear how people view your country or our country. And so, in the poorest areas of Cambodia, where they were struggling so desperately to rebuild their culture and their country when so many educators were killed because of their beliefs in educating others. You saw this glimmer of hope and promise. And it was through the lens of leadership. And I go to Guatemala and I'm um in a school, and a young gentleman stands up and he said, It is because I have learned how to be a leader that I have decided not to leave my country, but to stay in my country and make it better. Um I am just so humbled by what I'm seeing. Um in some of the poorest areas of our world, this work is making a difference. And communities are seeing that because their children are leading with such compassion and empathy for one another, that there is perhaps a chance that the world can be better when they're in charge. So Dr. Covey would say, you know, that these habits are principal-centered, and things that are principle-centered, principle PLE centered, are timeless. Being kind is being kind, whether you're in the United States, Australia, or in um Vietnam, um seeking to understand one another is the same no matter where you go. Um, and I just saw and I continue to see as I were uh last year. I was in um Egypt and Turkey, and I remember a gentleman standing up, and um we were speaking at America at the American University there in Cairo, and he said, We have millions of children here. How do we find a way to get it to every single child? So um the head of our international division said, This is how we can make this happen for you. So children now in Egypt um are learning the seven habits, and that was not even anything any of us thought would happen in terms of the global footprint of this work. But that's where we'll make the greatest difference. Yes, we want to make a difference in our country, but to fulfill the vision Dr. Covey had, we have to have a global footprint, and we're slowly making that happen.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah.

Muriel Summers:

Yeah. And I can really feel that sense of purpose that you do carry, and you have, I would presume you have a mission statement for that as well, Muriel, as part of being part of Seven Habits. Do you could you share your mission statement with us today? Well, I have a um professional business statement, and I have a personal mission statement. As a single mom, um trying to juggle so many things and be the best mother I could be to my two children. Um it was important for me. In fact, I asked my daughter, I sat my son and daughter down, and they were just in elementary school. But the power of the conversation of what do we want our family to value? What do we want to, how do we want to interact with others? When people say our name, when they say Drew, what do you want other people to say when they hear your name? You want them to say that these kind and compassionate, hard work. No, so we talked about that. So when I asked my own children, they said, Mama, we want you to be there. And I said, What do you mean? I was a principal struggling to, you know, get A B combs up and going. They were students at A B combs, but sometimes I had to have friends or parents take my children to certain events because I was tied up with something else. But be there meant you're there. You're not on your phone, you're not on your computer, you're not talking to someone beside you. You were there watching us, supporting us. It was life-changing for me. And from that moment on, I never missed a performance, I never missed a game, I never missed anything they were involved in. But I had to I had to be so intentional about that those three words or two words be there, that I designed everything around me being able to be there. My professional mission statement is driven by that last conversation I had with Dr. Covey. Um, every child, every corner. And uh it's as simple as that, which is why I do devote so much of my um time to being outside of the United States, working with schools around the country. Um, my mission in my early days as a principal, it changed, you know, and I would encourage your listeners to think about not being stuck with something that's so long nobody can remember the mission statement. It's a lot of nice words written on a beautiful document. But can anyone say that? And more importantly, is anyone living that? And I learned that from our military. Short, succinct. Everyone can recite it, but more importantly, everyone is living it. I learned core values from our mill our military, and I learned great mission statements from great companies like the Ritz-Carlton for one, Fortune 500 companies. I would just Google and see what were their missions or mission, and usually they were very short, because short means succinct, it means we can do it, but it they're also ever-changing, depending upon where you are at that point in time. So my first mission statement as a um principal was to be the best elementary school in our school district. And once we achieved that, we went back to the drawing board and we said, okay, we've achieved this now. What's it gonna be next? And then um when I left A B Combs, it was to be a model of leadership and academic excellence for the world. And there was a time that we were only thinking our small little district. And then as our circle of influence continued to grow, we really saw ourselves as a model because it had become a reality, as a model, not to necessarily be replicated, but for them to be a model that they could pick and choose from, things that they could take back and make their own in their own school. Because every school has its own DNA. You know, um, we don't want cookie-cutter schools. We want schools that are um frameworks of excellence, that um are a reflection of their community and the student body and the staff that inhabit that school.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah. Look, thank you for just being so vulnerable there and sharing that personal statement and that and taking on that. I heard you take on that feedback, and that's a real quality that you that you have, Muriel. You take on the feedback, you listen, and you you that moral purpose comes through. Yes, I want to be present for my I think as parents also listening to this. We all want to be present, but in the in the modern era, it's a very easy way to be distracted. So sitting down, having that conversation about, and then you synthesize that through, you work through that, and you essentially use the habits framework I heard to then make sure that actually was you made that then your mission to achieve that, and then you had a succinct mission of being the best elementary school, and you worked to make sure that happened. If you're sitting for principals listening and our audiences predominantly in Australia, you're sitting as a principal and you're leading through complexity and change. What would be your first piece of advice if people are inspired by this work? What would you say to them?

