5 Rules To Become An Effective School Leader

 

Effective educational leaders enthusiastically face the challenging task of preparing young minds for the future and they think strategically about the goals and systems that will support this task. A confident leader with a positive mindset takes the risks when needed and thinks outside the box. 

During my professional assignments in the last two decades, I have spent hours of discussions with thousands of school leaders from across the globe. Some of them are great at inspiring people with their leadership abilities and are setting positive examples while the others are only busy managing the operations of their educational institutions and are generally involved with the micro-management. While there are a number of different traits, skills, mindsets, and habits that define effective leaders, what I have learned in all these years is that there are some key ground rules which, if followed, can help you become an effective educational leader who can ensure sustained success for their schools.

Besides having personal attributes like resilience, flexibility, persistence, entrepreneurial mindset and the skills like relationship management, social awareness and focus, the following key strategies have worked like magic for those highly successful school leaders:-

1.     Communicate the school’s vision, mission, strategy and policies throughout the school

 

“Leadership is the capacity to transform vision into reality” –Warren G. Bennis, founding chairman of the Leadership Institute at the University of Southern California

 

While the vision for your school is yours, you cannot make it a reality on your own. You need the understanding, buy-in, and enthusiasm of your team to work together collectively to take the school forward and scale it up.

As a leader, you clearly see where your school would be in the next five years but you need to communicate this to everyone. If you are leading a new school, you should consciously build your vision into the DNA of your school and share it with each new person that joins your team. If the “vision DNA” is there from the early stages, as the school grows, your vision will still be visible and accessible, if not directly through you, then through those longer-tenured employees with whom you originally shared your vision.

Regardless of the size and type of school, the shared vision is needed from the bottom to the top of the school, both at the team and the individual level. 

2. Establish a culture of trust, integrity and engagement

 

If every member of the staff has a clear concept of how his/ her work helps to contribute to broader goals of the school (no. of admissions/ achievement of learning outcomes/ developing 21st-century skills/ upskilling the educators etc.), it is far more likely that they can work harmoniously to achieve them. In fact, you can run your school like a conductor leading an orchestra. 

Through support and engagement, you can easily ensure several achievements like adopting a new technology/ teaching strategy, building partnerships, addressing new learners and other beneficiaries or catering to the future needs of your learners. Finally, at the organization level, if all the functions of the school are moving in sync with clarity on how one relates to the other, how each support and can collaborate with one another, and with employees feeling integrated, you will have strengthened your school from the inside, out.

 

To establish a culture of integrity, a leader needs to align all policies with ethical principles. This will not only enhance the image of your school but will also improve staff motivation and morale. Encourage your staff to hold themselves up to the highest standards of professionalism in all their dealings whether it’s related to the admission process, selection of students for different activities, research process, results, or avoiding any conflicts of interest. With this small effort of yours, the school will ensure enhanced relationships with all stakeholders.

3.     Encourage people and recognise their contribution 

 

At the individual level, your teaching and non-teaching staff should understand how their contribution is vital to the success of the school. Demonstrating that they are important, will make them feel valued. Their knowledge, experience  and creativity will help you develop new and innovative educational practices. Showing the importance of each member’s role and skills helps with engagement and buy-in at the foundational level of your school, its people. At the department level, there should be awareness of how the output and success of one, impacts the other. Engaging one-on-one with your employees is something you should do more often. It’s a way to truly get to know them better and also share at the individual level the integral role that they play in the school’s success. 

Though such interactions may be restrictive based on the size of your school, you can at the very least do this with your leadership team and have the practice spread beyond that layer of the school. Provide people with the required resources, training and authority to act with accountability

  

People crave for positive feedback and recognition for the extra effort they put in. Acknowledgment of leaders and peers instills the confidence that comes with knowing an achievement has been seen, appreciated and celebrated. But you have to mean it when you give employees recognition. Also, this recognition should match effort and results, or it loses meaning. This implies that recognition is most effective when it’s given in the context of a larger goal or results-focused activity. Random affirmations are much less meaningful than those tied to a school objective. A teacher who creates value for her learners and identifies diverse learning abilities by putting in the extra effort needs to know you noticed, and understand her effort to ensure the school’s success. Thus, as much as possible, catch people doing exemplary work and acknowledge their efforts.

 

4.     Be there when your people need you

 

Be an accessible leader, give your employees your time. For instance, even when you have an immediate deadline, give them a few minutes. Let's consider the deadline scenario and the impact of the two possible interactions. 

Scenario 01

Teacher knocks - Ma’am, I need to talk to you.  Do you have a minute?"

Principal responds "Actually, I don't. I need to get some information to the chairperson, we will talk later"

Scenario 02

Teacher knocks - Ma’am, I need to talk to you.  Do you have a minute?"

Principal responds "Sure, come on in. Let's make it a quick minute. However, I need to get some information to the chairperson. What can I do for you?"

The second interaction will have a much more positive impact on the employee. Even if you have to tell the employee after 3 minutes that you need to get back to getting the chairperson’s information, your staff will have a greater feeling of appreciation because you devote some of your precious time to listen in a time of need.

 

 

5.     Enhance your own competence to manage change 

 

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other” – John Kennedy, former President, USA

The new critical skills that school leaders need to develop are - leading virtual teams, building resilience, collaborating with others, and solving complex challenges in the educational ecosystem.

 

Many educational leaders learn through trial and error on how to lead effectively during change. Unfortunately, their learning curve can be at the expense of the organization. School Leaders must learn to manage the change or it will manage them. Remember, the perceptions of school leaders are often shaped during times of transition and change.  Don’t let people question your leadership and the mission of the school when changes need to be implemented. During times of change, the school leader must be accountable for what is working and what isn’t. Being accountable fosters a desire and commitment to fix problems to yield the best results. To be truly accountable means you are willing to let others see behind the curtain to candidly assess how things are going. You act with a lot of transparency. As you do this, your team will embrace a similar, no-blame openness to performance. Accountable leaders look at all aspects of the school—culture, processes, management, and staff—to ensure that they are all functioning optimally.  

Along with a formal change management training, you need to hone the skill to communicate, engage and to stay connected with your people. Lots of leaders want change, but only a select few actually help make it happen. In our fast-changing world, the strategic imperative to change is often clear, especially for new schools: Without doing things differently, your school is unlikely to succeed, or last. Change is difficult, but leaders who negotiate it successfully are resilient and persistent, and willing to step outside their comfort zone. 

So according to me, whether you are the Chairman, CEO, Director, Principal, Vice Principal or a member of the leadership team of your school, these 5 rules should help you to ensure that you will make all decisions based on evidences, balanced with experience and intuition. You will be able to develop the right strategies and systems for the future. Make your school the one that nurtures global leaders. Whether you are leaders of a new school or an established one, regardless of the country, region or board, committing to establishing solid leadership in an ongoing manner can make you an exceptional school leader for a lifetime.