You’re in a leadership role you genuinely love, one that aligns with your values and passion for education. But somewhere along the way, the weight of it all starts to feel crushing. You’re working longer hours, skipping lunch, answering emails late into the night, and still feeling like you’re barely keeping your head above water. The question that keeps nagging at you: “Is this job too big, or am I just not enough?”
In a recent episode of At the Table, I sat down with Dr. Keba M. Rogers, NCSP, ABSNP, psychologist, educator, and CEO of @Keba Speaks, LLC, to explore what it means when a role becomes unsustainable. Dr. Rogers, who also co-founded Rooted, Resilient, and Rising LLC, brings nearly two decades of experience helping educators and leaders strengthen their mental, emotional, and social well-being. Our conversation centered around her Grace, Growth, and Greatness framework, with this first episode focusing specifically on sustainability and recognizing when the demands of a position outpace our capacity.
Editor’s Note: This is the first post in a four-part series exploring Dr. Keba Rogers’ Grace, Growth, and Greatness framework for sustainable school leadership. In upcoming posts, we’ll dive into self-compassion for leaders, the power of curiosity in navigating challenges, and building systems of care that support both students and staff. Subscribe to ensure you don’t miss the rest of this series.
What “Too Big” Really Means
When someone says “this job is too big,” Dr. Rogers explains they’re usually naming unrealistic expectations. The role is outpacing their capacity, and what they’re really saying is: “I don’t know who’s supposed to do all of these things, but it’s not me.”
This resonates with my own experience. I left a leadership role because it was simply too big. On paper, the job description looked manageable, but in reality, the day-to-day was overwhelming. As someone in their first leadership position, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. The feeling of never being able to come up for air, of drinking from a fire hydrant instead of a hose, became unsustainable.
What makes this situation even more complicated is when we tie our self-worth to our job performance. When you feel like you can’t do the job as it’s written, but you’ve always seen yourself as someone who gets things done, that creates an identity crisis on top of the practical challenges.
Dr. Rogers points out that we often don’t take the time as leaders to ask the critical questions: What is really happening here? Is it the job itself? What would I need to make this job not feel too big?
The Perfectionism Trap in First Leadership Roles
There’s something particularly intense about taking on your first leadership position. Dr. Rogers shared her own experience of supervising a team of 20 just two months after finishing her undergraduate degree. Like many of us, she rushed into the role thinking she needed to fix everything immediately.
“We’re looking at it from the perspective that this is our first time, so it has to be great,” Dr. Rogers explained. “But if we’re being more honest, we’re saying it has to be perfect.”
This perfectionism creates an impossible standard. When we’re chasing perfection, we’re climbing a hill that never ends. The job becomes about proving ourselves rather than learning and growing into the role. Dr. Rogers offered a powerful reframe: pace yourself. You can be the best, the brightest, and do the most, but not right now. First, learn your job.
The Year-by-Year Framework for Sustainable Leadership
One of the most practical insights from our conversation was Dr. Rogers’ approach to understanding how roles evolve over time:
Year One: Learning the Job In your first year, you’re simply figuring out how the pieces work together. You’re seeing how the machine operates. This isn’t the time to revolutionize everything. It’s the time to observe, ask questions, and understand the systems and culture you’re working within. We’ve stopped giving ourselves space to learn the job.
Year Two: Identifying What Needs to Shift In your second year, you start seeing things that could be improved. You have enough experience to say, “Here are some ideas for how things might change.” This is also when you may start recognizing that the role itself isn’t sustainable in its current framework.
Dr. Rogers suggests reframing “this job is too big” as “this role doesn’t look sustainable in its current framework.” This language shift moves from a personal failure narrative to a structural observation. You’re not saying you’re inadequate. You’re saying the role’s design needs attention.
Year Three and Beyond: Strategic Advocacy By year three, you should have a clear sense of what’s working and what isn’t. This is when you can make strategic changes or advocate effectively for restructuring.
Extending Grace to Everyone in the System
One of the most challenging aspects of leadership is that we often extend grace to no one, including ourselves. Dr. Rogers was direct about this: “When we’re in leadership positions, we don’t extend grace to ourselves, we don’t extend grace to the leaders above us, or the people working for us.”
This creates a toxic dynamic where everyone is set up to fail. We look at our supervisors and think, “You should know this job is too big.” But here’s the reality: they might not know. Leadership can be isolating, and the people above you may not see your daily struggles.
Instead of suffering in silence or expecting someone to magically realize you’re drowning, we need to articulate specific needs. Rather than a vague “I’m overwhelmed,” try: “This role doesn’t look sustainable in its current framework. Here are three specific areas where additional support would make a significant difference.”
The Data Collection That Changes Everything
Dr. Rogers introduced a practice that might feel uncomfortable but is absolutely transformative: spend a week tracking exactly how you spend your time. Write down everything you do, when you do it, and estimate how long each task takes.
At the end of the week, analyze your data:
- Are there tasks that could be delegated?
- Are there things you’re doing that don’t align with your job description?
- Where are you spending time that isn’t your responsibility?
This exercise provides concrete evidence rather than just feelings. When you can show that 40% of your time is spent on tasks outside your job description, you have a foundation for a meaningful conversation about restructuring. If the data shows you’re spending two hours a day on tasks that could be done by someone else, that’s actionable information.