Muriel Summers:

You know, never to forget really how important it is to lead with courage and compassion. Um I wasn't all I listen, I'm a work in progress true. I am on any given day, I'm probably a two on the scale of uh leadership as it pertains to the seven habits, but I know I'm better as a result of this work. I know I am better for having gone through difficulty. Uh, I am better for leaning in to others and being vulnerable enough to say, I can't do this by myself. I need you. And I know together we could be this unstoppable team, but it's going to require trust and transparency and honest feedback, not to get our backs up when someone gives us feedback, but to embrace it and say, you know what, they're probably right. You know, let's let's see how we can um do this differently. I I do say that when you're dealing with change, you you have to be so anchored, I think, in your purpose of knowing your why. Why are you why are you want why are you the pr why do you want to be a principal? Why does this school, what do you want for this school? And being able to envision it being better than where it is now. And almost I when people said, Did you ever think Gaby Combs would be one of the most recognizable schools in the world? I I said no, but I did always see us being better than where we were. And um as a leader, you've got to paint that picture for yourself of what it what you see you being, seeing the school being, and then soliciting the support of everyone else, not just the support, but the gifts and the talents of everyone else to believe it too. Um the second thing I would say would be honestly to build collective leadership, and we've talked a lot about this in the past few minutes. Everyone, everyone is a leader, and never forgetting to celebrate the small wins along the way. Um, I don't think we do that enough in education. I don't think we celebrate enough. Um, I would also um say to never forget the importance of caring for yourself. Um there were times, Drew, that I was so tired, I didn't know how I could put one more foot in front of the other. And I thought taking a day off would be viewed as, well, she's taking a day off. And then uh, but I quickly learned that rejuvenating, renewing myself in mind, heart, body, and spirit was the only way I was gonna continue to have the energy to take combs to the next level. But I also encourage the staff to do the same. If you need to take a day, take a day. If you need to cover your class because you need to handle something, let me know that. So I build a culture of we're gonna take care of one another, we're gonna work hard. That was enough, we're gonna work hard, we got to, but we're gonna take care of each other. We're gonna be a family that looks after one another. And I said those kinds of things, but more than importantly than saying it, I had to model it. I had to model that.

Drew Janetzki:

You had to demonstrate that, yeah. If we if we dive deeper into the leadership in in action and you've touched on those those key some of the key elements there, Muriel. I'll go through a few questions for you to ponder. Were they non-negotiables, firstly in creating leadership in and culture and schools? And you briefly touched on then how can principals model leadership without burning themselves out, which is a very much a tr industry trend we're seeing across the globe. If I can just get you to unpack those two things there, the non-negotiables, were there such things in leading this way in the engineer paradigm? And also the thinking around burning, you know, principal burnout as well.

Muriel Summers:

