What Effective Leadership is Not

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What makes for effective school leaders? This week, @RELMidwest tweeted this list: 
https://twitter.com/RELMidwest/status/726818924524912640
Great (if not standard) list of the most important leadership responsibilities of the principal. Here's my opposite list. 

What Leadership Is Not:


  1. No one on campus ever remembers or uses the mission statement in practice. Posting the mission and vision statement on the CIP or website, but never referring to it during decision making, staff meetings, goal-setting, and team meetings. Making those statements verbose and eloquent, but it's useless.
  2. Demanding weekly meetings. When admin enters the meeting, the room goes silent, innovation stops, creativity halts, ideas are squelched, and teachers look to the principal in fear, doubt, or cynicism.
  3. Failure is to be avoided at all costs. Taking a risk is bad. Experimenting is a waste of time. Results are avoided or useless. Politics and opinions matter more than evidence.
  4. Where's the principal? Not around teachers on a day-to-day basis. Spends more time in office than with staff. When in conversation with teachers, it's just small talk. Teachers are defensive when conversations of student performance arise.
  5. Resources are used for the same old stuff. Technology is scant. Fundraising invades on instructional time, and teachers don't know how funds are even used. Campus improvement plans are a formality. Strategic planning around real data and real needs doesn't really happen.
  6. Parents and communities aren't aware of how cutting-edge the school is. But wait, is the school cutting edge? Community members begin wondering, "Should we be looking for an affordable private school? Let's vote for vouchers...I don't think my school is doing things right." Hmmm...
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