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The Global Emotional Intelligence Test uses 40 questions which are derived from, the Global instrument, which contains 158 items. These are based on Goleman's four quadrant Emotional Intelligence Competency Model (2002). Click EI Capability Assessment here for more details. Short EI quizzes such as this are meant to be fun, and to give you a guide to which EI areas you are doing well in and those which perhaps you need to focus on for development.

This Test, is a forced-choice psychological test which requires you to choose Instructions for the FREE EI Test one statement in each pair of statements that describes you best. For each pair of statements, select the statement that best applies to you. Do not over-analyse the questions, or try to think of "exceptions to the rule." Be spontaneous and choose the statement that comes closest to the way you are.

Occasionally there will be questions that ask you to make a close call between two choices. This is because the Test is trying to distinguish between specific areas. If a question is very close and you can't decide which statement applies to you best, you can come back to it after you have completed the other questions.

The Test usually takes about 10 minutes to complete. At the end of the test, click on the Score Test button, and wait for the computer to generate an EI profile of your scores. If you have answered honestly and accurately, your scores will reflect your capability level within each of the EI quadrants.

We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the results of this Test - only that it can help you begin your journey of self-development!

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Emotional Intelligence Test - Global Leadership Foundation

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Free emotional intelligence test developed by Global Leadership Foundation

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The more that you, as a leader, manage each of these areas, the higher your emotional intelligence. So, let's look at each element in more detail and examine how you can grow as a leader.

Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

1. Self-awareness

If you're self-aware, you always know how you feel, and you know how your emotions and your actions can affect the people around you. Being self-aware when you're in a leadership position also means having a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses, and it means behaving with humility.

So, what can you do to improve your self-awareness?

Keep a journal. Journals help you improve your self-awareness. If you spend just a few minutes each day writing down your thoughts, this can move you to a higher degree of self-awareness.

2. Self-regulation

Leaders who regulate themselves effectively rarely verbally attack others, make rushed or emotional decisions, stereotype people, or compromise their values. Self-regulation is all about staying in control.

This element of emotional intelligence, according to Goleman, also covers a leader's flexibility and commitment to personal accountability.

So, how can you improve your ability to self-regulate?

Hold yourself accountable. If you tend to blame others when something goes wrong, stop. Make a commitment to admit to your mistakes and to face the consequences, whatever they are. You'll probably sleep better at night, and you'll quickly earn the respect of those around you.

Practice being calm. The next time you're in a challenging situation, be very aware of how you act. Do you relieve your stress by shouting at someone else? Practice deep-breathing exercises to calm yourself. Also, try to write down all of the negative things you want to say, and then rip it up and throw it away. Expressing these emotions on paper (and not showing them to anyone!) is better than speaking them aloud to your team. What's more, this helps you challenge your reactions to ensure that they're fair!

3. Motivation

Self-motivated leaders work consistently toward their goals, and they have extremely high standards for the quality of their work.

How can you improve your motivation?

Re-examine why you're doing your job. It's easy to forget what you really love about your career. So, take some time to remember why you wanted this job. If you're unhappy in your role and you're struggling to remember why you wanted it, try the Five Whys technique to find the root of the problem. Starting at the root often helps you look at your situation in a new way. And make sure that your goal statements are fresh and energizing. For more on this, see our article on Goal Setting.

4. Empathy

For leaders, having empathy is critical to managing a successful team or organization. Leaders with empathy have the ability to put themselves in someone else's situation. They help develop the people on their team, challenge others who are acting unfairly, give constructive feedback, and listen to those who need it.

If you want to earn the respect and loyalty of your team, then show them you care by being empathic.

How can you improve your empathy?

Respond to feelings. You ask your assistant to work late - again. And although he agrees, you can hear the disappointment in his voice. So, respond by addressing his feelings. Tell him you appreciate how willing he is to work extra hours, and that you're just as frustrated about working late. If possible, figure out a way for future late nights to be less of an issue (for example, give him Monday mornings off).

5. Social Skills

Leaders who do well in the social skills element of emotional intelligence are great communicators. They're just as open to hearing bad news as good news, and they're experts at getting their team to support them and be excited about a new mission or project.

Leaders who have good social skills are also good at managing change and resolving conflicts diplomatically. They're rarely satisfied with leaving things as they are, but they don't sit back and make everyone else do the work: they set an example with their own behavior.

So, how can you build social skills?

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Emotional Intelligence in Leadership - Learning How to Be More Aware

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Relating to others is vital in today's workplace. Learn how to build your emotional intelligence (EI) with this article.