I would say the non-negotiables, for sure, was every teacher. Every person who worked in our building was called a teacher. We're all teachers. But they clearly understood their why, why they were there. And that was to make a difference in the lives of the children that we served. That was a non-negotiable, that you never forget your why, and that you always strive to put children first and foremost. I even went as far to say, I'd rather you love these children, our children, than anything else. I can teach you how to be a good teacher, but I can't teach you how to love teaching or love children if that's not already inside of you. And if there were people there that um didn't want to give the extra mile, like the majority, if there were teachers who didn't feel that children's voice mattered, I help to provide them with an opportunity to serve somewhere else. Because at A.B. Combs, you will, we will love our children so much that we'll figure out why they're misbehaving. We're gonna figure out why they're struggling academically. We're going to give them a role and responsibility to make them feel important. Um, and we're going to um work collaboratively to take our children to a better place. So those were the non-negotiables. You've got an idea, you don't keep it to yourself, you share it with everybody. If it works for your children, it's going to work for another teacher's children in another grade level, perhaps. Um, so it you had to be collaborative, you had to be abundant. Um, there was a common language of the seven habits that just tied us all together. You know, we had to, when we went out personally to a party or something, we would find ourselves saying, Well, that was a win-win, or um, give me five. That was synergy. You know, we would start using the leadership language. Like, okay, don't, that's just going to take it a little too far. But we were also um so committed that our children would learn the language, but more importantly, live the language. It was a culture of everyone agreeing to grow as leaders, too. You know, I had a lot of teachers that went on to be school administrators who um found their voice and perhaps left education to pursue a dream they had always had. So non-negotiable sounds a little tough, but it's it's needed. You know, I I would say anyone who ever served with me would always say Muriel worked hard, but she worked as hard as the rest of us. And she didn't ask us to do anything she wouldn't do herself. So when I said we're gonna take additional coursework to grow as leaders, I'd already done all that. That certified me, but I continued, we all continued to learn and grow together, and we made a commitment. We were gonna love our children no matter what. Yeah, this seemed to take care of itself.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah. Yeah. And so and the second was just in terms of and thank you for clarifying that I wouldn't say it's a tough conversation, but it's a piece of knowing where your values are and where what the mission is and ensuring offering support for those who who hopefully are on the understanding of of what the mission is. But as if it comes through apparent that they're not on that same vision, then obviously those conversations need to take place because that would be essentially undermining the mission. And I'm sure you would be and that is part of whether leaders like that or not, is part of moving and shifting essentially paradigms, moving and shifting culture as well. So thank you for sharing in terms of of that. And and the next part was modeling that in terms of making sure we we're not on our recipe to burnout, which we are seeing across different jurisdictions of print teacher burnout, principal burnout as well.

Muriel Summers:

Well, I want to go back and say before I address this that second part is that the people who left Combs fell into two categories. They left because of um personal reasons. If they left for professional reasons, they would often say this is a culture where the expectations are just too high. I've considered that a compliment because I think if you set very high expectations, but with setting those, you've got to also be able to provide the support for those expectations.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah, and to frame it, you're not setting up for failure. You are putting support mechanisms as the leader of the school to ensure they don't fail. It comes essentially what I've I've hearing is it comes down to those people not prepared to make that shift with despite all the supporting mechanisms around them. So that's a a clear difference of setting up for success and setting up for failure. Exactly.

Muriel Summers:

But you know, interestingly, Drew, um I would say the teachers that left, um, and there weren't many. There weren't many, but ones that did leave um for various reasons. If they left to go to a different school because it was closer to home, to their home, or it might be a little bit easier because they had so many things to juggle, those teachers wanted to come back after being gone for a couple of years because even if they still had to drive as far as before, they said it was a culture that they were longing to find somewhere else that they they could not find, like we had at A B Combs. It was this culture of love and support, and we can do this. Um, and so I was very happy and pleased to hear that what we were doing, even though it was tough, it was something that great teachers wanted to continue to be a part of.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a very good point to make. And doing the research around A B Home School, the you had not only teachers wanting to come back, you also had the problem of not only that out-of-zone uh enrollments and people wanting to come into the school because there was something magical happening there, which is which is uh, you know, must be another that was another new challenge to work through in terms of of that and being respectful for your your neighboring school as well.

Muriel Summers:

