As I watched the NFL playoffs in January, the announcers periodically referenced the “tush push”. In the Philadelphia game (for the NFC conference championship) the announcers referred to the “brotherly shove”. Both the tush push and the brotherly shove refer to the same short-yardage play, in which the team lines up behind the quarterback and tries to push him into the end zone for a touchdown, or push him forward for a first down. If you’re a football fan, it’s basically a quarterback sneak with a lot of help from behind.
I don’t know why, but I continue to think that our work in leading community colleges is all about something similar. Don’t we all need the help of others? Don’t we all benefit from the support of our colleagues? Don’t we all need a push from behind?
I believe in collaborative leadership and in distributed leadership. Everything we accomplish as instructional leaders is accomplished collectively. We help each other by pushing toward our collective goals as a team. Someone may be carrying the ball, but it’s the collective strength that helps us achieve our goals.
So – without offending anyone who’s reading this – here’s to the tush push. Here’s to the power of the team when they agree on the goal and put their collective strength into accomplishing it together. It’s only then that we can do right by our students, and help ACC be a stronger, more responsive, more student-centric institution that serves our mission with excellence.