Cultivating Hope, Authenticity, and Focus with Julia Bialeski

This is Episode 85 of FocusED, featuring Julia Bialeski, author of Leading with Grace. Julia shares lessons from her leadership journey in education, emphasizing reflection, consistency, and personal routines as keys to sustaining growth, balance, and clarity throughout the ever-changing phases of leadership.

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Julia Bialeski a Tons of Experience to FocusED Listeners

For over 20 years, Julia Bialeski has worked in public education, serving as a teacher, instructional specialist, assistant principal, elementary principal, and district leader. Her first book, Leading with Grace: Cultivating Hope, Authenticity, and a Focus on People Throughout the Leadership Lifespan, is a sought-after resource for aspiring, new, and veteran leaders in education. Known for connecting with audiences through her engaging personal stories, she is driven by her personal and professional mantra: Be brave, and care about people. Julia brings a passion for educator well-being into her current work as the Coordinator of Recruitment and Hiring for the Howard County Public School System in Maryland, where she leads the recruitment and retention initiatives for the district, supporting 78 schools and over 57,000 students.
 

FocusED Show Notes with Guest Julia Bialeski

Julia shares that her book Leading with Grace was inspired by her personal and professional transitions within public education, reflecting on the impact of leadership roles on her growth and identity.​

She describes the “leadership lifespan” concept—emphasizing that leadership is temporary and every position involves unique phases and resets, regardless of prior experience.​

Julia talks about how pivotal and formative challenges, like becoming a principal just before the pandemic, reshape leadership perspectives, emphasizing the importance of calm, communication, and empathy during crisis.​

She acknowledges that meaningful reflection often happens after difficult moments, not during them, and encourages leaders to create mechanisms for regular reflection, such as notes apps, calendar logs, or journals.​

Julia highlights the value of having others help identify one’s strengths, and how post-crisis reflection can reveal qualities like strategic thinking and effective listening that may be overlooked in the busy moment.​

Julia stresses the power of consistency over intensity, encouraging leaders to track small daily wins and progress for long-term growth.​

She recommends creating a “time sanctuary” with protected personal routines, sharing how her morning routine keeps her energized and clear-headed for leadership decisions.​

Julia is a strong advocate for habit formation, minimizing decision fatigue through automation of daily routines, and finding what works individually for each person, citing books like Atomic Habits and The Miracle Morning.​

She discusses boundaries as essential for well-being, sharing recent reads and insights about setting personal limits and organizational support structures.​

Julia recommends integrating reading into daily routines to foster continuous professional growth, preferring physical books and sharing tips for making time for reading over distractions like TV or scrolling.​

She underscores the point that “leaders are readers,” encouraging ongoing curiosity and deep dives into “pockets of interest” for lasting impact.​

We hope you enjoy this episode of FocusED with Julia Bialeski and don’t forget to follow us at TheSchoolHouse302.com for podcasts, blog posts, books to read, and more.

This episode of FocusED was brought to you buy Bullseye. If you’re an instructional leader who wants to up your game with better feedback and stronger tracking systems, book your demo for Bullseye today. Tell them we sent you!

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FocusED is your educational leadership podcast where our mission is to dissect a particular focus for teachers and school leaders so that you can learn to lead better and grow faster in your school or district. Let us know who you would like to hear from next.