Well, and the wellness piece, yes. I mean, I want people to um remember this data point, if you will, um, that 68% of the work that goes on in a school, regardless of the level, elementary, middle, that's how we're structured here in the United States, uh, primary or secondary, 68% of the work can be done by the children who attend that school. So it means for for us to be more balanced, we empower. We empower our students to do some of the tasks that we may have done. We empower one another as a team to bring our best teaching forward, to share with one another. We find ways to create this balance that allows us to be even better because we are letting go. So much of our own balance is our own. We're our own worst enemy. We're our own worst enemy when it comes to balance. But when we let go and we entrust our colleagues, when we um have a culture of Of transparency, where we have a system of celebration and fun, you know, everybody wants that. We find ourselves becoming more balanced. And I will say, COVID, a gift from the COVID epidemic, allowed us to stop. The world stopped for a while, and we found ways to become balanced. And we didn't want to lose that once we got out of COVID. So I think whatever brings you joy and happiness keeps you centered, keeps you healthy, those are things that you have to do for yourself. And when you do it with other people, I know there were grade level teams that at the end of every day before going home to their families, they would walk a mile around the school and they would talk about what they would be teaching the next day or what they were planning, but at the same time, they were getting some physical fitness in. So there there are ways, but yeah, it's hard. It is hard. But Dr. Covey would always say, you've got to schedule time for you every single day for you to be the best you that you can be. I'll share a personal story, if I may. Dr. Covey and I were traveling together once, and Dr. Covey had someone who traveled with him to assist him in his roles and responsibilities. And I was just going along to talk about what was happening in education. We were on the same flight. The flight did was delayed. We did not get to the hotel until 3 a.m. in the morning. So the reservationist said, Um, Dr. Covey, would you like a wake up call? And he said, Yes, I'd like a wake-up call for 5 a.m. Now, mind you, it was 3 a.m. Okay. So then the reservationist turns to me and says, Um, Miss Summers, would you like a wake-up call? Well, Drew, I wasn't going to say 9 o'clock the next when Dr. Covey, who at this point in time was in his mid-70s, 5 a.m. I'll have a 5 a.m. wake-up call too. So she put that down and we get on the elevator and I said, So Dr. Covey, what are you gonna be doing at 5 a.m.? He said, Oh, Muriel, I will be working out in the hotel gym. I work out every morning at 5 a.m. And I said, even when you get in at 3 a.m., he said, it's too hard when you have a rhythm where you have a pattern, you discipline yourself, and you don't let anything stand in the way of you taking care of you. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Um that if you're doing something that's working for you, don't let anything stop you from doing that. Because for you to be the best version of yourself, you have to take care of yourself first. Um, I think any school should make wellness part of professional development, for sure. So um that was a long answer to a short time.

Drew Janetzki:

But that's a fantastic story to then just for our listeners listening to that going, it really takes yourself and your self-discipline and essentially the ha seven habits of highly effective people to essentially you are in charge of your own wellness. You are in charge of your own, you are the CEO essentially of your mental health, you're the CEO of your health as well. And that example really resonated because there would have been every excuse and he would have been forgiven for not doing a workout at five o'clock in the morning. But when he explained why, it really sunk through that lesson of okay, to be successful is to continue being in that habit. Because otherwise, if you go out of that habit, then oh well I'll you could lapse and lapse and lapse and s and therefore you get off that really good habit of exercise with which Dr. Covey did. So, Mira, if we move into now, we're actually our association and many, many professional learning and universities look at the long-term measure of professional learning and impact. And could you give us an indication of I'm I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the seven habits as well as Leader and me of the long-term impact of this work because this is I guess what I'm where I'm going with this is that it's this is not just a short, sharp and once um done exercise, this is not just a one-day PL and we are finished. I want to really hear the long-term impact of Seven Habits and Leader and Me, because you are going we are looking at long-term impact here.

Muriel Summers:

