Building Relationships the Family Way

Is it time to reveal some family secrets? Greg Crumpton navigated some familiar waters with his latest guest, his sister, Angela Leissa, or as Crumpton calls her, Dr. Leissa. Leissa, a retired Primary/Secondary Education Professional, was a former DeKalb County, Georgia School System Principal for thirty years. On Crumpton’s show, he often discusses professionals who know how to form long-lasting relationships, and Leissa is one of the best relationship-builders he knows.

Leissa wanted to be a teacher from the time she was a child. She left for college with a teaching career in mind. And it was at college that Leissa met Missy, her close friend for over forty years. At her first teaching job, Leissa met her future husband, not first husband, but future. Leissa left her home state to work in other education systems but found her way back to DeKalb County through friendships formed during her first teaching job. And relationships would continue to play an integral role in Leissa’s career progression.

Leadership became something that Leissa enjoyed throughout her years in education. “I like leading people and collaborating with adults,” Leissa said. This desire led to advanced education degrees and her first assistant principal role. Eventually, Leissa went on to head up one of the first Montessori programs in Georgia. And while she headed up that program within a school, she was the school’s principal. Leissa set forth to build relationships from day one.

“There were teachers there who were scared, and there were teachers that were happy I was there,” Leissa said. “It was kind of a mix. And it took me a while to do that trust-building and to bring them in because these teachers had already been at the school for ten and fifteen years. So, they had their culture developed.”