When the numbers change and everyone looks at you
The numbers change.
It might be a dip in attendance, a shift in assessment results, or a subgroup that suddenly looks worse than last year. Sometimes the change is small. Sometimes it’s just large enough to draw attention in a meeting.
What matters most is not the size of the change. It’s what happens next.
People look up. Someone asks what went wrong. Someone else suggests a fix. The pressure to respond builds quickly. Silence starts to feel irresponsible.
So we react.
We call a meeting. We send an email. We ask for explanations. We adjust a plan, launch a new initiative, or tighten expectations. None of this is done out of malice. It’s done out of care.
And very often, it makes things worse.
Why Reaction Feels Like Leadership
Schools are high-stakes environments. Students, families, and outcomes matter.
When numbers change, doing nothing can feel like neglect. Leaders are expected to notice, respond, and act decisively. In many systems, visible action is treated as evidence of competence.
So reaction becomes the default.
A leader who pauses risks being seen as disengaged.
A leader who asks questions risks appearing uncertain.
A leader who waits risks being accused of ignoring the data.
Under these conditions, reacting quickly feels like the safest move.
But speed is not the same as wisdom.
Movement is Not the Same as Meaning
Most school data fluctuates naturally over time.
Attendance rises and falls. Assessment results bounce up and down. Behavior incidents spike and dip. This is not necessarily a sign that something is broken, but rather it is how systems typically behave.
The mistake leaders make is assuming that movement automatically means something changed.
A small decline triggers concern.
A short-term increase triggers celebration.
One data point becomes a story.
In reality, much of what we see in school data is routine variation, the natural up-and-down fluctuations of a stable system.
When leaders react to this kind of variation, they are not responding to improvement or decline. They are reacting to noise.
And reacting to noise creates instability.
What Happens After Leaders React
When leaders respond quickly to routine variation, several predictable things happen.
First, educators feel whiplash. Priorities shift. Guidance changes. Yesterday’s focus is replaced by today’s concern.
Second, people start explaining instead of learning. When results are questioned immediately, the safest response is to justify what already happened, not to explore what might be improved.
Third, trust erodes. Over time, educators learn that any fluctuation may bring scrutiny. They become cautious, defensive, or quiet.
None of this improves outcomes.
In fact, reacting to routine variation often increases variation. The system becomes noisier, not more capable.
The Hidden Cost of “Doing Something”
Reaction is seductive because it feels productive. Meetings are scheduled. Plans are revised. Emails are written.
But activity is not the same as improvement.
When leaders react without understanding whether a change is meaningful, they often introduce new work, new rules, or new expectations into a system that has not changed at all.
This is tampering, that is, making adjustments to a stable system based on routine variation. It degrades performance, increases waste, and frustrates people doing the work.
In schools, tampering shows up as initiative overload, contradictory messages, and constant course correction.
The irony is that leaders who care deeply about improvement often create the very instability that makes improvement impossible.
A Different Question to Ask
When the data shifts, the most important leadership move is not action, it is interpretation.
Instead of asking, “What should we do?” a more useful question is: “Is this shift within the range of what we should expect?”
This question slows the moment down. It shifts attention from reaction to understanding. It invites leaders to look at data over time rather than point-to-point. It opens the possibility that nothing is wrong even if the results are not yet acceptable.
This distinction matters.
It is also possible that a system can be stable and still produce outcomes we don’t like. In those cases, reacting to individual data points won’t help. What’s required is thoughtful system redesign, not urgency-driven fixes.
Why Pausing is Not Avoidance
Pausing before reacting is often misunderstood.
It is not ignoring data.
It is not lowering expectations.
It is not indecision.
It is discipline.
Pausing creates space to study patterns rather than focusing on individual points. It allows leaders to separate stability from acceptability. It prevents unnecessary pressure from cascading through the system.
Most importantly, pausing protects people.
It protects teachers from being judged on noise they cannot control. It protects leaders from making promises the system cannot keep. It protects students from constant changes that disrupt learning.
What Strong Leaders Do Instead
Leaders who respond well when the numbers change behave differently.
They ask:
“What does this look like over time?”
“Is this a meaningful signal from what we’ve seen before?”
“What should we expect if nothing changes?”
They resist the urge to explain every up-and-down movement. They focus less on assigning meaning and more on understanding system behavior.
When action is warranted, they act deliberately. When it is not, they communicate why waiting is the responsible choice.
This kind of leadership feels calm. It feels steady. And over time, it creates systems that are far more capable of improvement.
Putting It All Together
The most damaging decisions in schools are often made after the numbers change, not because of the numbers themselves.
Reaction feels responsible. But reacting without understanding creates noise, stress, and instability without improving results.
Three ideas can help leaders respond differently:
Big Idea 1: Not all variation is meaningful. Most fluctuation is routine and should not trigger action.
Big Idea 2: Overreaction creates instability. Acting on noise makes systems worse, not better.
Big Idea 3: Pausing is a leadership skill. Understanding must come before action.
When leaders learn to pause before reacting, they protect learning, trust, and improvement.
And that is the work that matters most when everyone is looking at you.
Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
Transformation requires a whole new way of thinking. Understanding variation in your most important data is a good place to start. In this 20-minute introductory course I will teach you a method that will allow you to react less and improve more, a win-win for educational leaders with limited time and resources.
Learn how to use improvement science rooted in the Deming philosophy to design simple experiments that lead to solutions that actually work in your schools, all without wasting time and money and burning out frontline educators. For education leaders who’ve heard of improvement science but aren’t sure where to begin, I can support you on this journey.
Win-Win is the improvement science text for education leaders. The aim of the book is to equip you with the knowledge and skills needed to use the System of Profound Knowledge, a powerful management philosophy, to lead and improve school systems.
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John A. Dues is the Chief Learning Officer for United Schools, a nonprofit charter management organization that supports four public charter school campuses in Columbus, Ohio. He is also the author of the award-winning book Win-Win: W. Edwards Deming, the System of Profound Knowledge, and the Science of Improving Schools. Send feedback to jdues@unitedschools.org.