Well, after almost 50 years in education, I've seen so many things come and go and come back again with a different bow on the package, if you will, but still the same. The one thing and some things stuck, and but unfortunately most things did not. Um the seven habits has stuck. The seven habits are timeless. Um they are we called it, we always called it with our children a toolkit that will help them navigate the rest of their lives. And if they would just pull out of that seven habits toolkit the lessons and leadership that they had learned, it would serve them well for the rest of their life. Um, and we have found that to be true. Um, serving at A B Combs for over 25 years, and it's almost unheard of for a principal to stay in the same school that long, but um, we had built something pretty incredible. And I would say to the superintendent, if he would say, Well, I'd like for you to do this or I'd like for you to do that, and I said, Well, if you can show me something better than A. B. Combs, I might uh consider it. No one could ever show me anything better than than than what we had, because we found our teachers would say being taught the seven habits is professional development was the greatest personal gift and the best professional gift they had ever been given. Because mostly we invest in our teachers in our curriculums, in our, you know, whatever it is we're working on, but investing in them as people to become to use these habits to build a better life for themselves, to be more effective uh in their relationships with others, to be more efficient in um in tasks that um really are cultivated by efficiency. They learned that in the seven habits. And they would come back and say, Thank you. I'm a better teacher, I'm a better friend, I'm a better partner, I'm a better spouse. And um never had I heard, and I said it myself, never had anyone poured into me professionally where I got such amazing outcomes personally. Um our students, oh Drew, I have so many stories, but our students would say to me, I had the courage to do this in middle school because I had, I thought, begin with the end in mind. Um recently I received an email from a former student who was applying for a job with Google, and it was narrowed down to like four candidates, and he was one of them. And he called me and he said, Any advice for me? And I hadn't talked with him since he left elementary school, but I had that kind of relationship with my students, and I said, just be you. Talk about leadership, talk about these softer skills if they come up. Well, he landed the job, he got the job, and he attributed it to what he had learned about leadership. In fact, the interviewers at Google said to him, You're so young, you're just right out of college. How do you know so much about leadership? Where did you learn so much about leadership? And he said, from my elementary school. And they all laughed, but he said, No, really, you know, I was taught the seven habits of highly effective people, and I continued to grow in my own leadership development after I left elementary school. So every student that I have encountered that is now in the workforce, and there are many, they will say the greatest gift that they ever got in any of their schooling was the gift of how to lead and how to serve others. And to me, that's probably the greatest legacy any of us could ever have is that we have helped our students not only do well while they're in school, but more importantly to do well after they leave school. And I think that's truly our mission is to help children lead productive, happy lives after they lead us, leave us because of what we taught them while they were with us.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah. And that story shows the long-term impact right there, exactly, like exactly the purpose of the mission of what Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is and what Leader and Me is all about. So sharing that story shows the longitudinal data sets of what the impact is from an elementary school, stayed with them through to when they go into the workforce. What a powerful story. Thank you for sharing. Yeah.

Muriel Summers:

Well, and I would also add to that that you know, we're leading in a world um that none of us can possibly predict what the future's gonna look like. So what are the skills, the skills that we can give our children now, that no matter how rapidly changing our world is, it will serve them well in the world in which they live. And um, I think the hab I don't think I know these habits are the answer to that for sure.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah, well, it's perfect segue, because uh we I'd like to go into the future of leadership in schools, and you have touched on that. Looking ahead, some some thoughts for you. What if you look at the next decade of school leadership, and as we said, there are so many variables, it seems to be a common theme, there's always it's always changing with so many things coming through. What do you think the next decade of school leadership will look like? And where do you see the what do you see the role of principals, how they're evolving, particularly in the times of global change and uncertainty? And lastly, how is Franklin Covey education adapting to ensure programs continue to meet the needs of leaders and learners? Okay.

Muriel Summers:

I may have to ask you to repeat some of those questions.

Drew Janetzki:

Sure. I just wanted to really prompt the thinking there. Yeah.

Muriel Summers:

I think in terms of what does leadership look like, um it will no longer be a command and control kind of leadership. Um, Stephen M. R. Covey, Dr. Cubby's son, who wrote the book The Speed of Trust and now Trust and Inspire, um, this generation of students in the workforce, they're not going to thrive in that kind of environment. It worked for the industrial age, but not for the knowledge worker. And our children are not are in the world of knowledge workers. I think leadership will not just be in the principal's office when you talk about what a school leadership looks like. It will be shared leadership, shared leadership amongst the teachers, the students, um, and parents. Um I think it will certainly, schools will certainly need to build a strong foundation on trust and transparency to um survive. Um and every person in a schoolhouse will be um responsible for helping to shape the culture of the school, with the students being at the very center of everything that they do. What is in the best interest of our students and how can we help them? What do we need to teach them to help them be the leaders of tomorrow? Um I also think leadership in general will be more human-centered. Um, the number one leadership trait that um employees are looking for in their employers is empathy. They want to work for someone uh whom they can trust. They want to um also have a voice. You know, when I think of the three C's, if you will, of leadership, I think of certainly of connection, the importance of connecting with others. I also think of compassion. Um, we want to work for someone who is compassionate and also someone who has strong character. Um you know, that's what employees are looking for. That's what teachers are looking for in a leader. They're looking for someone who will allow them to have a voice and say they want to lead and they want to serve. Um, and they want their gifts and talents recognized as well. Um one of my favorite stories about the leadership for tomorrow um was during COVID, we all had to step up. You know, we were working remotely, and I thought, I, you know, I thought I knew the gifts and talents of our staff, but it wasn't until I asked this one question we got to get through this. What will be your most distinct contribution as an individual that will help us get to the next level or help us get through this? And so when I asked a distinct contribution, that's when people started sharing their talents, talents that I didn't even know they had true. And I had been with them for over 20 years. So that one question enabled us to take what the staff said and place them in positions of their own passion, but also of their greatest contribution. And I would have to say COVID was one of our finest hours as a staff because of that, leading, leading um by asking others how the best lead. So I think that's what this generation's looking for. And there's research that says the average student graduating from a career or college um will have at least, could have as many as 35 different roles, different jobs during their professional career because they're always looking for something better until they can find it. And they're not going to stand working for someone who does not allow them to give up their talents to the organization. They'll leave, they'll go somewhere else where someone allowed them to do that.

