What does it really take to lead, stay organized, and find your path—even when the future feels uncertain? In this first episode of the Teen Exec Podcast—part of our Leadership Journey track—host Natalya Lucas, a high school student and founder of Teen Exec, and her mom Dr. Stacy Smith talk with Dr. Karen Zaleski, Superintendent of Weston Public Schools.

Dr. Zaleski shares:

• How being a teen today compares with when she was in high school
• The pressures (and opportunities) that come with social media
• Why surrounding yourself with the right people matters
• What it means to lead by example
• Her own story of shifting from medicine to psychology to education—and how teens can explore passions without fear

She also opens up about time management strategies, the importance of communication skills, and the one piece of advice she’d give her teenage self.

Whether you’re trying to balance school, activities, and friends—or figuring out what kind of leader you want to become—this conversation offers practical insights you can use right now.

Many thanks to the Weston Media Center for helping us record and edit this episode.

Resources & Links:

• Dr. Zaleski's biography
• Weston Public Schools
• Teen Exec
• From the Teen Exec blog: How my first podcast episode challenged from executive functioning skills
• Visit TeenExec.com for blog posts, tools, and upcoming workshops
• Join Teen Exec on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

Hi, and welcome to the TeenXec podcast, where we explore how real people lead, stay organized, and get things done.

I'm Natalia Lucas, a high school student and founder of TeenXec, a nonprofit that helps teens like me build practical tools for time management, organization planning, and leadership.

And I'm Dr. Stacy Smith, a radiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and also Natalia's mom.

On this podcast, we talk with leaders from all kinds of careers about how they stay focused, manage challenges, and lead with purpose.

Today we are talking with someone who helps shape my school experience behind the scenes, Dr. Karen Zaleski, the superintendent of Weston Public Schools here in Massachusetts.

She leads our entire district, which serves about 2,000 students from pre K through high school.

Dr. Zaleski's background includes working as a school leader, special education director, and clinical therapist.

In her current role, she supports students, staff, and families and helps guide big decisions that affect what school looks and feels like every day.

Dr. Zaleski might lead an entire district, but she's been a teen herself, and she works every day with teens like us.

We're going to ask her about what's different and what's the same about being a teen compared to now and when she was in high school, how she chose her own path and what advice she wishes she could give to her teenage self.

Dr. Zaleski, thank you so much for being our very first guest.

Thank you so much for having me.

It is an absolute honor and privilege to be here today, and I'm excited to speak about anything that you'd like to ask me about so that we can inform teens and better inform our practice in the schools.

Let's start with this.

When you were in high school, what was life like as a teen compared to now?

What stayed the same and what's totally different from today.

When I think back to my experience as an adolescent in terms of what's similar is really the adolescent time can be very challenging.

It can be an emotional time, a time where there may be some confusion about what you want to do with your future, who you are as a person.

And also, there's a lot of pressures.

So I think similar to today, teens are faced with competing, wanting to be the best that they can be, developing their peer group while fighting for that independence that they so desperately want and trying to balance the interests of both their parents as well as their peer group, and then within themselves, figuring out their own core values and their own purpose.

So when I look back and I think about what is similar.

I think that's not different today.

Teens a teens a teens.

When I think about what's different and the challenges I think about social media.

I did not have the social media pressures that you have today.

And I think that creates sometimes difficulties for adolescents because they are put in situations where they are constantly putting themselves out there and worried about whether or not the things that they say and the things that they do are going to be posted on social media.

They are distracted by social media and I think that that can cause a lot of confusion, anxiety, concern and it can also affect self worth for a lot of folks.

Some people use social media as a really positive platform and so that's an advantage that I may have missed out on in adolescence in terms of having that avenue to showcase success, to celebrate great things and to put yourself out there and to market yourself in terms of whatever you're doing.

So I think that's different.

The other thing that I believe is different is mental health awareness.

It was not talked about a lot when I was growing up.

So when you had a difficulty or if there was a problem in any social emotional realm, it was really challenging.

And oftentimes you would not necessarily know where the supports lie or know how to access the help that you need and or it was frowned upon to talk about.

But now I think that the mental health awareness is far more prevalent and more widely accepted, although stigma does still exist.

