There you sit, listening to a friend, a colleague, a loved one…someone saying something that may or may not be terribly important to you at the moment, something that you may or may not be interested in, something that you may or may not feel you have time to listen to.  Maybe you have ten other things on your mind.  Maybe you simply don’t agree with the content or the delivery of the ‘something’ that you’re listening to.  Maybe you were interrupted from something else.  Maybe you were in the middle of some very important task or thought when you were ripped away by an invitation to join the someone in the other room, or excitedly asked to “listen to this,” or better yet, maybe the someone who you’re faced with listening to simply started talking without any warning.

If you can relate to this scenario, you’re likely to have reached varied junctures along a spectrum of visceral reactivity when it happens, possibly ranging from somewhere in the neighborhood of slight irritation to concurrent with blood-curdling fury.  Your eye might twitch, your toes might curl, and/or you might find yourself scratching places on your arm that didn’t itch only moments ago.  What is happening here?  Is there truly some kind of assault on your wellbeing underway?  Are you under attack?  Is this someone maniacal in his/her efforts to derail your productivity, spoil your mood, wreck your day, diminish your effectiveness, or otherwise stop you from doing the very important things that were so recently being used as test subjects for a veritable study on procrastination?  Or, is he/she trying to connect with you?  While biting your tongue is traditionally known as an act that prevents people from saying things they might later regret, as I progress within my journey in educational leadership I find it helpful to think of tongue biting (in moments such as cited above) as a reminder of what is actually very important…relationships…with people.

Think about your favorite educational leader.  Think about the teacher or principal who influenced you the most.  Project back to the one who made you feel comfortable at school and helped you understand it as a joyful place.  Imagine the person in your educational life who inspired you to reach for and exceed your potential.  Was that person too busy to listen, even when you were rambling on?  I rarely hear people talk about great leaders by referencing their productivity, their ability to maximize time by facilitating really short and to the point conversations, or their uncanny efficiency.  Most of the stories I hear about inspirational leadership go something like this:  He always makes me feel so important, or she cares so deeply about everyone she knows, or he loves to hear about my day…even when it’s boring, or I can turn to her for anything.  Etcetera.

In my opinion, the key to the fine art of tongue biting is that the bite is simply a reminder.  Bite…release, and then upon releasing…engage.  I would suggest that if you’re doing it right, you ‘re not stopping yourself from interrupting, your reminding yourself that you care about what someone is saying, no mater who that someone is.  Inspirational leaders tend to actually care about everyone that they serve, and by “actually,” I mean they tend to do it with authenticity.  Pretending to care doesn’t work.  It doesn’t work because it doesn’t convince people that you do, not really, not permanently…and it doesn’t convince you.  It’s authentic expressions of true caring that help people understand what they mean to one another.  Careful and compassionate listening is a wonderful way to show people that you truly value them, and if you do, it comes off in just that way.

I’m reflecting on this today because the end of the school year is an especially fast paced, busy time for us in educational leadership.  There’s so much going on.  I’ve found myself short with people I care about on multiple occasions over the past few weeks.  No good.  Of course, we are human beings, we work with human beings, and we have to get things done.  We do have to be hyper-organized, we can’t afford anything but productivity, and we really must be diligent in the crossing of T’s and the dotting of I’s.  However, we also have to remember that those things are not the problem of the people we serve, in or outside of school.  I think that we are also well served to remember this very important fact about most everyone in our lives: they’re busy too.

So, it’s not enough to hold back from shouting, “for goodness sake…give it rest,” with a quick bite of my tongue during frustrated or distracted moments that could otherwise be filled with authentic and meaningful connections.  The tongue biting should remind me that I actually do care…because I do.  If used properly, the fine art of tongue biting can be a quick energy shifter, diminishing frustrated distractedness and enhancing meaningful connections.  The next time you find yourself wishing someone that care about would “stop talking already,” try it.  If you turn to thinking, “I’m glad to be a part of this person’s life,” or “how cool that he/she feels comfortable confiding in me,” than maybe it’s for you.  If you don’t, than maybe it’s not.  Either way, it’s an easy experiment that could pay dividends in the areas of learning, growth, and even joy.

 

Dream Big.  Work Hard.  Be Well.