My superintendent career began in September 2019. Six months later, school buildings closed for COVID, which led to a 3-month remote learning slog to the summer, The elation of finishing the school year quickly gave way to the gut punch of planning for the school year to follow. It was awful.

That August, in a Zoom meeting with my county colleagues, I made a reference to feeling like the mayor in Jaws. Some of my fellow superintendents, nearly all of whom had considerably more experience, tactfully helped me realize that they thought I was an idiot. I sat quietly for the rest of the meeting.

So who is the villain in Jaws?

It’s not the shark, which is simply doing shark things. Nor is it Quint. Chief Brody gets slapped in the face, but it’s really not him either. Though he’s really trapped in an impossible situation, it’s the mayor. 

If he plays it safe and keeps the beaches closed, the economy of Amity will completely tank and the mayor will be vilified in the court of public opinion.

If, in the face of a known danger, the mayor opens the beaches, he risks a shark attack that will cause him to be vilified in the court of public opinion.

What’s the right decision? None of the above.

What’s the best decision? It depends.

And therein lies a powerful lesson for leaders. Unlike episodes of Barney in which situations have a clearly defined right and wrong response, life is much more complicated and we often have to make decisions based on what we determine to be the least awful option.

When helping my team with difficult decisions, I like to use the analogy that you can’t turn right and left at the same time. Leaders can’t do nothing. Regardless of whether there is reasonable hope of achieving the desired outcome, you have to do something.

In educational leadership, as in most other fields, we work with myriad stakeholder groups and often have to consider that any significant decision is going to displease someone. I generally apply the principle of thirds, which dictates that whatever you do, ⅓ of the audience will likely support it, ⅓ will probably oppose it and then there will be a middle ⅓ that will ultimately determine the popularity rating of the decision.

That principle helps relieve some tension as you have to accept that whatever you do, your decision will make someone unhappy. That’s the constant. The variable comes back to your capacity and judgment, which you have to trust. 

Acceptance is enormously helpful with the worst part of the school superintendent job, at least in the Northeast: making snow day calls. Call it the night before and people appreciate the courtesy, unless the forecast shifts and you’re wrong. Wait until 4:30 in the morning and people appreciate the precision, unless you have to delay or cancel and then you’re an inconsiderate jerk who left people in a lurch trying to find childcare. The least awful approach is to follow your gut based on circumstances, take decisive action and then avoid all social media for the ensuing 24-36 hours.

No matter your leadership role, whether as a teacher, parent, principal, assistant to the regional manager or otherwise, you will be forced to make unfun decisions that will leave you wondering if you even agree with yourself. 

Keep in mind the virtue of a true dilemma, which logicians conceptualize as a situation in which you will be gored by a goat’s horn and have to choose which. You can pick the right one or the left. You cannot, however, choose whether to get gored. It’s going to happen. Both choices are equally lousy, but inaction is still not an option.

Make the decision and stand by it. Just be careful with any “the beaches are open and everyone is having a wonderful time” rhetoric. That hollow optimism tends to age like milk in the sun.