Darnell had taught at several schools under different school leaders. He had also taught long enough at various schools to see school leaders come and go. Darnell, like other teachers and school staff, knew the difference that an effective school leader makes. Unfortunately, he’d also seen the adverse impact that an ineffective school leader leaves. Just about every school leader under which he’d worked was well meaning. But they each had their own experience, insight, personality, and skill. And some had different levels of commitment. Darnell was just glad that the school at which he currently taught had a good school leader. And he hoped, as a consequence, that both he and the school leader would stick around.
Embodiment
School leadership is critical to effective school operations. Distinguish school leadership, though, from school governance. A school board governs, while the district superintendent, school principal, school leader, or academy headmaster (by whatever title the school designates the leader) leads. The school board may meet and work in relative obscurity. Students and parents may not even know who the school board members are. But everyone knows the school leader because the school leader, not the board, leads. The board governs, and the school leader leads. The school leader is the school’s public face, the personality who projects and the figure who embodies the school’s mission, vision, and operations. A school leader makes so many judgments and decisions in a school day that those individual decisions define the school leader and school less than the leader’s consistent stance, attitude, and professional character. The school leader’s judgment and skill are important. The leader’s embodiment of school values, culture, and commitment may be more influential over the school’s outcomes than the leader’s judgment and skill.
Characteristics
School leaders can differ in personalities, character, and leadership styles. More than one mold exists for an effective school leader. Yet effective school leaders generally have professional character, meaning that they exhibit the expertise peculiar to school leadership and administration. The educational mission of a school to influence student learning requires a remarkable degree of attention to program and system design, efficiency, accuracy, and outcomes. A school leader must thus generally care a great deal about program design and outcomes, with great consistency and energy. The educational mission of a school to overall positively shape student character requires positive, supportive, collegial, and moral leadership. A school leader must thus generally be not only of sound character but also strongly positive personality. Schools do well to recruit, respect, retain, and reward effective school leaders.
Retention
Recruiting, orienting, retaining, and supporting a new school leader is among the most-important duties that a board can fulfill. A school leader should give the board reasonable notice of the intention to step down so that the board can put in place an orderly succession process. The board should appoint a recruitment team if not assigning that duty to its executive committee, governance committee, or other standing committee. The board should establish the minimum qualifications and preferred candidate qualities to guide the recruitment team. Even if the school has strong internal candidates, public posting of the opportunity is generally wise to draw a broader candidate pool and ensure that internal candidates are indeed the better candidates for the school’s leadership. The recruitment team may review applications and recommend candidates to the board for interview. The recruitment team may also conduct preliminary informational interviews, but the full board should have the opportunity to meet, interview, and approve the final candidates, including selecting the new school leader. Retention is often on an annual contract with termination only for good cause, although larger schools at higher levels may offer multi-year contracts to retain prime candidates.
Team
While the school leader’s sound character and effective performance is generally critical to school success, school leadership typically involves a team more so than a lone individual making all administrative decisions. With dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of students to recruit, enroll, serve, support, and educate, school administration generally requires that the superintendent, president, dean, principal, headmaster, or other school leader put in place and guide an administrative team. The strength and cohesiveness of a school’s leadership team can go a long way toward ensuring the school’s success in its educational mission. A weak leadership team can undermine the confidence of faculty members, staff members, students, parents, volunteers, donors, and other constituents. The school leader’s ability to recruit, retain, guide, and support other effective school leaders is another characteristic of an effective school leader. A good school leader isn’t necessarily a charismatic figure but may instead be skilled at choosing and equipping others to lead in their assigned areas.
Functions
Schools need sound leadership in multiple areas, not just one area. Those areas can also be relatively distinct in the education, skill, and experience they require from the functional area leader. That variety makes it all the more important that the school leader assemble a strong leadership team. Schools may need differently skilled program leadership in instructional design, curriculum configuration, student support, student services, human resources, compliance, financial management, technology, marketing, alumni and donor relations, facilities, and operations. Having skilled functional area leaders ensures that a school operates well across its several critical systems. The school leader must also bring functional area leaders together periodically to help them integrate their function with other functions and to maintain a collaborative and smooth-functioning leadership team.
Activities
The challenge to school leadership can be to structure leadership activities in a sensible pattern. School leadership can at times seem like moving from one crisis or potential crisis to the next. Student accommodations and discipline issues, parent concerns, teacher absences and issues, donor concerns, operations issues, safety and security concerns, accreditation visits, and regulatory concerns can all arise at a moment’s notice, requiring immediate attention. School leaders need to reserve unscheduled time simply to deal with emergent conditions and events. Yet reactive leadership, while necessary at times, is generally not creative and effective leadership. School leaders thus simultaneously need to have a structured agenda for each day, week, and term on which they can work to improve school operations, while also keeping the school’s innovation and long-term welfare in mind. School leaders thus do well to have three agendas, one involving the necessary immediate, another involving the prudent intermediate, and the other involving the wise long term. School leaders need at once to see and address the short, mid, and long term.
