The Aspiring School Leader Podcast

Episode 34: THE 5 INTERVIEW MOVES THAT HELP YOU LAND YOUR FIRST SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ROLE

THE 5 INTERVIEW MOVES THAT HELP YOU LAND YOUR FIRST SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ROLE You can prepare your answers. You can practice your delivery. You can walk into the interview feeling confident. But if you’re not positioning yourself as a leader… you won’t get hired. Because every hiring panel is asking one core question: Can you step into leadership—and solve problems at a systems level? In this episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II breaks down 5 powerful interview readiness moves to help aspiring school leaders stand out, communicate their leadership identity, and confidently land their first leadership role. If you’re preparing for your first school leadership interview, this video will help you shift your mindset, strengthen your responses, and show up as the leader they’re looking for. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Intro – Why Most Candidates Don’t Get Hired 01:45 #1: Study the School & District Like a Leader 04:32 #2: Tighten Your Leadership Story 07:22 #3: Translate Experience into Leadership Impact 10:56 #4: Prepare for Scenario-Based Questions 14:57 #5: Ask Questions Like a Leader ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ➤ How to prepare for your first school leadership interview ➤ What hiring panels are really evaluating (beyond your answers) ➤ How to position yourself as a systems-level thinker ➤ How to turn classroom experience into leadership impact ➤ How to answer scenario-based interview questions with confidence ➤ What questions to ask that make you stand out as a leader ➤ The mindset shift required to land your first leadership role Strong candidates don’t just answer questions. They demonstrate leadership, judgment, and impact. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II Assistant Principal | Best-Selling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Smalls helps aspiring school leaders get interview-ready & confidently land their first leadership role. 📕 Grab Beyond the Classroom → https://shorturl.at/74Bgy [https://shorturl.at/74Bgy] 1:1 leadership coaching available for aspiring school leaders: https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching [https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect 📺 YouTube https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m [https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m] 🎧 Apple Podcasts https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k [https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k] 🎧 Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr [https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subscribe for weekly content on school leadership interviews, assistant principal interview tips, and career growth for aspiring school leaders. #SchoolLeadershipInterview #AssistantPrincipalInterview #AspiringSchoolLeaders #InterviewPreparation #EducationalLeadership

Episode 33: 3 Mindset Shifts Aspiring School Leaders Need Before Their Next Interview

Most aspiring school leaders don’t struggle in interviews because they lack degrees or experience. They struggle because they are preparing for the WRONG interview. They spend hours memorizing and scripting the "perfect" textbook answers. And that exact approach is why so many great candidates sound robotic and miss out on the job offer. In this episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II breaks down the 3 critical mindset shifts you must make before your next interview to stand out, sound authentic, and claim your seat as a leader. If you are preparing for your first assistant principal, supervisor, or administrative role, this breakdown will completely change the way you prepare. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 0:00 Intro – The Biggest Mistake Aspiring School Leaders Make 5:43 Shift #1: From Memorizing Answers to Collecting Evidence 10:03 Shift #2: From Preparing Answers to Preparing Stories 13:00 Shift #3: From Impressing the Committee to Building Trust ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ➤ Why memorizing interview answers makes you sound like a robot ➤ How to shift from perfect scripting to collecting real leadership evidence ➤ The power of quantitative vs. qualitative data in your responses ➤ How to build a "Story Bank" that fits multiple interview scenarios ➤ Why building deep trust with the committee beats a performative interview ➤ How to show vulnerability, reflection, and authentic leadership ➤ The number one thing a principal needs to see before giving you the keys to the building Strong candidates don’t just memorize answers. They demonstrate leadership readiness through trust and evidence. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II: Assistant Principal | Best-Selling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Smalls helps aspiring school leaders get interview-ready & confidently land their first leadership role. 📕 Grab Beyond the Classroom → https://shorturl.at/74Bgy [https://shorturl.at/74Bgy] 1:1 leadership coaching available for aspiring school leaders who want to strengthen their interview skills and confidently transition into administrative roles: https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching [https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect 📺 YouTube https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m [https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m] 🎧 Apple Podcasts https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k [https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k] 🎧 Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr [https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subscribe for weekly content on school leadership interviews, leadership development, and career growth strategies.

Episode 32: Great Interview, But No Job Offer? Listen to This!