But I do see that as a difference when I think about the things that we're offering in the schools and the supports and services resources we have available.

I did not have those when I was growing up.

On the social media side, what are some tools that you've seen teens use or that you've used yourself that have helped with balancing using social media as well as staying focused on your schoolwork or after school things for teens.

So just in terms of.

Let me use myself as an example right now in terms of the platforms that I use.

So we use Facebook, we use Instagram, we use things to celebrate successes and I think those are really exciting.

I love nothing more than walking around the schools, showcasing, taking pictures and really putting it out there for the parent community and the teenagers celebrating what they're doing.

It's also just really a nice opportunity to connect with the students.

I think students use platforms that I'm not even aware of.

People will mention things.

I'm like, what is that?

I don't know what that is.

And I think it's hard to keep up because things are so ever changing when platforms are put up or they're taken down.

And again, some are harmful and some are not.

I think the most important thing is responsible usage.

And I think that teenagers really need a lot of education around the platforms.

What's available, what's safe, what's not safe?

And I think this is where us as adults in the education community can do a really good job of educating our students around the different platforms, but also the parents.

And this is where we need help from the community.

I think it's really important that the parents take the time to educate their students and to consistently reinforce at home how to use social media appropriately and to be involved.

And I know that this is a teen podcast, but to the parent community, I would say staying involved with your kids and paying attention to what students are accessing is only going to help them in the long run and put safeguards and guardrails around students.

So when you were a teen, how did you figure out what you wanted to study in college or what career to go after?

And what can today's teens learn from your process?

So when I was in college, interestingly enough, I thought I was going to be a doctor.

I always said I wanted to be a doctor serving children.

So I am a doctor serving children, just not a medical doctor serving children.

When I first went to school, I signed up for all the courses that would prepare you to go into the medical field.

Anatomy, physiology.

I just was not feeling it.

I was miserable in classes, and I have to tell you, I was a straight A student throughout my career, but I was not enjoying it.

I went to the academic support folks in the college and said, I just don't know what to do.

I'm a little confused.

He had pointed me to take some psychology courses.

I fell in love with it immediately.

And I had not planned on a clinical therapist at the outset of my career.

And I got into the field, I absolutely loved it and became a clinical therapist.

But let me tell you how that journey took me into education.

I began working with adults and I began providing a lot of treatment and supports for adults with both mental health and substance abuse issues.

And I did that for a very long time.

And I had a private practice during the course of that time.

I. I recognize and listen to so many of the stories from the adults about, wow, if people in high school had just got to this person, maybe we wouldn't be where we are, or if they had the support that they need when they were younger, we wouldn't have to do all of this work right now.

So it sparked an interest in me.

That coupled with the fact that I was raising my children and I wanted a schedule that was more flexibly able to support my family needs.

So I found my way to the schools, and I ended up becoming a school adjustment counselor.

Absolutely fell in love with it.

Transferred the skillset from the hospitals into the schools, and then my journey took off into administration.

I found my passion, and I think what I would say is, when you're figuring out your purpose, it's okay not to have the answers right away.

And that is the message I would give to teens.

Do not be afraid to explore.

Go out there in the world.

Explore what you think you want to do.

But if your life is taken a different direction and people are staring at you that way, and you're feeling your passion leading you that way, it's okay.

Because in the end, you are the one that has to live your career.

Not your parents, not your friends, nobody else.

It's you.

So that is the guidance that I would give folks, because I am happy and I love what I do.

Leadership can mean a lot of things from a teen's perspective.

What do you think good leadership looks like in a school or a group that they're a part of?

I think good leadership in general, whether it's a school or anywhere, is leading by example, is really just being who you are, communicating, supporting others to be the best that they can be.

A good leader supports others to lead and to be their best and to build each other up.

And, you know, in this role, more than ever, I have been focusing on how to build my team up, how to be the best that we can be in the school district.

Because if all the leaders are better, the students are going to be better.

But we have to do that by example in our conversations, in our everyday work, and in our outside life.

Because it's really important to stick to your core values and to be the person that you are both in and outside of school.

Because if there's a disconnect, there can be difficulty.

I think a good leader, again, is the person that they want to be.

They have good values, good morals.

They lead by example.

