We were lucky to catch up with Margaret Huff recently and have shared our conversation below.
Margaret , thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.
I developed a sense of empathy from an early age. I often finding myself concern with other people challenge. I recognize how people present themselves at face value may not be representative of what is going on internally. We all have a story when we walk into spaces. I am consciously aware that people are more than what we see.
This awareness came from my upbringing and seeing how hard my parents worked to support us. We immigrated from Ghana to Texas and would not have made it without the support of our family, friends, and local church community. I believe I have a moral responsibility to show kindness to others as it was demonstrated to me through amazing elementary school teachers and generous community members.
As I advance in my career, I want to also uplift others up especially as a female. We all need each other and have a role to play in improving our community.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a former school principal for the past five years. I recently transitioned out of the school system to the nonprofit sector. I now work with a nonprofit, Commit Partnership, that is focused on increasing living wage attainment for young people in Dallas County. It was still important for me to remain in the education sector and to impact change on a larger scale. My role at Commit is to help create a talent leadership development strategy for the internal staff. I am skilled at developing people and helping them identify their strengthens and refining their weakness. I get to collaborate with like minded individuals in creating a talent leadership strategy to help team members perform at their highest capacity!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Looking back on my professional development, I think that humility, content expertise, and community were the most impactful in my journey. Humility is important because I am self aware and recognize my shortcomings and how to uplift others above myself. One of my strategy as a school leader was to surround myself with team members smarter than me! I knew that my team was only as strong as our weakest link. It was important for me to create a culture of trust where we built upon each other’s strengthens. I knew it was important for me to uplift my team members and allow them to receive the credit.
I remember in a Teaching Trust professional development that I attended that character plus competence equals trust. I think as a leader it is important to be knowledgable and to stay abreast in your field. Not only did the content knowledge allow me to make a meaningful impact in education but to also build trust with my team and school community. I participated in several leadership development programs, read research, connected with mentors, and refined my skills through trial and error.
We are not meant to do this work in isolation. We need each other’s experience, story, passion, and strength to improve the education landscape for our community. In my experience, I had reliable mentors, principals, leaders, and friends that I could depend on and learn from. The community I had around me helped me when things were good and when challenges arose.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
The most impactful thing my parents did for me was to allow me to figure things out myself whether by choice or circumstance! This helped me build resilience and hard work ethics. As a child of immigrant parents, I learned how to navigate the education systems and the cultural expectations. For example, my parents let me participate in cheerleading as an elementary school student; however, they did not know it was a cultural expectation that parents stayed for practices. I know my parents would have stayed for practice if they could have and if their work schedule was not a priority in providing for five children! Through that experience I learned to be confident that I am loved and how to advocate for myself at a young age. I was responsible for securing a ride to practice and applying for a scholarship to pay for cheerleading. Similar experiences such as this shaped how I would approach decision making and challenges.
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