Knowing Your Capacity and Protecting It
Understanding your capacity is fundamental to sustainable leadership. Dr. Rogers emphasizes that each of us has an “I just can’t” moment —a point at which we’ve reached our limit. Recognizing this isn’t a weakness. It’s self-awareness.
The challenge is that many school leaders are conflict-averse. We’re people-pleasers by nature, drawn to education because we care about relationships. Saying “I can’t” feels uncomfortable, like we’re letting people down.
But sustainability requires honesty. If you can’t meet an expectation, saying you can doesn’t make it possible. It just means you’ll burn yourself out trying. Dr. Rogers suggests starting these conversations early, before you’re completely depleted. Address sustainability concerns when you still have the energy and perspective to problem-solve constructively.
The Role of Grace in Releasing Pressure
Throughout our conversation, Dr. Rogers kept returning to the concept of grace. Grace isn’t just being nice to yourself. It’s about seeing yourself clearly, recognizing your humanity, and accepting that being human means being imperfect.
“Grace helps us see ourselves more clearly,” Dr. Rogers explained. “If we can see our own humanity, then we can see the humanity in others.”
When you can acknowledge that you made a mistake and that you’re a human being who sometimes makes mistakes, you free yourself from the weight of perfectionism. You can focus on correcting the error rather than punishing yourself.
More importantly, when you see yourself as fully human, it becomes natural to see others that way too. You don’t say, “You were out sick for two weeks, but I need you to get this done today.” Instead, you say, “Welcome back. We have a looming deadline, which I’m not sure you’ll be able to meet. Let me know what you think you can do and by what timeframe.”
This approach brings clarity and reality to leadership. You’re acknowledging the actual situation and working with what’s possible rather than what you wish were possible.
Practical Strategies for Sustainable Leadership
Based on Dr. Rogers’ insights and my own experience, here are concrete strategies:
- Audit Your Responsibilities Regularly At least twice a year, review everything on your plate. What’s essential? What’s expected but not necessary? What have you taken on that doesn’t belong to you?
- Communicate Specific Needs When you need support, be concrete. Instead of “I’m overwhelmed,” try “I need administrative support for scheduling” or “I need the events committee to take ownership of family programming.”
- Set Boundaries Around Time Decide what your work hours will be and communicate them clearly. If you respond to emails at 10 PM, people will expect it. Your boundaries train others about how to work with you.
- Delegate with Trust Identify tasks that others can do, even if they won’t do them exactly as you would. Focus on what only you can do.
- Build in Recovery Time If you have a particularly intense week, build in recovery time afterward. Don’t schedule back-to-back high-stress periods.
When the Job Is Actually Too Big
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the job really is too big. The role was designed with unrealistic expectations or insufficient support. In these situations, you have options:
- Advocate for restructuring Present data showing why the current design isn’t sustainable. Propose specific changes, such as splitting the role or adding support staff.
- Redefine success If restructuring isn’t possible, you might need to accept that you can’t do everything at the level you’d like. Make strategic choices about where to focus.
- Create a transition plan If the role can’t be made sustainable, it might be time to plan your exit strategically while maintaining your professional responsibilities.
- Seek temporary relief Sometimes roles are unsustainable during particular seasons. You might need temporary support or reduced responsibilities in other areas.
The key is being honest about which situation you’re in and making decisions from clarity rather than panic or guilt.
The Bigger Picture: Systemic Issues in School Leadership
While individual strategies are important, we also need to acknowledge systemic issues. Many schools have created leadership structures that aren’t sustainable by design. We’ve piled responsibilities onto positions without adding support and normalized burnout as the cost of caring deeply about education.
Schools need to build cultures where it’s safe to say “this isn’t working” without being seen as incompetent. This means school boards and senior administrators need to regularly assess whether the roles they’ve created are actually doable. It means involving the people doing the work in conversations about sustainability and being willing to adjust structures when they’re not serving students or staff well.
Moving Forward with Grace and Realism
The conversation Dr. Rogers and I had about sustainability is just the beginning. In subsequent episodes of our series, we’ll explore extending grace to ourselves, leading with curiosity, and building systems of care in schools.
But this first conversation about recognizing when a role becomes too big is foundational. Until we can be honest about the limitations of our capacity and the actual demands of our roles, we can’t lead sustainably or effectively.
The goal isn’t to make you into a superhero who can do it all. The goal is to help you become a leader who knows what they can realistically accomplish, communicates clearly about needs and limitations, extends grace to themselves and others, and creates conditions where everyone can do their best work.
That starts with permission to acknowledge when something isn’t working. It continues with practical strategies for addressing the problem. And it’s sustained by a commitment to seeing yourself and others as fully human, deserving of grace, capable of growth, and worthy of greatness.
As Dr. Rogers reminded me, we can be the best and brightest and do the most. Just not all right now. Not all at once. And definitely not alone.
Watch or listen to the full podcast here!
Connect with Dr. Keba Rogers
You can find Dr. Keba Rogers on Instagram at @Dr.KebaeSpeaks, @GraceGrowthAndGreatness, and @RootedResilientAndRising. She’s also on LinkedIn.
If you’re interested in exploring these topics further, Dr. Rogers and her co-founder Ali Morgan host the annual Belonging, Affirmation, and Motivation conference through Rooted, Resilient, and Rising. The virtual conference features facilitated discussions and professional development opportunities for educators committed to creating affirming school communities.