You can never go wrong when you do that.

So you have a packed schedule and a lot of responsibilities.

What time management strategies do you use that can help teens balance school sports, activities and other commitments?

I prioritize every day when I come into work.

I look at the list of things I need to do, and oftentimes it's thrown off kilter because circumstances happen on a daily basis.

And in those Moments, I really just step back and I say, okay, in the immediate, what has to happen.

And sometimes the immediate is it's urgent, like for safety, student safety, or because a student has a need, an imminent need, or, you know, a family might have a need, which rises to my level.

So when those things take place again, I step back and I make a list of priorities and then I will delegate where appropriate.

And I'm learning to get better at that because I'd like to fix it all.

So I'm learning to get better at delegating.

And I think that's really important when you have a lot on your plate, is delegating where appropriate, taking on what you need to do and then prioritizing and then getting the work done.

I also, for me, I keep lists.

Like, I write things down.

Like, I'll type things up, I'll write things down and keep those lists in front of me.

I have two lists going right now.

One list is all of my actions and my bigger goals and things that I know I need to do.

But the other list is things that are just coming up during the day where I'm making notes and I'm making reminders about who I need to talk to before the end of the day, who I need to get back to so that nobody is left hanging.

And that really helps keep me on track.

Also, in a high level leadership role like this, it's really good to hire the right people.

You have to have a right team to get the job done.

When you're talking about teams, could that for a teen today look as if like their peer group?

Could it look like the people they surround themselves with, their parents?

What can delegating look like for them?

Yes, for teens, that's so critical, and I can't emphasize enough the importance of surrounding yourself with people that are of like mind.

Everybody doesn't have to be exactly the same, but you have to spend time with people that are going to share your core values as a person and help build you up.

And I think that's often a trap teens can fall into because again, adolescence is a tricky time where you're trying to find your own identity.

And, you know, adolescents may be steered to a group of friends that may not be the best for them.

And not necessarily that it's bad, but it just, they might not share the same values.

They might not have the same vision in life and just have different backgrounds, which again, is okay, but not if it's not building you up and bringing you to where you are.

And I would Caution teens to just examine your friend group.

Really look at who you're spending time with and the people that you're spending time with.

Are they inspiring you?

Are they building you up?

Are they helping you be the best that you can be?

Because if they're not, then I would encourage teens to take that risk and find another group.

Even if it's lonely at first, you don't want to be unequally yoked with somebody, because if you are, the disconnect is only going to.

The discord will happen later on, and you might not get all the influences and the great experiences that you could otherwise have if you're around the right set of people.

And that applies to adults as well.

When things get overwhelming, what do you do to recharge?

Take care of yourself so that you can keep performing at your best.

So I recharge best when I'm having fun.

So if you haven't noticed, I'm kind of high energy.

So what I do outside of work is I keep the energy going.

I exercise.

I love to, like, work out.

I love to be outside.

I love to hike, I love to run, I love to bike.

So I do things that are really active.

Also, travel is huge for me.

So if I know that, like, I'm gonna have a busy year or a busy month even, what's so important is to have something to look forward to.

So I will always put something on the books.

For me, usually it's on the weekend, especially if it's during the school year or it'll be during, like, a February break or the summer.

But knowing I have something to look forward to keeps me going.

Because when I'm really stressed and there's a lot going on, I can say, oh, well, this is awesome, because in four weeks, I'm gonna be at the beach.

So that's important to me.

That helps me balance myself.

Family is key, spending time with family, because you can get so entrenched in work that if you don't spend enough time with family, then you can really start to burn out.

So I also balance my weekend time with time with my husband, my daughter, my grandchildren, and my friends spending time with friends, which is always tricky because people have different schedules, but I think that is really key.

And then finally, for me, I have a very active spiritual life.

I'm very involved in my church.

I'm very involved with groups at the church.

I actually lead a lot of groups at my church.

And for me, that's very fulfilling.

That rejuvenates me and fills me back up So I can give back to others.

And that's really important to me.

For the recharging with your church and with peers, would you say that teens involving themselves in the service projects or in trying to connect with their peers and reach out ahead of time to schedule things they can look forward to them, are those things that you would think teens would, I don't know, benefit from?

I think teens need to find their way.