Drew Janetzki:

Yeah. So qu I've heard leadership really does matter, Muriel, in that and and as you go back to before you said looking in the genius in others as well. And I also heard the humanity skills, how refreshing to hear in this age of artificial intelligence and the real push in that space, which can give feedback, but I really heard humanity, those humanity skills of trust as well, are so prevalent and so and will be so important, which is what Franklin Carvey education provides. So yeah, it just reassuring in terms of for people for our colleagues listening or for principals educational leaders listening in. I was going to finish with what is one message for if it all principals listening here today, what would it be? What could you share? And that's a very narrow, but um what's one piece of advice for them in in terms of you know leading leading, for example, a leader in me school?

Muriel Summers:

Well you know, I thought I've been asked this question a lot since I retired as a principal. Um, you know, what do you miss most and what would you do differently? I miss being a principal every day of my life. And I didn't realize I got caught up in the thick of very thin things. I would say the most important thing we do is leave our heart print, if you will, on the lives of everyone we serve, from the smallest child to the oldest adult in the building, that we put relationships above all else, building strong, meaningful, purposeful relationships with others. I would have not I would have always made sure that I was eating lunch with this with students every day, that I would have enough time built in, a system built in to just talk with teachers when they needed, just um to have a conversation. Um, because relationships really are the key to everything being successful. Um my advice would be don't sweat the small stuff and don't forget what is most important. And that's knowing your why, the purpose behind what you're doing, what why you're doing what you're doing, and to never ever miss the opportunity to sit down beside a child, eat a sandwich with the child or with the teacher, and just to get to know them by loving them, knowing them as to love them, and uh helping each child see their worth and potential. And that was Dr. Covey's beautiful definition of leadership: communicating someone's worth and potential so clearly that they're inspired to see it in themselves.

Drew Janetzki:

Oh, beautiful words, beautiful words, Muriel, and very, very inspiring. And look, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been an absolute honor, pleasure, so inspiring in terms of the work, the mission, what Leader and Me does, how it's transformed schools. It's not a it's not just a it's not a short-term, it's a long-term process. There are going to be non-negotiables, but it's all worth it in terms of looking at the impact and hearing those those stories of in different, not only in AB Homes School, but also across the globe. And yeah, we're really privileged to have you and and talk us through that. Um so thank you again for joining us.

Muriel Summers:

Drew, thank you. The honor is all mine, and I certainly want to say to every educator listening, what a gift you are. Um, and every child needs you. What you do does indeed matter. And I would like to end by saying um never forget that children will learn more when they know that a teacher cares um over any other strategy that we can use. So get to know your students and sort of push the curriculum to the side and just teach children. Just teach, you know what to do. Great teachers have been doing it for hundreds of years. Just teach children and you'll be just fine.

Drew Janetzki:

Uh great words of advice. Thank you, Muriel Summers.

Muriel Summers:

Thank you, Drew.

Drew Janetzki:

Well, what an inspiring conversation with Muriel Summers. What were your takeaways from this episode? And what are your actions going to be from here? For me, it was leadership isn't an add-on, it's a culture you could create. Other points I noted were start small, focus on two or three of those clear goals and do them with excellence. Another point I wrote down was true leadership is about relationships, trust, and empowering others. Students, staff, and community alike, and you could really hear that through Muriel. Muriel reminded us that every child has genius, and our role as leaders is to see it, nurture it, and help them shine. Thanks again for joining us on the New South Wales PPA Professional Learning's Educational Leadership Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with colleagues, subscribe on your favourite platform, and you could even leave us a positive review. Your support helps us continue to bring global voices in leadership to principals across New South Wales, across Australia, and beyond.

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Drew Janetzki

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