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Copy for Prezi Video Leadership Theory Comparison

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Copy for Prezi Video Leadership Theory Comparison

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Teachers are sacrificing their lunch periods to cover unsupervised classrooms, monitor lunch lines, and get behind the wheel of school buses. Students are enduring prolonged bus rides and diminished meal options. Principals are still searching far and wide to fill dozens of open positions, including for people who quit after the school year started.

And at least several dozen school buildings have temporarily shut down due to an insufficient number of adults on the job.

These are just a few of the many effects widespread staff shortages are having on the nation's 3.2 million teachers, 91,000 principals, and roughly 3 million support staff who work for public schools, according to interviews with educators and administrators and an Education Week analysis of local media reports.

Crucial job openings that would normally attract hundreds of applicants are going to underqualified candidates or remain unfilled, even with higher wages and recruitment bonuses fueled by federal relief aid. When people do get hired, they're taking time off more often because they're sick or were exposed to someone who may have COVID-19.

The current challenges highlight longstanding labor issues in K-12 schools and raise questions about the sustainability of fully reopened school buildings this year as the pandemic wears on. While vaccinations have dimmed the immediacy of the COVID-19 threat for many, the still-ongoing global crisis continues to take a substantial toll.

A longstanding crisis that shows no signs of slowing

This is hardly the first time schools have had trouble filling open positions; many have long struggled to find enough workers qualified to help students with disabilities, for instance.

But the problem right now is particularly acute, and many educators told Education Week they've never seen it worse. Subpar wages, minimal benefits, tough work environments, onerous pandemic protocols, pressing health concerns, contentious political disputes, and a broader trend of disruption in the American labor market are among the factors shaping this year's K-12 chaos.

District leaders and principals are scurrying to raise wages, expand benefits, and turbocharge recruitment drives. But the most common strategy in the short term for tackling the shortage, according to a recent EdWeek Research Center survey conducted between Sept. 29 and Oct. 8, is asking employees to take on additional responsibilities. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they've done that this year.

For many who work in schools, the year has piled new stress on top of old, falling far short of expectations for the coveted return to normalcy that appeared possible as vaccines rolled out earlier this year.

"We're certainly not feeling like we're in this period of recovery that we keep hearing about," said Brooke Olsen-Farrell, superintendent of the Slate Valley district in Vermont. "We're still in this pandemic, and I think feeling the effects even more so this year than ever before."

Olsen-Farrell spoke to Education Week from her home, where she was working remotely last week after her vaccinated husband tested positive for a breakthrough case of COVID-19. The next day, she said, half of the eight nurses for her six-building school system would be out sick or on quarantine.

On the list of positions Olsen-Farrell is having trouble filling: custodians, instructional assistants, bus drivers, special education assistants, and librarians. For the latter, the district cut the middle school library program to prioritize library services for K-5 students.

A middle school social studies teacher and a high school special education teacher both quit during the first week of school.

"They just walked out in the middle of the day, saying it was too much in this kind of environment," she said. "It's just too stressful."

The middle school teacher's replacement started last week; the district has yet to replace the other teacher, Olsen-Farrell wrote in a recent email.

Many exasperated educators are expressing existential concerns about the future of the public education system.

Here's what people who work in school buildings are seeing and feeling as staff shortages persist.

Teachers are filling all kinds of gaps, on top of their regular duties

At Belvidere Central Middle School in Illinois, the assistant principal shares with teachers a daily spreadsheet listing all the teachers who are absent and the timeslots that need to be filled. Thanks to a shortage of substitutes willing to step in, teachers are asked, though not required, to consider giving up their planning period to plug a hole in the schedule.

Johana Avila, a second-year instructor who teaches 6th- and 7th-grade social studies, recently covered a physical education class. It was surprisingly difficult to wrangle the students and teach them a sport she herself wasn't familiar with, she said.

She likely wouldn't offer to serve as a substitute again. "It's almost like you feel a little bit of guilt, I should be covering, I should help out. But at the same time, we're already piled so much with coming up with homework for kids who are quarantined," Avila said. "I just feel like I need that planning time to make sure I'm giving enough for my students."

At Huntington Middle School in Huntington, W.V., teachers are reluctant to give any substitute teachers a negative review in the required paperwork because they're "desperate" for anyone willing to work, said Angela Nottingham, who teaches 7th grade and leads the school's hiring committee for teachers.

Some teachers are volunteering to sacrifice both their planning periods and delaying plans for days off to ensure students are supervised.

"It's like baking a lasagna and baking a cake at the exact same time in the same kitchen, but you can only use one bowl," Nottingham said.

Most schools have avoided reverting back to remote learning even when staffing is thin, but some have had no choice.

The first time, teachers woke up one morning to an email from administrators notifying them that the school building was shut down, said Katherine Maloney-Jacobs, who teaches 3rd grade reading and social studies.

