Question: Do you ask your teachers to develop unit and lesson plans?
Why would you not ask your administrative team to develop the same?
If you are achieving what you’re after in the form of getting the right things done, when you want them done and the way you’d like them done, then you may have reached a positive place with your administrative team in which they have learned to be self-motivated, self-directed, self-analyzing, and self-correcting. If so, congratulations! You have hit a great place.
BUT… if you’re like most of the principals I speak with, we have lots and lots of turnover in both the principalship and among assistant principals, instructional coaches, and other people who serve in administrative roles.
When you have turnover, you have uncertainty. When you haven’t done something, you may know a lot about it, but you haven’t learned the experiential part.
And, when we aren’t working from the gift of experience, we can often be unsure and insecure in what we do. Maybe we prefer to sit back rather than make a mistake?
ALL of that is as real as the buses who deliver the children, and you as the leader are wise when you acknowledge it, plan how to get things done, and teach your admin team how to utilize their time and other resources.
Here’s an easy way to teach your admin team to do the right things the right way:
A work plan. (See above and use if you would like). Nothing fancy. Just a WEEKLY MEETING with you and each of your admin team members (individually). They bring you (in writing) the results/evidence of what they did last week; they share their priorities for this week. YOU ask questions; you give guidance and help establish priorities with your people, and you are able to establish your standards of performance.
For them? Clarity. Not coming to you every few minutes, but on a regularly scheduled meeting that doesn’t get cancelled. And when people know what the expectations are? They do much better work.
Leave a Reply