The Bullseye and the Game

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post called On Target. It was about schools as systems, and how easy it is for leaders to miss the mark when they forget who they actually serve. The bullseye model I shared was my way of naming a simple truth: you support the people you directly touch, and that support is what makes student success possible.

More recently, I wrote another post called Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game. That post was less about the structure of a system and more about the experience of living inside one. Specifically, it was about how tempting it is to blame individuals when things go wrong, even though the behavior we are frustrated by is often the predictable result of the conditions people are working within. In other words, On Target was about the roles and responsibilities inside a system, while Don’t Hate the Player was about what happens when those roles and responsibilities break down or become distorted.

I’ve been thinking about both posts together lately because I believe they are connected in a way that matters, especially in schools. When we understand systems clearly, we are less likely to personalize problems that are structural. And when we understand what systems produce, we are less likely to keep asking people to “be better” inside environments that make it hard to succeed.

In On Target, the core idea was that students belong at the center of the bullseye because they are the purpose of school. That is not up for debate. Where leaders sometimes get tripped up is in assuming that because students are the center, the best leaders are the ones who focus on the center most directly. That assumption sounds right at first because it feels aligned with the mission. But in practice, it often leads to a leadership mistake that quietly creates dysfunction.

The mistake is this: leaders try to support the students without paying enough attention to the people they are actually responsible for supporting. Many leaders in education do not work directly with students. District office administrators do not teach classes. Superintendents do not plan lessons. Board members do not run intervention groups. Their impact on students is real, but it is indirect. Their direct work is supporting the adults who are closest to students and ensuring those adults have what they need to do the work well.

When leaders forget that, the people they directly lead start to feel neglected, and the system begins to weaken in the exact places it needs to be strong. It’s not because anyone has bad intentions. It’s because the mental model is off. The leader is aiming at the center, but skipping the rings that make the center reachable.

This is why the bullseye matters. The bullseye is not just a visual. It’s a reminder that support has a direction. Teachers and families directly impact students. Building leaders directly impact teachers and families. District leaders directly impact building leaders. The superintendent and board directly impact district leaders. Every layer is connected, but not every layer is connected in the same way. When you understand that, you stop trying to leapfrog the system, and you start strengthening it.

This is also where support becomes a real concept rather than a vague one. When a district office administrator asks a building principal, “What do you need to be successful with this initiative?” no one answers with massages and mimosas. They say things like, “I need time,” or “I need resources,” or “I need clarity,” or “I need you to help me reduce competing priorities so we can do this well.” That is what direct support looks like. It is practical. It is specific. It is often unglamorous. And it is the kind of support that indirectly impacts students because it strengthens the people who directly impact students.

The reason this matters so much is that systems don’t only determine workflow. Systems determine culture. Systems teach people what is safe and what is not. Systems teach people what will be addressed and what will be tolerated. Systems teach people what happens when they take initiative, when they raise concerns, and when they make mistakes. Over time, people adapt to those lessons, whether or not anyone ever says them out loud.

This is where Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game comes in. That post was about the moments when we look around at someone’s behavior and think, “What is wrong with them?” It’s the colleague who becomes defensive, the leader who avoids conflict, the teacher who stops trying new things, the team that rolls their eyes at every initiative, or the person who has learned that silence is the safest strategy. It is very easy to turn those behaviors into character judgments, and sometimes that feels justified because the behaviors are real and the impact is real. But the question I keep coming back to is whether those behaviors are random, or whether they are learned responses to the system people are working within.

If you put capable people in a system that does not support them, does not protect their time, changes expectations constantly, or punishes honesty, you should not be surprised when you get predictable results. You will get compliance instead of commitment. You will get silence instead of feedback. You will get people who stop taking risks. You will get leaders who play defense instead of building capacity. You will get teams who spend more energy managing optics than improving practice. None of that happens because everyone suddenly became worse people. It happens because the system taught them what survival looks like.

This is why I don’t think the two posts are separate ideas. I think they’re part of the same argument. When leaders forget where they are on the bullseye, they stop supporting the people they directly touch. When that happens, the system becomes less functional, and the system starts producing behaviors that frustrate everyone. Then we do the most natural thing in the world: we blame the people. We blame the teacher for being disengaged. We blame the principal for being ineffective. We blame the district office for being out of touch. We blame the board for micromanaging. We blame families for not partnering. We blame students for not trying. And while individuals always have responsibility for their behavior, blaming people without examining conditions guarantees that we will repeat the same outcomes with new faces.

If we want different results, the work is not to keep obsessing over the center while neglecting the layers that hold it up. The work is to strengthen the ring you directly touch. That is what leadership looks like in a system. It means asking better questions than “Are we getting the outcomes we want?” It means asking, “Do the people closest to the work have what they need to succeed?” and being willing to hear answers that sound like time, training, staffing, clarity, consistency, and protection from competing demands. It also means accountability, because support without accountability is not leadership either. Healthy systems require both, and they require them in the right places.

The reason this matters is simple: systems are perfectly designed to get the results they are getting. If the results include burnout, disengagement, conflict avoidance, initiative fatigue, or talented people shrinking themselves to fit the environment, then those are not just personal problems. Those are system outcomes. If we want people to behave differently, we have to create conditions that make different behavior possible.

In On Target, I tried to name how support should flow in a healthy educational system. In Don’t Hate the Player, Hate the Game, I tried to name what happens when systems teach people the wrong lessons about what is safe. I’m writing this now because I think the most important work in education is learning to see both at once: the structure of the system, and the human behavior the system produces. When we can do that, we stop wasting energy aiming at the center while weakening the rings that support it, and we stop blaming individuals for doing exactly what the environment trained them to do.

~Heather

P.S. This week’s Catch of the Week is a recent podcast conversation about music education and what it makes possible for students and school communities. The episode, "Lyndonville CSD: Music is the Heartbeat of the Community," was recorded as part of the Achieving Joy and Mastery in Public School podcast, spotlighted the music program at Lyndonville Central School District, a place I am proud to call home.

The conversation explored how a strong music program shapes student identity, confidence, and connection. Educators spoke about the intentional design behind instruction, students shared what it feels like to belong to something larger than themselves, and a parent leader reflected on the importance of community support. Together, those perspectives painted a picture that goes far beyond performances or accolades.

What came through clearly is that music is not just an add-on. It is a space where discipline and creativity coexist, where collaboration is learned through practice, and where joy is earned through persistence.

I was grateful to be part of the conversation and even more grateful for the educators, students, and families at Lyndonville who make this work possible every day. If you are curious about what it looks like when schools invest in the arts as a core part of learning, this episode is well worth a listen.

P.P.S. Please remember to...

Like and share this post

Check out other posts 

Subscribe to www.lyonsletters.com

Buy and rate your copy of Engagement is Not Unicorn (It's a Narwhal), 

The BIG Book of Engagement Strategies, & 50 Ways to Engage Students with Google Apps

From Amazon or Barnes & Noble