School Leadership Trends for Back to School 2016

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Teachers will grow if empowered
What are thought leaders saying about school leadership during this back to school season? Visibility, decision-making, building capacity, being a lead learner, and retaining strong teachers are among the top ideas. 

The leadership and school improvement discussions have been great at the start of this school year. Here are four of the top school leadership tweets from the last four weeks.

Visibility and Decision-Making

The importance of culture is clearly stated here. Decision-making couched in the right culture is invaluable. EdLeaders can either establish or destroy a healthy culture. This is one area with no middle ground.

It is as simple as presence or absence. Mere absence can have a significantly negative impact. Leadership can undermine the organizational culture by being absent - or invisible. You can show up each day, and you still be absent. 

Likewise, you can show up every day and make an impact. You can interact with staff and faculty. You can talk, listen, and encourage. Daily engagement is critical to powerful decision-making.
Visibility and shared decision-making

Your visibility builds the necessary environment for shared decision-making. When visible, when present, you can be well-informed. You can feel the pulse of the campus. You become invested in the challenges faced by teachers and students. You become a better leader.

Build Capacity by Trusting Talent

Letting go of control is scary. It is also empowering to the campus. Teachers and staff have talent. They have insight, ability, and creativity. Trust in them. Let them do it. Lead, guide, and trust.

You cast the vision, facilitate shared goal-setting, and empower your teams. Your teams will grow into the trust you give. Your teachers will grow into the roles you empower. It's better to have dozens of empowered teachers than one overburdened leader! Trust and build capacity.

Bust the Lid as Lead Learner

You are the leader of a learning organization. Your own learning sets the stage for the campus culture. Will it be a stagnant culture? Or will it follow your lead of non-stop continual growth? 

Push your own limits. Never quench the thirst for more understanding, better insight, and deeper awareness. Your limits determine the capacity for growth on your campus. Bust the lid! 

If You Lead It, Teachers will Stay

Insecurity, incompetence, and lack of vision - quick paths to losing innovation and improvement! More importantly, they are quick paths to losing great talent...and keeping status quo.

People are the most valuable resource we have! The human connection, the talent, the ideas, and experience - you can't buy those things. We must lead it, to keep it.

Good leaders know this. Effective school leaders have vision and develop it with shared processes. They involve staff. They don't sell ideas. They engage teachers. They don't pander or manipulate. 

If you want to drive the best teachers away, it's easy. Try these non-strategies out and see how quickly the school talent decreases:

  • Stay in the office all day
  • Get behind on communication
  • Make last-minute decisions
  • Have many initiatives
  • Be afraid of  new ideas
That was hard writing that list. It's terrible! No passionate educator wishes to be in a school with that leader. Instead, they expect support, clear expectations, creative autonomy. They desire quality school leadership. 

These four tweets hold great insight into what makes leaders effective. Be visible. Prioritize your time around getting involved and gaining involvement in decision-making.

Let go of control and empower your teams. Watch as their capacity grows! Bust your own lid with non-stop learning. And be the leader your staff and teachers deserve! You can do it. You deserve it. Teachers deserve it. Our communities and students deserve it!

Plug into the learning conversations. Follow the blog on Twitter, @teamtomwaters1 or follow me, the author @mafost.

Tap to read Focus, the Essential Leadership Mindset
For more on leadership, read: Leadership Lessons from the Seagull and the Fungus
Leadership update for 2017: Feed the Principals!

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