How to Lead When Everyone — Including You — Is Running on Fumes

I want to tell you about a May afternoon about twelve years into my career as a vice principal.

It was the kind of day where everything happened at once. A student altercation in the cafeteria. A parent on the phone who had been on hold too long and had decided it was my fault. A teacher who stopped me in the hallway — not to talk, just to look at me with exhausted eyes and say, "I don't know how much longer I can do this."

I remember standing in my office afterward, door closed, and thinking: I don't know either.

And then I straightened my jacket, opened the door, and went back out.

That's what we do. We go back out. But here's what I wish someone had told me on that afternoon: the goal was never not to be tired. The goal was to stay regulated enough to lead anyway.

There is a difference. And in May, that difference is everything.

What regulation actually means.

Let's be clear about something: regulated does not mean calm. It does not mean unbothered. It does not mean you have it all together.

Regulated means your nervous system is not running the show.

When we are dysregulated — flooded, overwhelmed, running on fumes — we react. We snap at the staff member who asked the wrong question at the wrong time. We make decisions we wouldn't make in October. We miss the student who needs us because we are too busy surviving to see.

When we are regulated — even imperfectly, even tiredly — we respond. We can still read the room. We can still hold space for someone else's hard moment even while we are having our own.

That capacity — to stay regulated enough to respond rather than react — is what the Heartbeat Framework calls Nervous System Literacy. And it is the first domain for a reason. Everything else depends on it.

Why May is the real test.

October leadership is relatively easy. Everyone is fresh. The year is full of possibility. The culture is still being built, which means the hard parts haven't fully surfaced yet.

May leadership is different. By May, you have been holding things for nine months. Your staff has been holding things. Your students have been holding things. The building is one frayed nerve, and you are being asked to be the steadiest person in it.

And you are also tired.

This is not a character flaw. This is biology. Sustained stress without sufficient recovery depletes the nervous system. What you are feeling in May is not weakness — it is the predictable result of nine months of showing up for everyone else.

The problem is not that you are tired. The problem is when we pretend we are not, and we try to lead from a tank that is nearly empty. Because a dysregulated leader in a dysregulated building does not create calm. It creates more dysregulation. The adults set the tone — always — and when the adults are fraying, the building feels it.

What regulated-enough actually looks like.

I am not going to tell you to meditate for twenty minutes before school. I am not going to tell you to take deep breaths in the middle of a parent call. What I am going to tell you is what has actually worked — for me and for the leaders I've coached.

Name it before it names you. Learn to recognize your own early warning signs. For some leaders, it's a tightening in the chest. For others it's a shortness in their responses, a clipping of words. For others, it's a sudden urge to cancel everything and hide in the data room. Whatever yours is — know it. Because the moment you can name "I am approaching my edge," you have a fraction of a second to make a different choice.

Build in one micro-reset per day. Not a wellness program. One thing. A five-minute walk outside. Lunch eaten sitting down without your phone. Two minutes in your car before you walk in the building. Something that tells your nervous system: you are not in danger. You can come down from alert.

Let the adults see you human. I know this feels counterintuitive. But staff do not need a leader who is impervious to May. They need a leader who is honest about it and steady anyway. There is a difference between unloading on your staff and saying to them, "This is a hard stretch. I see how hard you're working. I'm in it with you." That kind of honesty is regulating for everyone in the room.

The school is watching.

Here is the thing about being the leader: your nervous system is contagious. Not metaphorically — neurologically. The people around you are reading your face, your voice, your pace, your energy, dozens of times a day. When you are regulated, they have permission to regulate. When you are fraying, they feel it before you say a word.

This is not pressure. This is power.

Because it means that when you do the quiet, invisible work of tending to your own nervous system in May — when you take the micro-reset, when you name your edge, when you choose response over reaction — you are not just surviving the end of year. You are leading it.

And that is what steady schools are built on.

Pulse Check Reflection:

What does "regulated enough" actually look like for you right now — and what is one thing you could do this week to tend to your own nervous system?

This is Week 2 of The Last Bell — a four-week series for school leaders navigating the end of year with steadiness and intention.