We talk with Nate Lichte, VP of K-12 Solutions and COO of Lebra, about the challenges of retaining top talents in school leadership and the classroom. You can enjoy engaging insights into these important topics during Lichte’s presentation at the upcoming EdExec Summit, taking place September 10-11 in Chicago.
“I've always had a passion for leadership,” Nate Lichte says. “My mom was an eighth grade teacher. Growing up I didn't get the traditional bedtime superheroes and fairy tales, I got leadership fables."
Like most fables, Lichte’s path wasn’t a simple or straight one, but it resulted in a lesson learned he brings into his work everyday.
“I got into education because I struggled with my own educational journey, so I wanted to make an impact for educators and their students,” he says. “I started in higher ed working directly with college students, which eventually led to K12. I even worked with juvenile justice and corrections education programs. I’ve been spending the last seven years with school superintendents within a company whose core product helped leaders to better connect with their employees to build a culture of belonging and ensure that the employee feels seen, valued, and inspired to grow.”
Lichte says the education sector is extremely unique, and presents difficult challenges for school leaders, who are under tremendous pressure. Every district is distinct, but most are facing the same challenges when it comes to staffing.
“Right now a lot of districts are talking about recruitment because we're dealing with this shortage of teachers,” he says. “The immediate thought is, ‘Let's go get more teachers.’ We're not talking enough about retention. It's far less expensive and far more impactful to create an environment where the best people choose to stay. At the end of the day, the best people want to work for someone that genuinely cares about them.”
Determining what matters most to the brightest stars in your school’s universe is key to keeping them.
“Teachers are not in a role for the compensation,” Lichte says. “The reason people stay is because they have great leadership. They have purpose. They have opportunity to grow. There's trust. There's flexibility. There's an authentic relationship that's built between them, the leadership, and the entire organization. That's what sets a high-performing organization, whether it's a K12 school district or any other industry.”
Just knowing what your staff needs is the first step. For Lichte, this isn’t about selling a product, but selling a culture that can make life better for all the stakeholders.
“Culture isn't something you can write on a wall,” he says. “Culture isn't something that happens because you throw a building a pizza party or order a snack cart on Teacher Appreciation Day. Those small things are great and may lead to a positive culture, but nine times out of ten, that's not what builds a healthy culture of belonging. What builds a strong culture of belonging is small intentional actions. It's conversations, it's feedback, it's recognition, all of those small things that happen in seconds in the day that build trust and relationships.”
Becoming the GOAT of Joy and Belonging Might Take a Few Llamas
“Culture starts from the top down,” says Lichte. “It doesn't matter whether we're working with K-12 districts, hospitals with 20,000 employees, or a private organization with 6,000. We have to start with the CEO or the superintendent of that organization. If you as the head of that organization do not believe — or don’t take the intentional actions that it takes to build a culture of belonging, it’s going to be an uphill battle.”
Small daily actions, such as noting someone’s birthday, might seem simplistic or something that wouldn’t move the needle on culture.
“When you're the superintendent of an organization and you send a personal email birthday message to an individual, it has meaningful impact,” Lichte suggests. “A superintendent in Illinois sent a last-minute birthday message to an individual in his district. The gentleman responded that he didn't know that the superintendent knew it was his birthday, and was furthermore surprised that he took the time just to wish him a happy birthday, because he's the superintendent leading this big district. His final sentence? Sometimes, being a janitor I feel at the bottom, but today — I feel at the top.”
This made such an impact on the superintendent, the district adopted a bigger recognition of birthdays and milestones across the organization. Doors were decorated, and joy and a sense of belonging was spread.
“These are the moments that matter,” Lichte says. “That individual employee will stay retained and engaged in his role because of this one small email and then everything else that the district has done to kind of change their philosophy. That's when employees feel trusted, valued. They're inspired to grow, regardless of what position they hold.”
Lichte insists this conversation should not be about recruitment, because recruitment will come when you create an environment of joy with a culture of belonging. If that’s what you lean on you are focusing on the wrong piece of the puzzle.
“The challenge for superintendents is that right now is a heavy politically-charged environment,” he says. “They have budget constraints and reins tightened to the greatest degree they've ever experienced.”
Lichte says small intentional acts and inspiration matters. He cites Dr. George Philhower, Eastern Hancock Community Schools superintendent in Greenfield, Indiana, who has four key tenets, starting with joy.
“He wants every single individual to experience joy and that joy is exhibited not only when the kids are getting educated, but when employees and teachers feel like they're part of the school,” says Lichte. “It takes intentional work. You cannot do it on Fridays and special occasions, you as a leader have to do it every single day. If you're bleeding talent, it's because people don't believe; one, in you as the leader, or two, because your core tenets are in misalignment with what they want.”
This philosophy has attracted such a stir that 300 teachers from around the country come to Philhower’s annual Joy Jam educators’ conference. To be fair, this is the same man who sent a local farmer in uniform riding a horse past a history classroom yelling, “The British are coming!”
So how does joy express itself in Greenfield, Indiana?
Says Lichte: “The best way I can sum up that conference is as I'm walking down to the main session, George passes me and says, ‘Have you seen a goat? We've lost the goat.’ The next thing I heard was his voice calling down the hall, ‘The llamas are slipping on the floor. We need a tarp for the llamas!’ Because this conference brought in everything that exhibits joy. This is why George doesn’t have a recruitment problem.”
3 Takeaways To Gain From Nate Lichte’s EdExec Summit Presentation
Culture is not a pizza party. Leadership is building a high-performing organization around a culture of belonging, built on a foundation of connection. You can’t have one without the other.
Start from the ground up. Learn from the good work already taking place, such as the birthday note example. Sharing best practices starts a conversation to spark ideas. Other creative things are happening organically in districts.
Create environments that people don't wanna leave. You can't just do it on Tuesdays and Fridays or because it feels like the right thing to do. You have to block your calendar 5-10 minutes every day and go find someone to make feel seen. If you're not giving this culture the same intention that you give your budget, then you're missing the mark.