And again, it's tricky when you're an adolescent because, again, you might be confused.

You might.

And even adults, like, may not be too sure about activities they want to get involved in, how to enhance their friend groups, or what rejuvenates them.

It may be a service project in life.

I think we're all searching.

I think from the moment we're born until the moment we die, we search.

We're going to search for what gives us joy.

And I think my message really is keep the search going, never give up, even if things don't work out, when you try something and it doesn't work, or if you go to college like I did, and you try a course and you're like, oh, my whole life I thought I wanted to be this, and you ended up somewhere else, it's okay.

My message is don't give up, no matter what.

When things get hard, when you have hardships, don't give up and stay positive.

What has helped me is to stay positive in every single thing that's happened in my life, both good and bad, staying positive and not giving up.

And through that, I have remained energized.

You hear the saying, choose Joy.

Choosing joy is a very real thing in life.

We have a choice.

We got to choose joy.

Are we going to choose the positive?

Are we going to choose our path?

Yes.

But you have to take risks and you have to have confidence.

And if you lack confidence, find the people in your life that are going to give you the confidence.

Next thing I'm going to ask you about, you've spoken a little bit about.

You talked about your pathway in your career, and you changed your path as you found your passion.

And then is there a specific time in your career, maybe when something didn't go as planned and how did you handle it?

And what can teens take away from that experience?

So the experience that comes to mind when I think of that question is, again, when I landed in the schools, I went from being a counselor in the outpatient setting into the school setting.

But out of nowhere, when I was really happy and I was doing counseling with teenagers, a supervisor at the time had come to me and said, I want you to be the assistant principal.

This is what gets to the story about my journey in administration.

And I felt very ill prepared.

I had really not had enough training for that.

I really didn't.

I had only had initial licensure, but the principal saw a talent in me because I had worked with adults.

He saw how I was handling and managing the teachers and all of the conflicts that were happening in the school district that I was working in at the time and said, you know, because of your background in the hospitals and the adults and the kids and all the difficulties we're dealing with, I need you to be in this role.

It was scary for me.

I didn't have a lot of confidence, and I was like, I never even pictured this, but I did it.

And believe me, it took a lot for me to agree to do it because I was balancing against my family and I was balancing against my fear.

But I did it, and I did it because somebody else saw a talent in me that I didn't see in myself.

And the message that I would give to teens is, if somebody else is inspiring you to something, it has to be positive.

But if someone else is inspiring you to something that you never thought of, it does not hurt to try.

And this.

This situation, which was completely unplanned, put me on the path to its school administration.

I ended up staying in that role for a decade.

I loved it.

I was a middle school assistant principal.

I loved every minute of it.

And then eventually my career launched into student service work, and now here I am as a superintendent.

But if I had not taken that risk, I would not be where I am today.

People in my personal life say to me, I cannot believe you are the superintendent of the Weston Public Schools.

I thought you were going to run a hospital here.

I am, and I love it, and I'm full of passion and I'm happy.

Since we're talking about teens, if a teen wants to take on a leadership role, whether in school, a club, a sports team, or a job, what's one thing they should focus on developing right now?

I think they really need to develop confidence.

So I think they have to really focus on just making sure that they're getting all the support that they need to take the risks to, you know, think about who their supports are and get the guidance that they need if they're going to take on a leadership role.

But I think the other thing that teens should really focusing on is communication.

And the reason I say that is, and let's get back to social media.

It's so easy with social media to lose your communication skills because everybody's texting.

They may not, you know, engage in conversations the way they could have or should have or, you know, or to enhance their growth.

But I, I think in order for teens to take on leadership roles, number one, they have to put themselves out there and take risks.

They have to work with people in their life to give them the confidence and to maybe guide them.

I know as a parent myself, I had to push my, my, my kids into certain directions.

So parents guiding their kids, you know, listen to your parents, listen to the adults in your life that you look up to.

And then when you're doing all those things and you're in these roles, communicating effectively away from, you know, not necessarily like cell phones and things like that, communicating with people, telling people where you need the support, not being afraid to ask for help.

And that is really key.

And I think of all the leadership roles that I've been in and what made me better in all those roles was not being afraid to go to supervisors or people in my and say, I'm not sure how to do this.

