To lead schools successfully, the relationship between the various leaders in the school and the teams that they lead is critical to establishing a healthy school culture and to achieve continuous improvement. There are times, perhaps, where leaders focus too much on the team members driving improvement as opposed to whether the team members are... Continue Reading →
Understanding our role and responsibilities as leaders in schools is better understood by examining the way relationships change in the building as one moves up the leadership ladder. When we begin teaching, our main interactions, on a day-to-day basis, are with students. As we take on leadership roles within the school, direct contact time with... Continue Reading →
A huge amount of effort goes into improving schools yet we often can overlook how much work is needed to maintain a high performance culture. As schools get better they often become more complex, as significant systems thinking goes into creating a high degree of synergy between the various components of a school that may... Continue Reading →
Does your 'To Do' list seem never-ending and continues to grow by the day? Well you are not alone, this is the case for most, if not all, school leaders. The problem can affect us to varying degrees, the most common of which we see is burn-out, frustration and despair, as we struggle to keep... Continue Reading →
Bob Davids stated in his talk on leadership without ego that as a leader "You need to be in touch with the people you lead, and you need to be in their shoes." Essentially what Davids was getting at in his talk is that good leaders will climb down down off their perch and get... Continue Reading →
An old colleague of mine used to say, "Happy teachers means happy students." There is some truth to this statement but upon closer examination, it quite often does not hold true. Leaders, indeed, do need to work hard at supporting teachers. Most importantly, leaders need to strive to create the conditions in schools where teachers... Continue Reading →
When observing classes in high schools, it is possible to see two extremes of teacher support. Firstly, there is complete hand-holding or, as some teachers would like to say, spoon feeding, with the teacher doing most of the work. Secondly, at the opposite end of the spectrum we have some teachers who provide little... Continue Reading →
Professional sports teams have coaches and they have leaders. Leaders in sports teams do not have to be the coach. All sports teams, however, have a person that must be the coach and a leader. Professional teachers and teaching teams require the same. Schools have a responsibility to provide leaders who are not just instructional coaches but they coach collaboration.
School leaders are faced with making many decisions each day. From time to time these decisions may not be popular with everyone. Unfortunately, there are some decisions we can control and others that we cannot and, oftentimes, we have to take responsibility for both. Many decisions that educational leaders make require teachers to support... Continue Reading →
