How Leaders Can Learn to “Swim in the Deep End”
July 28, 2017
Read Dr. Rod Berger's interview on his Scholastic blog Down The Hall with Jennifer as they discuss leadership.
Excerpt:
Jennifer Abrams is communications consultant who specializes in effective collaboration in a multi-generational workplace, having hard conversations, and creating identity safe workplaces. Her current work involved helping educators who want to “swim in the deep end,” taking on the many challenges of leadership and thriving. Jennifer will be an expert speaker in the Transformative Leadership Summit, an online professional learning event that will take place from July 31-August 8, where she’ll be joined by education leaders including Jon Harper, Allison Zmuda, Mike Anderson, Justin Baeder, Mark Barnes, and many, many more.
In this interview, Jennifer describes the dispositions every leader must have, gives advice for leaders to get better at giving and receiving feedback, discusses the hardest part of being a new leader, and more.
About Jennifer Abrams
Jennifer has been recognized as one of "21 Women All K-12 Educators Need to Know" by Education Week's 'Finding Common Ground' blog. She considers herself a "voice coach," helping others learn how to best use their voices – be it collaborating on a team, facilitating a group, coaching a colleague, supervising an employee and being an all around better human being in all types of interactions.
Work with Jennifer
Praise for Jennifer
“Jennifer’s session was not just a workshop, but an invitation to look inward at how we, as adults, show up in our professional roles. She reminded us that hard conversations are not about winning or avoiding conflict, but about cultivating clarity, empathy, and courage.
One of the most powerful takeaways was this: for dialogue to be truly effective, we must learn to communicate with precision while holding space for humanity. Hard conversations should not shut people down; they should open the door to growth-producing feedback that strengthens trust, relationships, and professional practice. My learning experience with Jennifer was a reminder that our impact as educators is amplified when we are willing to pause, reflect, and engage with one another in ways that foster both accountability and compassion.”