GREAT INTERVIEW BUT NO JOB OFFER? WHAT YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND You walked out of your interview feeling confident. You did your homework, rehearsed your responses, and spoke with care. Yet, the position slipped away. Now, you're left with a nagging question… what happened? The reality is, it isn't always about a misstep on your part. In this episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II offers insight into a frustrating reality: even when an interview goes well, a job offer isn't guaranteed. He also outlines steps you can take to boost your prospects. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TIMESTAMPS: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Intro – You Did Everything Right… So What Went Wrong? 03:03 Reason #1: It Wasn’t Your Interview… It Was Timing 05:34 Reason #2: Fit Matters More Than You Think 08:37 Reason #3: Don’t Let One Interview Define You ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ➤ Why great interviews don’t always result in job offers ➤ The role of timing and factors outside your control ➤ Why “fit” matters more than qualifications ➤ How hiring decisions really work behind the scenes ➤ The biggest mistake candidates make after rejection ➤ How to refine your interview skills without losing confidence ➤ What you should focus on to land your next leadership role You didn’t fail. You’re just not at the right opportunity yet. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II Assistant Principal | Best-Selling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Smalls helps aspiring school leaders get interview-ready & confidently land their first leadership role. 📕 Grab Beyond the Classroom → https://shorturl.at/74Bgy [https://shorturl.at/74Bgy] 1:1 leadership coaching available for aspiring school leaders who want to strengthen their interview skills and confidently transition into administrative roles: https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching [https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect 📺 YouTube https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m [https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m] 🎧 Apple Podcasts https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k [https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k] 🎧 Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr [https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subscribe for weekly content on school leadership interviews, leadership development, and career growth strategies. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #InterviewTips #JobInterview #LeadershipInterview #CareerGrowth #InterviewPreparation #GetHired #LeadershipSkills

Episode 31: Stop Rambling in Interviews! Use This 4-Step Framework to Get Hired

STOP RAMBLING IN INTERVIEWS: USE THIS 4-PART FRAMEWORK TO ANSWER QUESTIONS Most aspiring school leaders don’t struggle in interviews because they don’t know what to say. They struggle because they don’t know how to structure their answers. And that difference is exactly what separates candidates who get hired from those who get passed over. This episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II breaks down a simple but powerful 4-part structured leadership response framework that helps you answer any interview question with clarity, confidence, and strategic thinking. If you are preparing for your first leadership role or looking to improve how you communicate in interviews, this episode will help you structure your responses like a strong, capable leader. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU WILL LEARN: ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ➤ Why most candidates fail interviews (even with strong experience) ➤ The 4-part interview framework: Context, Evidence, Execution, Close ➤ How to structure your answers to sound clear and confident ➤ The difference between rambling and structured leadership thinking ➤ How to show your thinking (not just your answers) ➤ Why structured responses make you stand out in interviews Strong candidates don’t just answer questions. They structure their thinking. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II Assistant Principal | Best-Selling Author | Interview Coach Dr. Smalls helps aspiring school leaders get interview-ready & confidently land their first leadership role. 📕 Grab Beyond the Classroom → https://shorturl.at/74Bgy [https://shorturl.at/74Bgy] 1:1 leadership coaching available for aspiring school leaders who want to strengthen their interview skills and confidently transition into administrative roles: https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching [https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect 📺 YouTube https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m [https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m] 🎧 Apple Podcasts https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k [https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k] 🎧 Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr [https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subscribe for weekly content on school leadership interviews, leadership development, and career growth strategies. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #InterviewTips #LeadershipInterview #SchoolLeadership #CareerGrowth #InterviewPreparation #LeadershipSkills

Episode 30: Assistant Principal vs Principal: Who Really Leads the School?

ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL VS PRINCIPAL: WHO REALLY LEADS THE SCHOOL? Many aspiring school leaders assume the difference between an assistant principal and a principal is simply more responsibility. It is not. The real difference between assistant principal vs principal leadership is a shift in thinking, decision-making, and system design. In this episode, Dr. Donovan Smalls II breaks down the difference between assistant principal and principal roles after serving as acting principal — and explains why this leadership shift must begin before you ever earn the title. If you are preparing for your first assistant principal interview or planning your long-term path toward principal leadership, this video will help you clearly understand the responsibilities of each role and articulate them with confidence. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT YOU WILL LEARN ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ➤ The true difference between assistant principal vs principal leadership ➤ Why assistant principal responsibilities focus on operational leadership ➤ How principals move from operational leadership to executive leadership ➤ The shift from solving problems to designing systems ➤ Why principal leadership requires vision, alignment, and system thinking ➤ How understanding this difference strengthens your school leadership interview Assistant principals primarily ensure the building runs smoothly. Principals design the systems that allow the building to run smoothly. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ About Dr. Donovan Smalls II Assistant Principal | Best-Selling Author | School Leadership Coach Dr. Smalls helps aspiring and early-career school leaders close readiness gaps, strengthen instructional leadership, and build sustainable systems that improve teacher effectiveness. 📕 Grab Beyond the Classroom → https://shorturl.at/74Bgy [https://shorturl.at/74Bgy] 1:1 leadership coaching available for aspiring school leaders who want to strengthen leadership skills and confidently transition into administrative roles: https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching [https://donovansmalls2.com/coaching] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Listen & Connect 📺 YouTube https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m [https://urlgeni.us/youtube/channel/L0Y2m] 🎧 Apple Podcasts https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k [https://tinyurl.com/mv7f683k] 🎧 Spotify https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr [https://tinyurl.com/4wydt4nr] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Subscribe for weekly content on school leadership development, principal preparation, assistant principal interview strategies, and educational leadership growth. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #AssistantPrincipal #PrincipalLeadership #SchoolLeadership #EducationalLeadership #AspiringPrincipal #LeadershipMindset #AssistantPrincipalVsPrincipal