The next time, teachers found out at 5 p.m. the night before-too late to ensure students took home the materials they'd need to keep learning remotely.

"The hardest part was communicating with enough advance notice that parents don't feel caught off guard, or didn't feel pressure to get their students on Zoom at a certain time," she said. "I don't want parents to feel pressured because I know everybody's dealing with a lot right now."

Chaos has prevailed even when the school building is open. On some days, Maloney-Jacobs ends up with five extra students in her class because of teacher absences. She has to quickly integrate them into her classroom routine, find more desks and chairs, and race to make additional copies of assignments.

Olsen-Farrell said she's never seen burnout among staff hit so soon after the school year starts.

"Our teachers are June tired, and it's the beginning of October, but I was saying that at the beginning of September already," she said.

Nottingham said she thinks often about the fact that she could take a job doing data entry from her living room and make more money than she currently does.

"The only thing that my boss can do is say, 'This is happening everywhere,'" she said. "I understand that, and we all understand that. But it just doesn't seem like there's any relief at all."

Administrators struggle to make the case that working in a school will be rewarding

Thirty-percent of district leaders and principals who answered the EdWeek Research Center survey characterized their current staffing shortage as "moderate." Another 25 percent called it "severe," and 15 percent said the issues are "very severe." Only five percent said their schools aren't having staffing issues.

Administrators are faced with tough decisions about allocating resources and their own duties. The challenging conditions in schools don't lend themselves to pitching their work environments to prospective employees.

Several candidates at Oakwood Middle School in Statesville, N.C., have told principal Carrie Tulbert during job interviews that they could likely get paid $7 more per hour working at Chick-Fil-A, "in a great environment serving chicken all day," than they could as a school custodian.

"Typically you could have said, 'Working in education is so rewarding. You get to be with kids no matter what job you're doing, you're impacting kids and how they feel at school,'" Tulbert said.

"Now public education is such a polarizing experience unfortunately, and a political experience, and sometimes a very antagonistic experience because of what's going on in the world, that's hard to say as a recruiter and hiring manager."

The school started the year with two unfilled teacher vacancies. They've since been filled, but there weren't many applicants to choose from, Tulbert said. "You have to find somebody with an amazing heart and passion for teaching. Most of those people are scooped up earlier in the summer," she said.

Even when districts are seeing applications, many candidates lack the proper qualifications.

"We fill them with people who have no teaching experience and who get alternatively certified," said Heath Oates, superintendent of the El Dorado Springs district in Missouri. "Sometimes this works out. Sometimes it doesn't."

More than two-thirds of school district leaders and principals say they're struggling to hire a sufficient number of bus drivers, according to the EdWeek Research Center survey. Forty-one percent said the same about custodians, and 42 percent said the same about cafeteria workers.

Tulbert herself has been putting her bus driving license to use two days a week, covering for drivers who are out sick. She worries about the possibility of a fight breaking out or a parent needing her attention while she's away from the building during the pickup period after classes end.

More broadly, though, she worries that her colleagues are becoming disillusioned with working in education.

"A lot of teachers are now saying, 'I don't want to be an administrator. I wouldn't wish your job on anybody,'" she said. "How do you encourage people to come into a field where we don't have enough custodians so you're going to have to clean your own classroom?"

Students are missing out on crucial services

At the district's Greely Middle School, an 11-person team in the special education department has dwindled to six. Until last week, there was also an opening for a teacher in the behavior program for students who need specialized support and a quieter environment.

Stephanie LeBlanc, an instructional strategist who coordinates students' individual education plans (IEPs), was filling in for the behavior teacher on top of her regular duties. She also recently had to cover an English class because the school didn't have enough substitutes, and the educational technicians who have been helping fill gaps were busy with other substitute assignments.

"Everybody becomes more exhausted because the breaks that we would usually get aren't happening," LeBlanc said. "That cycle causes more people to be out."

The effects of the shortage are falling most heavily on students who need a staff member with them all day. Some students have had to go to unfamiliar classrooms or miss out on crucial opportunities for academically enriching activities.

"We're still meeting all kids' base needs and our minimum requirements," LeBlanc said. "But we really can't go above and beyond and create those fun or creative opportunities."

The Slate Valley district in Vermont has had to send students with disabilities home and offer compensatory services later to make up for their lost time in the building, Olsen-Farrell said.

Students in Syracuse, N.Y., have been missing morning classes and staying in school long after the final bell thanks to a shortage of bus drivers. In Medford, Ore., football games have been canceled, and a larger-than-usual number of students who live close to school buildings no longer have the option to ride the bus.

