The Word We Refuse to Say in Education | Dr. Antoinette Gutierrez

We ask teachers to build safe, healing classrooms. We almost never ask whether their leaders are healed enough to do the same. Educational leader, consultant, and author Dr. Antoinette Gutierrez joins Dr. Michael Conner on Voices for Excellence to unpack what it means to be a healing leader, why love and high expectations are the same thing, and how to raise a generation that guides AI instead of following it. A conversation about emotionally intelligent leadership, psychological safety, and building safe, resilient teams from the inside out. What You'll Learn: Why the internal work of leadership comes before any strategy How to balance accountability and compassion without lowering the bar Why clarity is the kindest thing a leader can offer What changed for children around 2015, and what it means for schools How to ground Generation Alpha and Beta in the real world before the virtual one Chapters 0:00 - Welcome and a five-year friendship 3:00 - The signature question: what song describes your leadership signature? 5:00 - Defining the healing leader 9:00 - Vulnerability and the internal work 14:00 - Accountability, compassion, and love as high expectations 18:00 - Generation Alpha, Generation Beta, and emotional safety 19:00 - The Anxious Generation and the 2015 shift 21:00 - The biggest risks in education, AI, fear, and the speed of industry 24:00 - How we grew up versus how kids grow up now 26:00 - The three-word challenge: love, courage, persistence 29:00 - Where to find Dr. Gutierrez and her book Join the conversation Dr. Gutierrez asks: are we truly defining what love looks like for the people we serve? Tell us in the comments. Subscribe to Voices for Excellence for more conversations with the leaders redesigning education for the 22nd century. Learn more at agileevolutionarygroup.com And on that note, onward and upward.