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So, after four long and hard (and extremely rewarding) years working in formal and informal education, I finally feel confident to write about some of the important lessons I’ve learned along the way.

I consider myself a careful watcher of my surroundings. Therefore, I’m uniquely qualified to learn from every person around me. But if I were to only learn from what they do right and their good qualities, that would simply leave me open to make error after error.

What I’m trying to say is, these ten lessons are based on mistakes I’ve made, successful approaches to leadership I’ve witnessed, and the mistakes of others I hope to God I will never make myself.

So, without further ado I present:

Ten Lesson in Leadership I’ve Learned Since Entering Education

-Part 1-

Obnoxious Typing Syndrome

I suffer from a condition which I like to call OTS. OTS stands for ‘obnoxious typing syndrome’. What this means is that every time I put anything into an e-mail, the reader feels like I’m being terribly rude. I can send a few sentences asking about a person’s welfare, with only good intentions, and receive a scary response like, “We need to talk later.”

As we all know, “We need to talk later” is often an employer’s way of saying, “You messed up. Come to me so I can tell you how.”

My discovery came one time when I sent an urgent e-mail to several different people at the school where I was teaching. They were all administrators, and I, of course, had been there for a matter of months.

One of the more well-meaning of the batch pulled me over to the side and told me with completely good intentions that my e-mail came off as angry and rude.

I was shocked.

He might as well have told me I had smacked his mother.

I hadn’t the slightest clue to what he was referring.

I had remembered the e-mail. It was urgent and practical, not angry or rude.

But I humored him and went back to look at it… And he was absolutely right.

Well, sort of…

I mean, I saw his point of view… Unfortunately, so did everyone else.

That’s when I discovered that I’m one of the 62.7% of Americans suffering from OTS. We OTS sufferers can read and reread our e-mails dozens of times before we send them out, and no matter how hard we try to make them look calm and pleasant, the reader will find a way to read it as if we wrote it with a severe attitude problem.

And to date, there is no cure.

And I wish I could let everyone who suffers alongside of me know of a simple solution, but as of now, I’m still stuck.

The best I could do is let the universe know of three ways I’ve found to hop around the problem:

1. Yeah, you guessed it. Get off your butt and say it to their face. I know, I know. It’s so much easier to write a paragraph and send it to six people at once in five minutes than to waste your time calling or wandering around to talk to people. But it still remains the only surefire way of solving 99% of all OTS blunders.

But some people are not accessible.

And sometimes people ask you to send something in an e-mail so they have a record.

Other people refuse to communicate any other way but e-mail.

And sometimes we just cannot tolerate the inconvenience of a face-to-face encounter.

So, you’re left with my other two suggestions:

2. Keep it ridiculously short: “Yes Bob. Good idea.” “Is there a good time we could meet.” “I agree. Go ahead.” “Fine, I like that idea.” 

The shorter, the less room for error. I’m not saying it works every time, and some people really despise super short e-mails, but as long as their e-mail was addressed in full, when super short it is far less likely to contain a mistake.

3. One of the main problems with an e-mail is you are incapable of expressing emotion. This means the reader will give it for you, often reflecting their own mood at the time.

I feel like a total dweeb even suggesting this, but there is only one way I’ve ever found to come even close to expressing emotions in an e-mail.

You guessed it! Emoticons.

OK, sure they’re as lame as can be.

But when you need to say, “Mike, I cannot go with you tomorrow” there is only one way to make sure he reads:

Mike, I cannot go with you tomorrow. But I really wanted to go and still wish I could.

And not:

Mike, I cannot go with you tomorrow. You’re a complete imbecile and I wouldn’t be caught dead within fifteen feet of you.

How:

Mike, I cannot go with you tomorrow.

A phone call or a, gasp, real conversation still reign supreme.

But this is will get you through the week without everyone hating you. 

See you in part 2.

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