Refinement Is Not Failure: A Strategic Mindset for School Leaders
What happens when your leadership journey doesn’t follow the “traditional” path and yet prepares you for everything you were called to do?
In this episode, I sit down with Principal Jennelle Burden, a visionary school leader whose story reminds us that leadership is rarely linear… but always purposeful.
Jennelle shares how her nontraditional path, from banking to higher ed to K–12 shaped the way she leads today. Instead of waiting for a title, she started leading from where she was, and every step revealed more of her calling to build people and build systems.
Inside this conversation, Jennelle opens up about the weight of leadership, what it means to step into a new school and shift culture with intention, and the moment she realized that resetting a system isn’t failure — it’s refinement.
She breaks down:
- Why resistance is often proof that growth is happening
- How to balance culture, systems, and the urgency to improve
- What it looks like to rebuild a school with strategy and clarity
- The personal weight leaders carry that no one sees
- How coaching helped her “clear the fog” and lead with intention again
One of the most powerful lines from Jennelle:
“Culture is not vibes; culture is what we repeatedly do.”
And this episode shows exactly how she lives that out.
If you’re leading change, navigating resistance, or rebuilding anything this year, this episode will speak directly to you.
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Let’s keep working together to create schools of excellence—one principal at a time.
