POSTED: January 8th, 2012
CATEGORIES: Article, Budget, Charter School, Edu Business, Education, Leadership, Superintendent,
TOPICS: charter schools, leadership, principal, Public Schools, school leader, superintendent
DISCUSSED: 8 Comments, (Join the conversation)
One of my biggest frustrations right now is getting one of my principals to understand that leadership is about people – not programs. The constant complaints from staff and the community have led me to give a rather unusual directive. For the next month, the principal is not allowed in the office, must smile and have conversations with the employees and community members and be in classrooms constantly. Hopefully, she will get the message and embrace a new found appreciation for working with people to get things done. But, we’ll see.
Ordinarily, the time after the winter break isn’t a real busy time for principals; Evaluations are still a couple of months away from being due, budgets for next year are still a few months off and even the testing window is up the road a bit. So asking for this to happen isn’t a debilitating request. However, given the nature of the complaints, its obvious that some serious fence mending needs to occur.
Good school principals all know that the key to success is playing the game. By that, I mean they accept the resources they are given, figure out a way to work with people to maximize those resources and keep problems off the bosses (my) desk. They understand that their strength and power come from the people who chose to follow them. They get that schools are about the people they serve.
To do this, good principals work with their people to help each other out. They work together for the good of the students. They make mutual trade-offs to make sure children in their care are safe and learning. As the Superintendent, I don’t always know – or want to know – what those trade-offs involve. For instance, a teacher needs to take off ten minutes early to see their own child win an award and the principal covers the class. (It’s probably good for the principal and the kids anyways.) While technically it’s not right and I don’t officially condone it, it’s the right thing to do.
Good principals understand the golden rule and treat their teachers and other staff the way that they would want to be treated. They smile a lot, greet children as they enter the building, and are present when people talk to them. They care about the students, teachers, the cafeteria worker, the custodian and the next-door neighbor. They embrace being the de-facto mayor of a small community. They like people. They hate paperwork.
So when you have someone who loves the paper and can’t seem to get on the same page as people, I have no choice but to boot them out of their office and tell them to get into the classrooms, smile and get to know the people they serve.
Sometimes, we forget that the best thing about working in a school – besides the kids – is the fact that we are all expected to learn. I hope she embraces this opportunity and learns from this experience.
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A relevant point, applicable not only to schools but corporate houses too. In my experience, I have seen we get too possessive about the ideas and the programs which emanate out of these ideas. We want to control it’s execution, control the results and claim the success. I think here is where one of the problems lie. We are creating a good program no doubt, but in the quest of running it we often get blinded towards the very objective of the program. As leaders or managers, we must stay focused on the objectives and not the means to fulfil these objectives. This allows us to set right expectations, prepare clear accountability structure, enable appropriate autonomy [thus individual growth], provides for a better assessment of progress and early course correction; and more importantly let’s you continuously keep thinking on how to make it better and continually relevant. Letting go of the control is a tough thing, but in the context of progress, one must put a conscious effort to do so and stay focused on the objective we are out there to achieve.
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Great thoughts in you post. I especially liked your thought, “They understand that their strength and power come from the people who chose to follow them.” I’m an introvert so I have to plan/purpose to go and walk among the students at our school. I usually take before school and the lunch hour to say hi and connect with them. If I don’t purpose to do this I know I’ll be disconnected from the ones I’m supposed to be investing in.
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I spent a lot of years eating cafeteria burritos watching kids at lunch and break/recess. I also was in front of the school before school and after school so I could make sure I was available for parents, too. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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I suspect forgetting your post’s title is an easy thing to do for far too many school leaders. As a teacher I can attest to the power of strong leadership. I have worked in a building for ten years with a principal who took over only the year before I started. I teach in a tough school with a highly impacted student population. In 2002 my school’s problems seemed intractable. Today, we are model for the district and the surrounding community while at the same time serving even more highly impacted kids than a decade ago. I attribute this transformation to my remarkable principal who always puts her people ahead of every decision. How does she do this? Simply put, through appreciation. This is the key to successful leadership in any field: deeply appreciating your people and acting on it at every turn.
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Loved the post Ed!!! I’m a major advocate of “People” leadership and I enjoyed your article….keep up the good fight!
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Thanks. I just hope by doing this I’m staying away from being the boss everyone hates
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The more managers insulate themselves from interacting with others, the less they feel comfortable (or more insecure?) interacting. One possible reason is the fear of having to face people’s complaints (they assume so) and problematic situations. But the paradox of this cycle is that the more insulation, the more complaints and problems there will be, and it then becomes a self-prophetic process, and on and on.
So sometimes, the only way to break the cycle is a little nudge, in this case, from you, into action. Perhaps at the end of the week, you can ask this principle what are the three most delightful encounters she has?
Elena (www.towardasensibleorganization.com)