School for School Counselors Podcast

The Hidden Skill That Makes School Counselors Untouchable

• School for School Counselors • Episode 173

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Some counselors never have to fight for their role- or explain their worth. 

That’s not luck. It’s skill.

In this episode, you’ll learn how the most respected school counselors earn trust, keep influence, and make their programs untouchable, no “advocacy” required.

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Want support with real-world strategies that actually work on your campus? We’re doing that every day in the School for School Counselors Mastermind. Come join us! 

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SPEAKER_00:

You sit down across from someone on a first date. The waiter hasn't even come by to pour the water. And this person starts listing everything they won't do. I don't date long distance. I don't date anyone with kids. And I never share my French fries. And on and on and on. And you smile politely, but you already know there's not going to be a second date because nobody wants to build a relationship with somebody who walks in like they're ready for battle. And you're probably honestly sitting there wondering, how fast can I text an SOS to somebody to come get me out of this situation, right? But imagine that same energy showing up on a school campus. A school counselor shows up announcing all the things that they won't do. I don't do testing, I won't do lunch duty, bus supervision is not for me. And they're right about those boundaries. But here's the problem: they haven't yet built enough trust for anybody to care. That is the trap that so many school counselors are led into. Because in grad school and in our internships, we're taught to protect ourselves with boundaries. But the truth is the loudest no on campus often comes from the person that nobody's listening to anyway. So today I want to talk about the power move your administrator wishes that you would make. It's a power move that protects your time, builds your credibility, and keeps your plate clear without turning every dang conversation into a tug of war. Keep listening and see if I'm right. Hey school counselor, welcome back. In this episode, we're talking about something that quietly destroys more school counseling programs than budget cuts, staffing shortages, or scheduling combined. It's the erosion of trust between counselors and administrators. Our programs live in relationships, and when that relationship goes out of place, we start losing influence in every single conversation. So today we're gonna talk about what really protects. And spoiler alert, it's not another boundaries checklist. So if you're ready for some straight talk, my friend, some clarity on your work, and maybe a little bit of rebellion, you're gonna be in the right place. I'm Steph Johnson, and this is the School for School Counselors podcast. Alright, so before we really get into this, let's just define the fear on the surface because I think this is real for every school counselor I've ever met. You're worried that if you don't set boundaries, you're gonna wind up doing work that doesn't belong to you, right? That once something lands on your plate, it is going to live there forever. And the moment that you try to hand it back, somebody's gonna say, but you've always done it, or you're so good at it. And I'll be honest, that fear is very valid. Most of us start building boundary walls because we've been burned before. We get tired of being the yes person who ends up completely exhausted because there are just so many things laid at our feet. And to be fair, this strong declarative advocacy style that you learned in grad school and that you hear coming from Ask didn't come from nothing. It came from real counselor burnout. It came from school counselors who were tired of being invisible, tired of feeling like they were being used, or tired of being told to be a team player while they were absolutely drowning. But the thing they never tell you is this approach only works short term if it works at all. It might get testing off your desk today, maybe, but long term is going to completely sabotage your influence. And research backs that up. When school counselors lead with role defense, things like that's not my job, or that's not an appropriate school counseling duty, administrators start perceiving them as rigid rather than resourceful. Luveric and colleagues found that counselor autonomy doesn't come from quoting standards, it comes from principal trust in our competence. And Amateya and Clark discovered that administrators support school counselors they see as problem solvers, not role enforcers. So when every interaction starts feeling like it's a negotiation, administrators eventually stop negotiating because it's human nature, right? When a conversation with a certain person always feels tense, you naturally start avoiding it. You've probably seen this play out in real life. Maybe you've even been part of it. A school counselor draws some hard lines, no testing, no covering classes, no extra duties. And at first it feels really liberating and empowering. But six months later, they realize their administrator really isn't looping them into situations anymore. They're technically working within their role, but they're no longer in the rooms where decisions are being made. Boden Orn's research found the same thing. School counselors who interpret their role narrowly are invited into fewer leadership decisions. Their boundaries worked, but in the process, they also walled themselves off. And Mason and McMahon later showed that the school counselors who did earn autonomy weren't the ones that refused tasks first. They were the ones who collaborated first and then renegotiated later. So the timing here is critically important. You gotta pick the right fight at the right time. And this fear of having things placed on your plate and never coming off is actually hurting you. The school counselors who thrive, the ones whose programs grow, whose principles defend their time, whose boundaries hold without having to constantly renegotiate them. And frankly, the counselors who love going to work every day figured something out. They earn credibility before they draw the lines. And that is the power move. It's not about saying, hey, just give me whatever you got. I'll do whatever you say and I'll renegotiate it later. