Leadership Begins with Belief

Leadership Question

Where does leadership begin?

"Leadership begins the moment someone chooses to believe in another person before that person fully believes in themselves."

— Dr. Dwan Anthony Jordon

There is a tendency to believe that leadership begins with authority.

We celebrate titles, organizational charts, strategic plans, budgets, and bold visions. We assume that leadership starts the day someone becomes a principal, a superintendent, a chief executive officer, or an elected official.

My experience has taught me something very different.

Leadership begins long before anyone receives authority.

Long before leaders build systems, shape policy, cast vision, or manage organizations, they make a quieter decision—one that few people ever notice.

They decide what they believe about people.

Do they believe people are problems to be managed or potential to be developed?

Do they believe mistakes define people or refine them?

Do they believe accountability and compassion are opposing forces, or can they exist together?

Do they believe leadership is ultimately about power, or is it about stewardship?

Looking back over nearly three decades of leadership, I have come to believe that every meaningful act of leadership grows out of the answers to those questions.

Leadership begins with belief.

Not belief in ourselves.

Belief in others.

That conviction did not come from a textbook or a doctoral program. It came from extraordinary leaders who believed in me long before I fully believed in myself.

One of the earliest and most influential was my principal at Hyattsville Middle School, Gail Golden.

As a new assistant principal, I was eager to prove myself. I wanted to solve problems, demonstrate initiative, and show everyone that I belonged in leadership. One morning I decided to drive to a neighborhood bus stop where students had been involved in repeated fights. I thought I was doing exactly what a committed leader should do—meeting students where the problem existed.

When I returned to school, Gail immediately called me into her office.

She did not congratulate me.

She challenged me.

She explained that something could have happened to me away from campus. I would have been outside established procedures, and the school system would have been unable to support me. She wasn't criticizing my commitment to students. She was teaching me something much deeper.

Leadership requires both courage and discipline.

At the time, I walked out of her office feeling embarrassed. I thought I had disappointed her.

The next morning, she greeted me with the same smile she always had.

Nothing had changed.

She had corrected my decision without diminishing her belief in me.

That distinction changed my understanding of leadership forever.

Great leaders understand something many people never learn.

They correct behavior without withdrawing belief.

Over the years, I have tried to lead others the same way.

People should absolutely be held accountable.

Expectations should remain high.

Performance matters.

But accountability should never communicate that a person's potential has disappeared.

The greatest leaders I've known separate performance from worth. They coach mistakes without questioning possibility.

That lesson stayed with me as I became a principal.

When I arrived at John Philip Sousa Middle School, many people had already decided what our students were capable of achieving.

The school had become synonymous with low performance. Expectations had quietly fallen, both inside and outside the building. Too many people had stopped believing extraordinary outcomes were possible.

Our students noticed.

Children always know when adults have lowered expectations.

We chose a different path.

We refused to define students by historical performance, neighborhood stereotypes, or standardized test scores. Instead, we built an organization grounded in one conviction: our students were capable of excellence.

Belief became culture.

Culture became systems.

Systems produced different results.

Within two years, the school was recognized nationally for its transformation. Academic achievement increased dramatically. Student confidence grew. Families began believing in the school again.

People often ask what strategy changed the school.

They expect me to talk about curriculum, schedules, assessments, or instructional models.

Those things mattered.

But they were not the beginning.

The beginning was belief.

Before systems changed, adults changed.

Before adults changed, expectations changed.

Before expectations changed, someone had to decide that our students deserved more than the narratives surrounding them.

That experience reinforced something I have come to believe throughout my career.

Organizations rarely rise above what their leaders believe about people.

Years later, while serving as a principal in the District of Columbia Public Schools, I experienced another defining example of leadership through Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Coming off consecutive years of significant academic gains, I walked into a meeting feeling confident. When she asked about my goals for the following year, I proudly replied that we were going to produce the same dramatic gains again.

She stopped me.

Not to lower expectations.

To reshape them.

She explained that extraordinary gains of that magnitude are difficult to repeat year after year. Her expectation was not reckless ambition. It was sustained excellence.

She wanted me to build an organization capable of maintaining success—not chasing headlines.

That conversation permanently changed how I think about improvement.

Real leadership is not measured by isolated breakthroughs.

It is measured by whether excellence becomes sustainable.

Equally important was how she led publicly.

During the transformation of Sousa, criticism often accompanied change. Significant organizational improvement inevitably disrupted long-standing routines and expectations. Yet I never felt abandoned.

She understood that executive leadership required more than supervising principals.

It required protecting the work.

She consistently communicated the progress our students and staff were making, ensuring that conversations about the school reflected both its challenges and its remarkable transformation.

That support mattered.

Great executive leaders understand that they are not only responsible for organizational performance.

They are responsible for creating the conditions in which courageous leadership can flourish.

More recently, another conversation deepened my thinking.

During a discussion with Jordan Harris, he challenged me to think differently about leadership.

He encouraged me to study policy—not simply as legislation or regulation, but as the process that begins with an idea and ultimately shapes the daily experiences of children.

His observation stayed with me.

I realized that every classroom, every school, every organization, and every opportunity students experience is influenced by decisions that were made long before children ever walked through the front door.

That conversation planted a question that would reshape my understanding of leadership.

I would spend the following years pursuing its answer.

Looking back now, I realize that Gail Golden, Michelle Rhee, and Jordan Harris were not teaching me three different lessons.

They were teaching me one.

Leadership begins by believing in people.

It matures by building organizations that reflect that belief.

It endures by creating systems and policies that allow future generations to experience the same opportunities.

Everything else is simply the work that follows.

This article is adapted from my developing leadership philosophy, where I explore how belief, stewardship, systems, and policy work together to build institutions that expand opportunity.