Episode 48: Why Memorizing Answers Will Not Get You the Leadership Role

Are too many interview tips confusing you? If you're preparing to land your first school leadership role, learning to trust your preparation is just as important as preparing your answers. In this episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II explains how too much interview advice can create confusion, weaken your confidence, and make you question your leadership abilities. Learn how to choose the right mentors, stop overthinking your answers, and trust the experience and skills you already bring to the table. Discover why you don't need to sound like another leader to succeed in a school leadership interview. Instead, learn how to communicate your authentic leadership style, share your experiences with confidence, and approach your next interview with a clearer mindset. In This Episode: 00:00 Introduction 03:40 Choosing the Right Interview Advice 05:44 Trusting Your Interview Preparation 09:06 Embracing Your Authentic Leadership Style If you're an aspiring school leader, this episode will help you rethink your interview preparation and build confidence in your leadership journey. 👍🏾 Like this video if it helped you rethink your interview preparation. 💬 Comment below: Are you getting overwhelmed by too many interview tips? 🔔 Subscribe for more practical guidance on school leadership interviews, assistant principal interviews, and leadership development. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Assistant Principal | Best-Selling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Donovan Smalls II helps aspiring school leaders become interview-ready, strengthen their leadership confidence, and confidently land their first school leadership role. 📘 Grab Beyond the Classroom: https://shorturl.at/74Bgy 🎯 1:1 Leadership Interview Coaching: Preparing for your first school leadership role? Get personalized guidance to strengthen your interview skills and leadership confidence. Learn more: https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📺 YouTube https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m 🎧 Apple Podcasts https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k 🎧 Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 Subscribe for weekly episodes on Leadership Interviews, Assistant Principal Interviews, School Leadership, Educational Leadership, Interview Preparation, Leadership Development, and Career Growth for aspiring school leaders. #SchoolLeadership #AssistantPrincipal #LeadershipInterview #InterviewPreparation #EducationalLeadership #TeacherToLeader #LeadershipDevelopment #CareerGrowth

Are you an aspiring school leader trying to land your first Vice Principal role? Wondering what it takes to stand out in a grueling leadership interview? In this episode of The Aspiring School Leader Podcast, Dr. Donovan Smalls II talks with Chanel Rutty, a Vice Principal in Newark Public Schools, to explore her incredible journey from struggling with initial teaching exams to landing her dream administrative role in just 48 hours. Chanel gives strong advice on surviving a 7-hour interview, transitioning from charter to public schools, and the crucial mindset shift needed to ace your upcoming interview. 📌 Sections 00:00 Introduction: Meet Vice Principal Chanel Rutty 01:50 Chanel’s Inspiring Journey: From Failing Exams to Pre-K Teacher 04:42 Director vs. Vice Principal: What are the REAL differences? 09:22 Biggest lessons from Year 1 as an Elementary School VP 10:35 Charter School vs. Public School: The truth about work-life balance 15:22 How to stand out against other candidates in an AP interview 16:57 Surviving a grueling 7-HOUR leadership interview 18:48 How to make yourself marketable for administrative roles 21:45 The best advice for your first school leadership interview 22:55 The #1 Interview Mistake: Thinking like a teacher vs. a leader 23:58 Building School Culture: The power of "Community Walks" 26:08 How to connect with Chanel Rutty for mentoring If you’ve ever wondered what it really takes to transition from the classroom to an administrative role, this podcast will help you prepare for the challenges ahead and speak about your value with confidence. You will learn how to: ✅ Overcome career setbacks and find your true purpose in education ✅ Differentiate between the roles of a Director and a Vice Principal ✅ Survive intense, multi-part leadership interviews ✅ Shift your mindset to think (and answer) like a leader, not just a teacher ✅ Make yourself highly marketable to school districts ✅ Build authentic community relationships through "Community Walks" Great leaders are not born when they're given a title. They are learned via experience, connections, service and the ability to inspire others. 🔗 Connect with Chanel Rutty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chanelrutty1908?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios About Dr. Donovan Smalls II : Assistant Principal | Bestselling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Donovan Smalls II helps aspiring school leaders get interview-ready and confidently land their first leadership role. 👉🏾 Learn More About 1:1 Leadership Interview Coaching: https://www.donovansmalls2.com/coaching 📘 Grab my book, Beyond the Classroom: https://shorturl.at/74Bgy Streaming on: 📺 YouTube 🔗 https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m 🎧 Apple Podcasts 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k 🎧 Spotify 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr 🔔 Subscribe for weekly videos on: School Leadership, Assistant Principal Interviews, Educational Leadership, Leadership Development, Teacher Career Growth, Interview Preparation for Aspiring School Leaders. #SchoolLeadership #VicePrincipal #LeadershipInterview #AssistantPrincipal #AspiringSchoolLeaders #LeadershipinEducation #TeacherToAdmin

