What You Look For, You Will Find

I wear glasses every day.
Regular glasses. Sunglasses in the sun. And yes—sometimes both.

More than once, I’ve panicked because I couldn’t find my glasses… only to realize they were sitting on top of my bald head the whole time.

That’s annoying.
But not nearly as annoying as smudges.

Fingerprints. Dust. Whatever ends up on the lenses.

Because when my lenses are dirty, I can still see—but not clearly.
Details blur. Depth is off. Things blend together that shouldn’t.

And I’ve realized something: that’s exactly how leadership focus works.

Dirty lenses don’t stop vision—they distort it

Most leadership issues aren’t about blindness.
They’re about distorted clarity.

When your “lenses” are cluttered—by fatigue, assumptions, noise, or outdated scorecards—you don’t stop leading. You just start misreading what’s in front of you.

Problems feel bigger than they are.
Successes get overlooked.
Urgent things crowd out important ones.
And not-so-necessary things start getting treated like priorities.

You’re seeing—but not accurately.

My leadership focus had to shift this year

Over the last year, my role expanded from focusing on one group of students to leading two very different environments.

Same mission.
Different people.
Different needs.
Different metrics.

Middle school and high school students don’t respond to the same leadership inputs. What creates health in one space doesn’t automatically work in the other.

To be effective, I had to pay attention to different variables:

• different indicators of success

• different pressure points

• different rhythms and best practices

The work didn’t change as much as what I was looking for.

You can’t lead what you don’t notice

Leadership drift happens when responsibility expands but attention doesn’t.

We keep using the same lenses, the same measures, the same instincts—and wonder why things feel off.

It’s not incompetence.
It’s misaligned focus.

What you look for, you will find.
And what you stop looking for quietly disappears from your leadership.

A leadership question worth asking

Here’s the question I’ve been sitting with:

What’s on my lenses right now?

What’s distorting how I’m seeing:

• people

• problems

• progress

• priorities

And maybe the more important question:

Am I paying attention to the right things for the season I’m leading in?

Leadership clarity is a discipline

Strong leaders don’t just move fast.
They clean their lenses regularly.

They revisit metrics.
They challenge assumptions.
They adjust focus as environments change.

Because leadership isn’t just about direction—it’s about discernment.

What you look for, you will find.

So make sure you’re seeing clearly.