Goals
One way that the school board can help its school leader manage the short term while working to improve the school’s long term is to set annual goals for the school leader to pursue. An executive committee of the board may work with the school leader to set three or so annual goals. Annual goals may change year to year as the school leader accomplishes one set of goals and other school and leadership needs emerge. Managing capital campaigns, facility construction, and school reorganization may be appropriate goals across one, two, or three years of a building expansion program. Improving student recruiting and retention may be an appropriate leadership goal during enrollment declines. Enhancing faculty support, evaluation, and development may be an appropriate leadership goal during periods of faculty retirements and turnover, or declines in student standardized test scores. Tie school leader goals to school trends and needs, so that your school leader has the structure and incentive to do more than manage emergencies and day-to-day operations.
Evaluation
Evaluating your school leader is an appropriate board or executive committee function, too. Evaluation doesn’t necessarily mean that a board has questions over a school leader’s fitness or performance. Nor is evaluation always an accountability measure, although evaluation can also serve in that way. Evaluation can instead simply be a sign of respect and appreciation. Evaluations don’t have to be critical. They can instead be positive and encouraging. Individuals tend, anyway, to respond better to positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement. Evaluate your school leader on the goals the executive committee set. The executive committee may also ask select faculty members to share leader evaluations or solicit all faculty members to provide the school leader with feedback. An anonymous survey, the responses to which the executive committee first reviews and culls to ensure helpful rather than unfairly critical reviews, may be appropriate. Ensure, though, that any evaluation guides and encourages rather than frustrates and discourages your school leader.
Correction
Corrective action over substandard or incompetent school leader performance should follow a different fair and confidential process. A corrective action procedure first investigates the alleged substandard or incompetent performance, ensuring that the school leader knows the full nature of the alleged deficiencies and has a fair opportunity to respond to the concerns. If the board, executive committee, or other special body the board constitutes to handle the concerns determines that the school leader indeed needs correction, then the school should put a confidential remedial plan in place that the leader understands and commits to follow. The plan should have clearly defined and measurable improvement objectives. The board or its representatives should then periodically review plan progress to ensure that the leader meets improvement metrics. The leader should understand that failure to meet plan metrics may result in job action up to termination.
Misconduct
If your school board instead finds grounds on which to discipline your school leader for misconduct, after a fair hearing at which the leader gets to contest the allegations, then the discipline should fit the goal of protecting members of the school community and the school’s operations and reputation, while rehabilitating the leader if possible and appropriate. Discipline may range from a warning or reprimand to compensation reduction, limitation in duties or privileges, suspension, non-renewal, or termination. Any process should not only provide procedural protections to the leader but also maintain confidentiality so as to avoid defamation, distraction of the school community, and depletion in program confidence.
Reporting
The school leader should report regularly to the school board. School leader reports are typically in writing to the board in advance of regular meetings. The school leader may then supplement the written report with an oral report at board meetings, highlighting achievements, challenges, issues, and concerns. The school leader may organize the report around school functions but also include information regarding the leader’s pursuit and progress on leader evaluation goals. While boards may have other substantial business to conduct at regular meetings, the school leader’s report may form the bulk or core of meetings, around which the board may act on action items and conduct strategic discussions. The school leader may also prepare or lead the preparation of the school’s annual report to the board and school community. The leader’s annual report may incorporate and rely on reporting from other leadership team members.
Development
School leaders are not finished products. They, like faculty and staff members, should be continually learning and growing in their roles. The board should ensure that the school leader has the time, resources, commitment, and accountability for the leader’s professional development. A school leader’s professional development may include periodic meetings of a group of leaders from a variety of schools to discuss emerging issues and trends. It may also include conference attendance and presentations, academic leadership posts outside the school, and research, writing, and publication. Help your school leader continue the leader’s professional development while leading your school.
Reflection
How well does your school’s executive leader embody the vision, values, commitments, and culture of your school? Does your school’s leader have the technical knowledge and attention to detail that your school’s leadership requires? Does your school’s leader have the personality and energy to foster positive school relationships and culture? How strong is your school’s leadership team around the school leader? Does your school’s leadership team work collaboratively and smoothly? Does your school leader handle urgent matters timely and efficiently? Does your school leader devote sufficient time to intermediate plans and long-term improvement? Does your school board set goals for the school leader? Does your school board annually evaluate your school leader? Does your school leader report regularly in writing and orally to the board, supplying the board with the information necessary to effectively govern the school? Does your school leader regularly engage in professional development?
Key Points
A school leader embodies school mission, commitment, and culture.
School leaders need technical knowledge and attention to detail.
School leaders also need strong team-building and relational skills.
A school leader needs a strong leadership team in support.
Leadership team members may manage discrete school functions.
A leader must balance handling urgent matters with deeper work.
The board or executive committee should set school leader goals.
The executive committee should evaluate the school leader on goals.
The board should handle leader deficiencies with corrective plans.
A board handles leader misconduct with progressive discipline.
The school leader should report in writing and orally to the board.
The board should promote the school leader’s continual development.