Do you remember the most coveted job there was when you were in elementary school? I do. It was being chosen as the LINE LEADER. What a power rush for a 6 year old! Being chosen to lead the line of your classmates out to recess and back or to some other special place in the school. The thing was though, you weren’t giving orders or telling the other students what to do or where to go. You were the leader because you knew where to go and your actions were ones the other students followed to reach the goal, which brings me to the role school (and district) leaders should be playing for the teachers they serve.
I have personally known and served under a dozen or so school principals, all from different backgrounds and experiences. I knew only one who led like a line leader. This principal had an instructional vision for learning and led by example by modeling instruction weekly in classrooms. This principal was a leader, one to be followed. All the rest were just managers who gave instructions and orders. Can a school function under both types of school leadership? Sure they can. However, one will probably be a lot more successful in the job that the school and everyone working there exists for, which is learning .
Principals, assistant principals, district administration: it is imperative that you become leaders in learning, not just in name only, but in practice as well. Remember the line leader who others followed because of actions, not orders. Being a leader means you have to know and practice this profession we have taken on in order to be that model to follow. So many times, I have seen administrators who do not know instructional design and what it takes for students to learn. Even worse, I have worked for administrators who felt like it was not their job to do so in the first place. One principal who stood out would open his annual, first faculty meeting with this statement, “I am here to make sure the students are safe. I leave the instruction up to you.”
Any school or district administrator must be a constant practrician of instruction and learning. Anything less is professional negligence. Leaders must lead by actions. We choose our actions through our knowledge and experiences. If we, as leaders, do not consistently and constantly learn more and practice our profession, how can we be followed? How can we know learning is taking place? Another principal dogma I’ve heard from school leaders is, “get them (the students) here, get them fed, get them home.” What happened to learning? The whole reason the walls and lights and salaries exist is for that purpose.
What we as school leaders must do is to place our focus on where it belongs, on learning. There are two questions every school leader, at any level, can ask at the end of any work day in order to make sure the job was done that day. 1. What did I do to promote student learning today? And 2. How did I support the teachers I serve today? If you, as a school leader, can reflect on those two questions at the close of your day at work and you can provide an honest and worthy answer for each, AWESOME! Go home and rest well knowing you were the leader your school needed today.
If, upon reflecting, you could not answer both of those questions with a quality response, ask then, what got in the way? School leaders have meetings and other responsibilities from time to time. Hopefully, these meetings have the two previous questions at their center as well. But there are also other things that get in our way as leaders. Reflect on these things when they happen. Ask yourself as a leader about these things that got in the way of your purpose of promoting learning and supporting teachers. Ask yourself what steps you can take tomorrow to place your focus, time, energy, knowledge and passion into answering those two questions with quality answers.
School and district administrators, be a leader. This means be someone in this extremely challenging profession to follow in actions, not by orders. Your schools, teachers and students will see in you a knowledgeable, master of the craft who puts students learning first, and teachers second. Lead the way at the head of the line instead of pointing out the way to others.