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about sequencing, earning trust first, and then using that trust to secure the role that you actually want to have long term. And there's a really simple way to do that through rapport, reliability, and relevance. First up is rapport. You have to learn what matters to your administrator. What are their goals on the campus? What keeps them up at night? And even if their goals don't necessarily match yours, understanding them can give you a lot of power. Because when you connect your school counseling work to their priorities, you stop sounding like the opposition and you start sounding like you're in alignment. The ultimate team player, right? Then, second is reliability. Do what you say you're going to do every time. Small follow-throughs build enormous trust. And when your administrator feels and knows that they can depend on you, you don't have to argue for your time. They'll start protecting it for you because they believe that you're going to do what you say. They don't have to micromanage, they don't have to watch your schedule like a hawk, because they know you're doing what you say you're doing. And third is relevance. Frame your work in their language. Instead of saying, Ask says I shouldn't coordinate testing. Say, you know, if I could hand off this testing, I could run some more small groups that would probably cut discipline referrals by about 20%. So that means you're going to have fewer disruptions, fewer kids in your office, and we're going to have a lot more instructional time with students. It's the same boundary, but a completely different reception. Here's why that approach of rapport, reliability, and relevance works. People don't follow logic. They don't. They follow trust. They don't remember your charts or your acronyms. Your principal probably doesn't even know what ASCA is. They remember whether or not you made their job easier. They know whether they trust you. This is just the organizational psychology that's present in every single workplace. Research says trust precedes autonomy. Dirk's and Ferenc Meta-analysis on leadership trust showed that credibility and consistency predict freedom and influence more than formal authority ever does. And in schools, Brick and Schneider found something even more interesting: that campuses high in relational trust didn't just function better, they saw measurable gains in student learning. Y'all, that's how powerful trust is as an engine of your campus. And then Edmondson's work on psychological safety adds even another layer to this. Because when people feel respected, they take risks and they collaborate. And when they don't, they protect themselves and progress stalls. Does that sound familiar? You've probably seen it a day or two. That's what's happening on so many of our school campuses right now. Counselors are protecting themselves so hard, there's no room left to collaborate. So instead of burning energy defending your title and your responsibilities, spend that energy building credibility. That's the trade-off and that's the secret. Be willing to give up some short-term wins for some long-term authority. So let's make this real. How can you start this week with a power move plan? Step one, spot one priority that's really bothering your administrator. Step two, do something small that helps address that issue. And then step three, tell them in their language how it worked. That's it. You just bought yourself massive credibility points for the next boundary that you might need to set. That's how leaders operate in every field. Bass called it transformational leadership, earning influence through trust, not transactions. And in our world, that looks like an administrator who says, I trust your judgment, do what you need to do. So let me be clear, there is a fine line between being collaborative and getting used. But the school counselors who navigate that line best understand that their timing and their tone are everything. If you start to fight before you've built trust, you're labeled difficult. But if you build trust first, that same no is seen as a judgment call. Look at it this way: you can spend your whole career guarding your plate, or you can build a relationship where no one dares pile things on it in the first place. So let's do a quick check. Answer these questions as honestly as you can. Don't overthink it. Don't rationalize it. Just go with your first thought. Number one, when your administrator emails you and the email starts with, I need your help with, do you immediately tense up and roll your eyes? If you just thought, yes, I do, you might be running low on boundaries. Number two, when you share a new idea for your campus, does it immediately gain traction or does it die quietly in the principal's inbox? If it dies, that's not