By Jamie Bricker

Principals should be highly commended for navigating the tidal wave of pandemic-related issues that have swept across the education system over the past twelve months. Hopefully, this fall will bring much calmer waters for all concerned.

Speaking of the fall, this is the time of year when principals begin to shift a large part of their focus to the upcoming school year. One of an administrator’s top priorities is to ensure that the right people have been placed in the right positions to help ensure students have a very successful year. The following four metaphors provide an overview of some of the key considerations for school leaders as they piece their staff team together.

Circle of Trust – Contemplating Your Team 

The entire staff must exist within one large circle of inclusion, and not within a series of prioritized concentric rings. There cannot be any real or perceived “in crowd” or “out crowd,” and by the same token, no staff member can ever feel either isolated or targeted. The impactful principal makes a concerted effort to be everyone’s professional colleague, while being no one’s personal friend. The entire staff must comprise one crowd – our crowd.

It is incumbent upon the principal to make a genuine effort to reach out to bring everyone into our crowd, which will sometimes require establishing stronger connections with people who have long felt ostracized, ignored, or generally underappreciated.  Not only are such gestures good for staff unity and cohesion, but these disenfranchised people often provide numerous quality insights after they are recognized and valued. The bottom line is that meaningful, sustainable school change requires having everyone on board.

Staff, undoubtedly, will not agree with all a principal’s decisions, but they must know that such decisions were routinely guided by thoughtful, integrity-based leadership, not personal friendship. School leadership must do everything with transparency and integrity, as all decisions must be seen as being professionally based, not personally biased.

Seeing New Possibilities – Assembling Your Team  

Hiring quality new staff and supporting current staff are both vital components of professional development within a school.  When hiring new staff; assigning positions to present staff, and/or creating school teams, it is far too easy to simply maintain the status quo and continually most value people whose thinking closely aligns with that of the principal. These types of leaders spend the bulk of their careers looking in the proverbial mirror, as they want nothing more than to keep repeating past practice. 

This seems like a low-risk strategy, yet ironically such decisions ultimately place your entire school at risk of being caught in the middle of the old adage that, if you’re not moving forward, you’re falling behind. Forward-thinking leaders are constantly looking into the future, or through a window, rather than trying to continually repeat the past. After all, school growth is all about getting everyone to pursue future directions, not simply being satisfied with past reflections. 

Widening the Paddles – Growing Your Team     

All staff members have a unique range of skills and experiences. The professional schema of each person is represented by the width of the proverbial paddle that they bring to a given project. The wider the paddle, the more confident and competent the given person feels regarding the initiative. Staff members with the wider paddles will clearly have the more impactful strokes, and the width of staff members’ paddles will vary considerably for any given project. 

The key is for staff well versed in the given initiative to help others widen their paddles, by offering professional guidance and support. Staff members with very wide paddles in certain areas deserve leadership opportunities, whereas those with narrow paddles require learning opportunities. Over the long-term, all staff will assume the roles of both leader and learner on numerous occasions.

Considerable variance in schema-based paddle width for a given initiative is both expected and desired, but the one absolute constant needs to be the commitment of all staff members. This commitment is measured by the direction and depth of the given stroke. All staff members need to be paddling in the same direction, as significant counter paddling causes the team to go in circles, and nothing sustainable will be accomplished. The principal needs promptly to address these counter strokers, as well as any non-participants. Everyone on staff also needs to put the same effort into each stroke, as there cannot be any passengers on any initiatives. 

Freedom of Expression – Empowering Your Team 

It is important for principals to work with staff to develop agreed-upon parameters within which everyone can grow and prosper. For all school initiatives, a framework of guiding principles, expectations, and timelines must be established. There clearly needs to be an overall framework that parallels the priorities of the school plan, but each major initiative throughout the school year should also be enclosed by an appropriate framework. The dimensions of these frames are not arbitrarily imposed by the administrator, but rather freely discussed by all affected stakeholders prior to their completion. The overall dimensions of frames must be firm, but flexible, as some minor, ongoing adjustments will be required. 

Decisions made by all stakeholders must be consistent with the agreed upon dimensions of the given frame, but within this frame parties are afforded considerable latitude as to how they accomplish the agreed upon goals. After all, there is no question that administrative micromanagement inevitably leads to resentment; stifles people’s passion and creativity; and, represents a highly ineffective use of the principal’s time. 

The far more productive strategy is to provide each stakeholder with a proverbial brush and the freedom to share one’s thoughts and ideas within the established framework. Each person’s contributions will clearly vary depending on individual schema, but all proposals must be consistent with the overall vision, or frame dimensions. The ideal outcome is the creation of tertiary colors, reflective of the blending of the very best aspects of numerous submissions.

This sharing process needs to be genuine, and truly supported and encouraged by the principal. After all, there is nothing more deflating for staff than to be seemingly empowered on a given initiative, only to have the principal conclude the session by taking out the proverbial roller and glossing over much of what the team has suggested. Rest assured, trust will be irrevocably broken and there will be little or no enthusiasm for future participation in any similar professional discussions.

This is the final article in a monthly series on the impact of Affective Leadership in the school system. Affective leadership is all about working with people, rather than trying to work through them or simply going around them. All stakeholders become far more invested in the school, when they feel genuinely valued, respected, and heard by administration. The pandemic has immeasurably heightened this need for connectivity.

About the author

Jamie Bricker is a published author and international speaker. As a retired school principal, he has long been a strong advocate of affective leadership and has experienced its profound impact. He is also co-host of two podcasts, including Affective Leadership – Positivity Promotes Productivity. He also blogs weekly on various aspects of affective leadership, and his blogs can be found on LinkedIn.  Jamie can be contacted by email at info@jamiebricker.com or through his website at  www.jamiebricker.com.         

This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media hub focused on providing context for the shift in education to digital curriculum.