From 'Hearts Beaten' to 'Hearts Beating Together' with Hattie Tate

An Imperfect Leader

Book Update!

Imperfect Leaders! My book, An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action is available on Amazon.com. If there is no hyperlink to follow, please go to Amazon.com or peterstiepleman.com. You can order it there.

Intro: Hello Imperfect Leaders! Hope is a powerful theme for today’s conversation.

My guest today starts with a quote from poet, activist, and National Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman. I found it to be such a perfect way to start our conversation because my guest, Ms. Hattie Tate, speaks to hope. She speaks to how important it is to maintain hope. In fact, she reflects on the words of Amanda Gorman and reminds listeners how “every day, we have not lost hope.”

And the key to maintaining this hope is a simple one to say aloud and sometimes so hard to achieve. It’s relationships. The influence and impact that comes from a deep and genuine relationship. So to kick off this really inspiring conversation with Hattie Tate, a district leader in Oakland, CA, I give you four more stanzas from an Amanda Gorman poem New Day’s Lyric, written and performed as the pandemic began to experience a waning (vaccines we on the horizon and brighter days appeared to be imminent). She wrote:

Are now these moments we make, The moments we meet, And our hearts, once all together beaten, Now all together beat.

Never is that more important than those working with our children struggling to achieve their promise. Often labeled as at-risk, Hattie discusses this with honesty and optimism. In her After-Action Review, she reflects on career choices - a deeply personal conversation. Thanks for tuning in!

BIO: Ms. Hattie Tate has many titles. They include educator, principal, and administrator in the Oakland Unified School District in Oakland, CA. She has been the principal of an alternative school, has worked with the Department of Violence Prevention/DVP, Oakland, CA 2011-2023, has served as an Administrator/Coordinator for the Juvenile Justice Center, has been a leader with Youth Diversion and Re-Entry Strategy, and has been an important piece to Stanford University’s Impact Labs as a researcher.

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This episode is brought to you, in part, by the Waters Center for Systems Thinking. The Waters Center helps people understand what systems thinking is and how to incorporate the Habits, tools and concepts of systems thinking into their work and life to achieve desired results. To learn more, go to waterscenterst.org.

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An Imperfect Leader: Leadership in (After) Action 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.

www.peterstiepleman.com