necessarily because it's a bad idea. It may be because there's a relationship gap. And three, when something new is assigned to you, when you get a new responsibility on your campus, does it feel dumped on you or does it feel trusted to you? If it feels dumped, you probably need some more credibility capital with your leadership. Now, if you said yes to all three of those, that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you necessarily. It just means that you're a human being, right? You're doing your best to do your best work in a broken system. But it also means that your school probably has a trust deficit. And that's not anything that you're going to be able to fix single-handedly overnight. But you can start small with clearer communication, consistent follow-through, and one genuine conversation at a time, which is really going to start to make your work easier. That's the real power move. Being willing to engage in these things and to look at the long game in the process. Because if you can stick with it and nurture a trust that grows, your boundaries are going to start to be applied automatically. So thinking long game, the approach that you were taught, the list of school counseling appropriate and inappropriate responsibilities, all of the positioning papers, all of the hard and fast rules for school counseling, that approach, that constant defense, is what's keeping you in survival mode. You might win a few battles here and there, but the war never ends. The second approach, that power move that I described, creates stability, where your admin trusts you, your teachers rely on you, and you're part of the core team, not just an optional accessory they call in when it's convenient for them. And yes, a lot of campuses are extremely unhealthy where no amount of trust building is going to fix an administrator who just refuses to collaborate. I get it. I've worked on a few in my career. But even then, this approach is going to buy you some breathing room, some respect, and at the very least, a bit of professional dignity. So that's not giving in. That's still taking control. My friend, that is power without permission. You deserve to be seen as the professional that you are. And the good news is you don't have to have a louder voice to make that happen. You just need the right kind of trust. So the next time you have a problem and you're asking for opinions about it, and somebody says, Well, you're just going to have to advocate for yourself. I want you to pause for a second. And I want you to ask yourself, is this a fight I really need to fight right now? Or do I have the time to earn the trust that wins this forever? Because the school counselors who are thriving are not the ones that fight the hardest. They're the ones who have built so much credibility that no one even wants to fight them. That's a power move. And if you're ready to practice what that looks like, if you want real examples and feedback and a community that gets it, that's what we do each and every week inside of my School for School Counselors Mastermind. We talk about navigating boundaries on particular campuses, how to build those relationships, and how to design school counseling programs that bring you joy and that last. You can find out more at Schoolforschool Counselors.comslash mastermind. So imagine you're back in that first date scenario. You sit down across from someone for the first time. They ask about your work. You are able to share what you're passionate about, what you do best, and what you love most. And you tell a story that lights you up, and you notice they're leaning in because they can see it. They can feel that you're someone they can trust and someone that knows what they're talking about. That's how good working relationships start too. It's not with the list of notes, it's with the evidence that you know what you're about. And once they see that, once they see you follow through, communicate clearly, and care about their goals, those boundaries that you were worried about start setting themselves. You won't need to remind anybody that you're a school counselor and not a clerk. You won't have to keep waving the ASCA flag to prove to everybody that you're legitimate. They'll see it in how you operate each and every day. I've watched this happen time and time again. School counselors will stop fighting for validation and start leading with this style of calm confidence. And once that trust clicks into place, their whole dynamic changes. Your administrator will start defending your time before you even have to. And they'll start looping you in because they can't imagine not having your voice in that room. It's like the moment when that first date becomes a real relationship, when both people start showing up for each other instead of protecting themselves. That's what professional trust feels like. And it is so much stronger than any policy or job description that anybody ever wrote. Because boundaries are important, but trust is what makes them work. So if you feel like you've been walking onto your campus every day, ready for battle, maybe it's time to try something different. Start by asking one question, helping solve one problem, showing up for one priority that matters to your admin. That's how you begin rebuilding the bridge. That's how you take back your influence. And that's the power move your principal wishes you would make. All right, I'll be back soon with another episode. In the meantime, start making those power moves and take care.

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Steph Johnson

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