My Educational Leadership Philosophy
By Erin Dooley
Educational leadership is an incredibly broad, highly challenging, and constantly changing entity. The role and duties of educational leader must be worked on, reflected on and improved on as the leader moves through their career. As leaders go through their daily work, they employ many of the Minnesota Principal competencies – often several at a time. My personal philosophy on leadership can be summed up as follows: Plan from the head, Lead from the heart, Adapt from the gut.
Planning to lead a building is the “up-front” work, and needs to be cerebral in nature. The three main documents that represent this work are the vision and mission of the school, which is supported by the school improvement plan (SCIP in St. Paul), which is, in turn, supported by the budget. The latter two of these are becoming more centrally controlled, at least in large districts. The school has control of the vision and mission, however. My thoughts for the mission of whichever school I lead are short and to the point: Learners prepared for the next step in their lives without remediation. Whether this means leaving elementary school with at least a 5th grade reading level, leaving junior high school with a solid math foundation for high school math, or graduating high school ready to enter college without needing to pay for remedial courses, or head directly into a job or career before or instead of college.
The steps the school will take to meet the vision and mision criteria shape the SCIP plan. Many large districts are assigning goals or goal categories for schools to meet during the year and I think that it is important for a leader to be able to take a close look at the data for the particular school and shape the actual goals to match reality – where the school is in relation to the district goals, the school capacity to adapt, the relationship of the school with families and community – and then build on small, incremental successes. A firm grasp and understanding of data plays an integral part in this step. The leader not only needs to be aware of which data are important, but also to be able to look at trends in the broader picture, such as changing standards, updated state assessments, general educational trends, etc. This would be the ideal context for the leader to partner with the district’s data, curriculum, and assessment groups. SCIP goals need to take into account the trends and goals of the district and state while keeping in mind the strengths and needs of the specific school.
For the most part, at least in large districts, the budget is another area where the leader has relatively limited flexibility. Particularly when it comes to staffing. With shrinking enrollments recently, the decisions are often which positions will be cut. In St. Paul the district allots and funds Full Time Equivalencies (positions) in Special Education and ELL staff, both teachers and paraprofessionals. Building administrators have the choice to cover the salaries of additional personnel in these areas and have hiring power, but the base funding is centrally controlled.
Leading from the heart means creating strong, trusting relationships with staff, students, parents, and community. Strong relationships enable a leader to introduce new directions and development initiatives that are a good fit for the staff, at a pace that feels right. Safeguarding them from top-down programs and/or timeframes that are unreasonable to whatever extent I can. Having strong family and community relationships enable the leader to push the school beyond where it is to the next level. Students and parents who trust the school will work harder for programs to succeed and communities that have a good relationship with the school will lend support.
Adapting from the gut to me means that when the time for change comes, whether the impetus for the change comes from within the building or from outside, educational leaders need to do their research and use personal connections to gain information regarding the change, but ultimately decisions need to be made. It is not possible to gather 100% of all desired information before decisions are made, and delaying decisions is often a decision in itself. The leader needs to feel comfortable with the burden of having the final deciding power. Mistakes will be made, but also learned from, and can’t impede the process of making tough decisions in the future.
One of the most important parts of being a building leader is hiring new people. Once the resume and references have been checked and networking connections have been tapped for information, the leader needs to be able to judge whether the potential hire will be an integral part of moving a building forward. The leader can discuss this with the potential hire, but ultimately needs to decide whether the potential hire is willing and able to buck the current system, if needed. When the leader feels certain that the new hire is the right fit, the process needs to move to the next step.
Another decision leaders need to make is how to deal with initiatives that come to the building, whether from the district or other sources. The leader needs to be analytical in examining whether the initiative will fit into their building’s current structure – the mission and SCIP – in what way will it fit with the school’s journey. The leader needs to reach out to the staff to be sure that they are ready for a change and how quickly the change can be implemented. At that point, the leader needs to decide whether or not to take on the initiative – and then be prepared to monitor its progress. Making one decision or the other, even if it is the correct decision, will not come without needing to adapt to it and experiencing growing pains.
Leaders need to be able to balance their analytical, personal, and intuitive selves. Using any one of these alone will not take into account all aspects of a building and not provide enough information to create and carry out a mission or adapt when necessary. Using a combination of all three will give the leader information, insight, and momentum to understand the needs of the building, be able to make and monitor logical decisions that will enable the building to move forward.
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