Can you help me?

And so my message to teenagers in this type of situation is ask for help.

Don't be afraid to say that you don't know something or that you need help learning a skill, or if you don't understand something that someone else is doing in a leadership role, ask what does that mean?

And I think that will help.

If you could go back in time and give your teenage self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Stop worrying about the things that don't matter.

I spent a lot of time in my younger years worrying about what could happen, what should happen.

What if this doesn't happen?

What if people don't like me?

What if they don't hire me?

What if they don't put me in roles?

And I've come to learn as an adult that if things don't work out, oftentimes that rejection is protection.

And I look back to certain positions that I wasn't given or things that I was overlooked for.

And I said, wow, thank goodness I didn't get that, because, look, look what happened.

Or, geez, I wasn't ready.

Now I'm ready.

So I again, I would tell teenagers, although it's okay to have anxiety and worries, don't dwell on that.

Don't spend time.

Time is so precious in life, right?

It's so precious.

Every moment counts.

Every waking moment counts.

And I would just say, that spend your time meditating on who you want to be, reaching out for your support, doing healthy activities, spending time with good people.

Because when you spend time worrying, all it does is create a barrier to your success.

And finally, who or what has shaped the kind of leader you've become?

I think about people in my life, I think about my parents.

I had one of my grandparents I was very close with shaped me to be the best that I could be.

And I was a worrier and my grandmother was not.

And when I was growing up and I was asking questions about a lot of things, she would be the one that would be like, it's gonna be okay, you can do this.

Don't worry, it'll all.

Her famous saying was, it'll all work out in the end.

People in the field When I was in the hospital setting, a team of psychiatrists took me under their wing in the emergency room.

I was young, I was in my 20s, and I was afraid of the patients.

They came into the emergency room and said to me, you're going to go in, you're going to interview these patients, you're going to diagnose them and you're going to tell us where we're going to send them for hospitalization.

I was petrified.

But I had this team of good leaders who said, you can do it.

We're going to show you how to do it.

Because in the end, you're going to help these people get stable in the education field.

Same thing.

I had excellent principal leaders that took me under their wing and said, you can do this.

We're going to help you, we're going to coach you, we're going to guide you, you're going to be the best.

More than once in my career in education, I had really good people steer me to where I am.

And even the superintendency.

Again, never imagined that I would be a superintendent.

But when I was in the student service role, I had a superintendent that insisted I take a training about the superintendency.

I had fought him on that and said, there's no reason for me to go to this training, I'm too busy.

He made me go and it was far away.

It was five, it was almost a two and a half hour ride from my house and I just didn't want to go.

And he said, you have to go and you have to take this training.

And I kept showing him evidence of other trainings I had taken, why I didn't need to be there.

He insisted that was meant to be because when I got to that training.

The connections that I made in that training were graduates of bc.

They saw in me a passion for what I was doing and they said to me, apply to the Program for Educational Leadership for your doctorate and we will give you a reference.

Because we graduated from that program.

I am convinced that's part of the reason I got in.

So that was meant to be.

So again, when I think about all these questions and I think about this podcast today, the whole theme is finding your passion which leads to your purpose.

Follow good leaders, spend time with good people, take risks Dr. Zaleski, thank you.

So much for sharing your experience and advice with us.

It's been really interesting to hear your perspective, not just as a superintendent, but as someone who's been a teen too.

I'm looking forward to seeing you around school and putting some of your advice into practice.

Thank you so much.

I'm looking forward to a great year ahead.

That was such an inspiring conversation.

I really appreciated hearing her views on the type of people you surround yourself with and not being afraid to try a new passion, even if it is not part of the life you had planned for yourself and if you do not know what you want to do yet taking the risks to find your passion and purpose in life.

I agree Dr. Zaleski leads a school district near Boston, but her insights about time management, communication and self awareness really do apply no matter where you go to school.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the TeenXec podcast.

If you liked what you heard, be sure to follow the podcast and share it with a friend.

You can also visit teenexec.com to check out weekly blog posts and questions that aim to help teens build their focus, organization and confidence.

And a huge thank you again to Dr. Zaleski for being part of our very first interview and for everything she does to support students and schools.

Hope to see you next time.