"To Do the Impossible, You Need to See the Invisible"

One of my mentors, my principal, loves to pull out short, cryptic maxims in response to complex situations. This has to be one of my favorites. I first heard it indirectly, through a friend of mine who also leads in my school. Imagine being in a meeting, wrestling with some challenging leadership dilemna, and then, after a pause, hearing this: You just need to understand that to do the impossible, you need to see the invisible. And then another pause, as if that was enough.

These pithy bits of wisdom can feel comical, almost ridiculous at first, like something written on the label of a tea bag. But, as with the tea bag, let it steep, and you'll have something to drink.

In my leadership journey, I want to do the impossible. I want to help my high-poverty, urban public school become a home to rich learning and high quality teaching. I want to help us be the first International Baccalaureate School in the Boston Public Schools. And I want more than that. I'd love to found other schools and help lead in a movement to truly reform schools so that they are no longer the schools of our youth but those that shape hope and access and well-being in their members, adults and students alike.

I want to do the impossible, so I need to see the invisible. Young leaders see obstacles, so we dream smaller dreams. Young leaders see incompetent or uncaring adults in schools, so we turn cynical. Young leaders see our own shortcomings, so we think someone else must do the great things of our time. Yet there is also the tremendous potential in even our most troubled youth. There is the huge amount of talent, good will, and funding waiting to be spent upon great efforts to do justice in our urban schools. There is the mysterious power unleashed when we find ways to marshall whole communities behind a common vision. It's invisible, but it's there.

Now the corralary is of course true as well: If you want to do what's possible, you need to see what's visible. Huge vision is no substitute for thoughtful mangagement and hands-on engagement in the life of an organization. Leaders need a kind of bifurcated vision - attentive to the small while cultivating the large, thoughtful about the present and prepared for the future, faithfully doing the possible while trying our hands (and hearts, and minds) at the impossible as well.

So there's the title for this blog. Like most blogs, this one will probably have five or six readers at best. (I'm not sure whether my mom counts.) But if you're one of them, welcome and enjoy.