How do you uncover your interview strengths? One of the best ways to identify your strengths is to understand your vulnerabilities. By evaluating the areas that may be holding you back, you can better prepare for a school leadership interview, strengthen your responses, and become more intentional about communicating the leadership strengths you already possess. You may have years of teaching experience and plenty of interview questions to practice, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are equipped to articulate your leadership effectively in an interview. Chapters: 00:00 — Do You Need Interview Coaching? 02:08 – Information Does Not Equal Transformation 06:53 — You Can’t Improve What You Can’t See 09:46 — Confidence, Feedback & Interview Success In this episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II discusses the importance of recognizing the areas that need improvement and how objective feedback, focused practice, and the right interview framework can help aspiring school leaders uncover their interview vulnerabilities, strengthen their weaknesses, and more clearly communicate their leadership strengths. You will learn: ✅ Why you can’t ace interviews only by gathering interview questions ✅ How to identify frequent interview blind spots ✅ How to frame your teaching experience as leadership ✅ Why feedback is better than memorizing answers ✅ Managing unexpected interview questions ✅ How deliberate practice can increase your interview confidence ✅ How interview coaching can make you perform better in the Leadership interview If you’re an aspiring school leader, a teacher getting ready for an assistant principal interview, or an educator working toward your first leadership job, this episode will help you approach your school leadership interview preparation with better clarity and confidence. 👉🏾 Learn More About 1:1 Leadership Interview Coaching: https://www.donovansmalls2.com/coaching 📘 Grab my book, Beyond the Classroom: https://shorturl.at/74Bgy ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II: Assistant Principal | Best Selling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Donovan Smalls II helps aspiring school leaders get interview ready & confidently land their first school leadership role. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📺 YouTube 🔗 https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m 🎧 Apple Podcasts 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k 🎧 Spotify 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 Subscribe for weekly videos on Leadership Interviews, Assistant Principal Interviews, School Leadership, Educational Leadership, Interview Preparation, Leadership Development, and Career Growth for aspiring school leaders. #SchoolLeadership #LeadershipInterview #InterviewPreparation #AssistantPrincipal #EducationalLeadership

A school leadership interview is not only about your experience, your qualifications or the answers you give. It’s about how well you tell your leadership story, how you demonstrate your effect, and how you convince the interview committee you’re ready to lead. In this special episode of The Aspiring School Leader Podcast, Dr. Donovan Smalls II talks with Principal Kelin Mark Sr. to explore the journey from teacher to school leader and the disposition of aspiring leaders to thrive. Kelin Mark Sr., Principal with 24+ years in education, gives strong advice on leadership growth, interview prep, mentorship, developing relationships, and what separates the candidates that stand out from those who go missed. 📌 Sections 00:00 The Importance of Your Leadership Story 01:04 Classroom Teacher to School Principal: Kelin Mark’s Road to Leadership 04:43 Middle School Leadership Understanding 06:28 When to Think about Leadership as a Teacher 08:35 How to get leadership experience before an interview 11:05 Mentorship and the role in developing leadership 12:50 Leader Vs Manager: The Difference That Counts 18:32 How to make an interview board remember you 25:39 How to Build Confidence Before Your Leadership Interview 30:45 Why Family Engagement Matters in Schools Leadership 36:10 The Advice Every Aspiring Leader Needs to Hear If you’ve ever wondered if you have enough experience to be a school leader, this podcast will help you identify the leadership qualities you’re already growing and how to speak about your value with confidence. You will learn how to: ✅Transform your teaching into a powerful leadership tale ✅ Know what interview boards are really looking for ✅ Stand out from other candidates in leadership interviews ✅ Confidently and clearly describe your leadership style ✅ Move from being a task-oriented manager to a people-oriented leader ✅ Build authentic relationships with teachers, students and families ✅ Prepare to land your first school leadership role Great leaders are not born when they're given a title. They are learned via experience, connections, service and the ability to inspire others. About Dr. Donovan Smalls II : Assistant Principal | Bestselling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Donovan Smalls II helps aspiring school leaders prepare for interviews and boldly pursue leadership roles in education. 👉🏾 Learn More About 1:1 Leadership Interview Coaching: https://www.donovansmalls2.com/coaching 📘 Grab my book, Beyond the Classroom: https://shorturl.at/74Bgy Streaming on: 📺 YouTube 🔗 https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m 🎧 Apple Podcasts 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k 🎧 Spotify 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr

A school leadership interview can make even a prepared candidate question their experience, strengths, and ability to lead. But often, the problem isn’t preparation, it’s confidence in your own leadership story. In this episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II shares 3-mindset shifts to help aspiring school leaders build confidence before their next school leadership interview and communicate who they are, what they’ve accomplished, and what they bring to the table. ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 Your Confidence Starts With Your Story 02:59 Own the Uniqueness of Your Journey 06:37 Lead Your Interview With Your Strengths 09:07 Recognize the Leadership You Already Carry If you’ve ever walked into a school leadership interview wondering whether you’re the strongest candidate, this episode will help you stop focusing on what you lack and start recognizing the leadership you already demonstrate. You’ll learn how to: ✅ Embrace your unique journey and experiences ✅ Communicate your strengths with confidence ✅ Answer leadership questions from a leadership perspective ✅ Stop comparing your experience to other candidates ✅ Recognize leadership skills you already demonstrate through mentoring, collaboration, problem-solving, and initiative ✅ Show up to your interview with confidence, clarity, and ownership You don’t become a leader when you get the title. You expand the leader you already are. 🎯 Need Support Preparing for Your Leadership Interview? If you’re an aspiring school leader preparing to land your first school leadership role, personalized coaching can help you practice scenario-based questions, clarify your leadership story, and receive targeted feedback before the real interview. 👉🏾Learn More About 1:1 Leadership Interview Coaching: https://www.donovansmalls2.com/coaching 📘 Grab my book, Beyond the Classroom: https://shorturl.at/74Bgy ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II: Assistant Principal | Best Selling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Donovan Smalls II helps aspiring school leaders get interview ready & confidently land their first school leadership role. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📺 YouTube 🔗 https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m 🎧 Apple Podcasts 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k 🎧 Spotify 🔗 https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 Subscribe for weekly videos on Leadership Interviews, Assistant Principal Interviews, School Leadership, Educational Leadership, Interview Preparation, Leadership Development, and Career Growth for aspiring school leaders. #SchoolLeadership #LeadershipInterview #InterviewPreparation #AssistantPrincipal #AspiringSchoolLeaders