Thriving vs. Resilience: Building Unshakeable Resilience In Schools with Allison Smith

In this episode, Jethro Jones interviews Alison Smith, an author, speaker, and coach dedicated to empowering leaders to build unshakeable resilience. Alison shares insights on how to foster deep-rooted confidence and create meaningful impact by aligning actions with core vision and values. The discussion dives into human-centered leadership, building trust, and defining success within schools. Alison also introduces her Thrive Design principles as a framework for building resilient schools.Thriving vs. ResilienceThrive: to grasp to oneselfThriving in the valleys. Resilience is thriving in the valleys. Centered or grounded. You’re in a bubble, and things are happening around you, but you’re doing it from the grounded place. Your well being is dependent on your bubble, not the circumstances around you. Mission, vision, values help teachers, students, and families connecting to the vision. Resilient schools are rooted in their purpose and values Clarity of purpose and courage to go forward when we are aligned. Burnout is a real barrier to resilience. How stress and ineffectiveness contribute to burnout. Feelings of “Things we do don’t matter” exist when our actions don’t align to our values. It’s the work of all of us to define success’We need to be concrete and explicit about what success looks like. High Trust - Brene Brown Daring to Lead - The Anatomy of TrustBeing Reliable. AccountabilityGenerosityTHRIVE Design Principles - things that help us move from burnout to resilience. TrustHuman centeredResponsive (as opposed to reactive, and be curious)Incremental - next right action. Values drivenEmpowered - what you can control, not what you can’t control; let go of what you can’t controlGo below the surface when there is friction to help you determine what issues are arising.Being clear takes away the judgment and distracting questions and justification. How to make staff feel valued. Look and watch and see what people are really doing, then give them appropriate praise.Part of resilience is awareness.Resilience comes back to self-awareness and community-awareness. Well-being continuum -10 to +10 how are you doing right now? School Leaders that THRIVE SummitAbout Allison:Alison Smith is an author, speaker, and coach dedicated to empowering leaders to build unshakeable resilience, foster deep-rooted confidence, and create meaningful impact by aligning their actions with their core vision and values. She helps her clients to leverage the power of small acts of resilience to design thriving personal and professional lives. Her work has been featured in various publications, and her book, “Drawing Your Line: Setting Boundaries Step by Step”, guides many to healthier living. Outside of work, she enjoys a good book with a glass of wine and spending time with her husband and two kids.Check out School Leaders that THRIVE Summit We’re thrilled to be sponsored by Renaissance and IXL. Learn more about Renaissance: As a global leader in education technology operating in more than 110 countries, Renaissance is committed to providing educators with insights and resources to accelerate growth and help all students build a strong foundation for success. We believe that technology can unlock a more effective learning experience, ensure that students get the personalized teaching they need to thrive, and help educators and administrators to truly, fully, See Every Student. Learn more at renaissance.com.IXL’s comprehensive teaching and learning platform for math, language arts, science, and social studies is accelerating achievement in 95 of the top 100 U.S. school districts. Loved by teachers and backed by independent research from Johns Hopkins University, IXL can help you do the following and more:Simplify and streamline technologySave teachers’ timeReliably meet Tier 1 standardsImprove student performance on state assessments🚀 Ready to see why leading districts trust IXL for their educational needs? Visit IXL.com/BE today to learn more about how IXL can elevate your school or district.