Leading with Purpose with Dr. Meisha Porter

An Imperfect Leader

INTRO: The most unexpected thing happened the other day. I was having car issues and the mechanic offered to do a home visit. That in itself was a nice gesture. He found the issue (resolved it pretty quickly, actually. If you’re dying to know, it was an electrical issue beyond my expertise. Ok, let’s be honest, I have no expertise beyond the radio shack club at the summer camp I attended as a kid where I soldered together a motion detector one summer. You had to be within something like 4 inches for it to actually detect you!

So we’re chitchatting and through the window, he sees a ukulele sitting on a table. He takes out a guitar from his vehicle and moment later, we find ourselves in a little jam session. I can safely say this was not how I expected my day to go. I didn’t have time for a jam session. I heard myself self-talking, to consciously accept the moment, to accept the change in schedule, to lean in to the unknown, and to be ok with a different plan.

My guest today had to do just that, but on a GRAND scale. Today on an Imperfect Leader, Dr. Meisha Porter is my guest. She was called to service, to a mammoth job, and from all accounts, she did it with distinction. In my story a moment ago, I can say we were just noodling on our stringed instruments, with no expectation of being good. In Meisha’s case, she was tasked with something tantamount to conducting a full symphony. And she had to be good. She had to be great.

In the episode, she tells us a story she has not previously discussed publicly. I’m Peter Stiepleman and welcome to An Imperfect Leader. Thanks for tuning in.

BIO: Dr. Porter is The Bronx Community Foundation’s inaugural President and CEO, but previously she held the position of Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education (the first Black woman to serve as NYC’s Chancellor) in the largest school system in the nation. To put that into context, she was responsible for educating 1.1 million students in over 1,800 schools.

Prior to taking on the role as Chancellor, she served as The Bronx Executive Superintendent where she was deeply invested in sharpening school leaders’ equity lens and building collaborative practices across schools. She has served as superintendent for Community School District #11 and as a teacher, community coordinator, and principal of The Bronx School for Law, Government, and Justice.

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An Imperfect Leader: The Superintendents and Leadership Podcast is supported by ILAA, LLC, a firm dedicated to supporting aspiring, new, and established leaders. For more information, please find them at www.human-centeredleaders.com.

Music for An Imperfect Leader was written and arranged by Ian Varley.

Sam Falbo created our artwork, a wood-print inspired daruma doll butterfly.

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NEW EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE

"What do we want to create together?" So proud to have co-written the foreword with Zach Taylor to this essential book on Human-Centered School Transformation. If you're a school leader looking to make sense of what you know to be true about schools, check it out. If you're a corporate leader, you will find a pathway to better results in every page.

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AN IMPERFECT LEADER IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

My book, An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action is available at Amazon.com. If there is no hyperlink to follow, please go to Amazon.com or peterstiepleman.com to order a copy.