Schools in Filer, Idaho, closed for a week without remote learning recently due to an insufficient number of teachers. At least one school or district has also shut down temporarily due to staffing concerns in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia.

"I just think there needs to be recognition for a staffing crisis in education in the United States," Olsen-Farrell said. "I think this is going to be here long after COVID is gone."

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How Staff Shortages Are Crushing Schools

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Teachers are sacrificing their lunch periods to cover unsupervised classrooms, monitor lunch lines, and get behind the wheel of school buses. Students are enduring prolonged bus rides and diminished meal options. Principals are still searching far and wide to fill dozens of open positions, including for people who quit after the school year started.

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Teachers Want a Servant Leader to Understand

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Teachers Want a Servant Leader to Understand

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Teachers Want Their Administrators to Teach. Here’s Why

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Principals and other education administrators should even be required to spend time teaching in the classroom, according to teachers responding to an EdWeek query.

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The authors use American Teacher Panel data to explore the state of teacher well-being in the United States. They describe the job-related stressors that teachers faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and how those stressors are associated with teachers' reported well-being. They also examine the working conditions of teachers who were considering leaving their jobs because of the pandemic.

Research Questions

1. What is the state of teacher well-being during the pandemic?

2. What job-related stressors have teachers faced during the pandemic, and how are these stressors associated with teacher well-being?

3. How do teachers' reports of well-being and intentions to leave their job compare with those of the general public?

4. How do the job-related stressors faced by teachers who were considering leaving their jobs because of the pandemic differ from those faced by their peers: teachers who were likely to leave before the pandemic and teachers who were unlikely to leave?

Teaching was a stressful occupation long before the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic occurred; during the pandemic, it might have become even more stressful. Teachers are navigating unfamiliar technology, are balancing multiple modes of teaching, and have concerns about returning to in-person instruction. In addition, many teachers are caring for their own children while teaching.

To explore the issue of job-related stress among teachers, the authors fielded a survey in January and February 2021 through RAND's American Teacher Panel. The results suggest that teachers have experienced many job-related stressors during the 2020-2021 academic year. Perhaps as a result, one in four teachers were considering leaving their job by the end of the school year - more than in a typical prepandemic year and a higher rate than employed adults nationally. Black or African American teachers were particularly likely to plan to leave. Also, teachers were more likely to report experiencing frequent job-related stress and symptoms of depression than the general population.

Stressful working conditions and increased personal responsibilities were more common among likely pandemic leavers (i.e., teachers who were unlikely to leave their jobs before the pandemic but who were likely to leave at the time of the survey). The experiences of these likely pandemic leavers were similar in many ways to those of teachers who left the profession after the start of the pandemic. These similarities suggest that likely pandemic leavers might decide to quit their jobs absent efforts to address challenging working conditions and support teacher well-being.

Key Findings

Nearly one in four teachers said that they were likely to leave their jobs by the end of the 2020-2021 school year, compared with one in six teachers who were likely to leave, on average, prior to the pandemic. Black or African American teachers were particularly likely to plan to leave.

A much higher proportion of teachers reported frequent job-related stress and symptoms of depression than the general adult population.

Mode of instruction and health were the highest-ranked stressors for teachers.

One in three teachers were responsible for the care of their own children while teaching.

Many pandemic-era teaching conditions, such as technical problems while teaching remotely, were linked to job-related stress, depressive symptoms, and burnout.

More teachers who were likely pandemic leavers (i.e., teachers who were unlikely to leave their jobs before the pandemic but who were likely to leave at the time of the survey) experienced working conditions that were linked to higher levels of stress than teachers who were unlikely to leave and those who were considering leaving prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The experiences of likely pandemic leavers were similar in many ways to those of teachers who had already resigned during the pandemic.

Recommendations

Schools should implement recommended COVID-19 mitigation measures in a way that allows teachers to focus on instruction. Districts and schools could recruit additional staff to help students comply with safety measures. Schools could ensure that windows are operable, employ fans and air purifiers, or upgrade ventilation systems. Education leaders also should consider how schools can facilitate vaccinations for younger students once they become available.

Leaders should collect data on teacher working conditions and links to well-being. State, district, and school leaders should keep in mind that teachers from different backgrounds might be affected differently by their working conditions. For example, teachers of color might experience different job-related stressors and working conditions - and thus have different needs - than their teacher peers.

District leaders should work with teachers and school leaders to design and implement a variety of mental health and wellness supports. States and districts should consider using American Rescue Plan funds, along with teacher and principal input, to provide mental health supports for staff.

State leaders should help teachers access child care, which could go a long way toward alleviating stress and promoting teacher retention. State leaders should consider including teachers in the definition of essential worker to ensure that they are eligible for American Rescue Plan child care assistance.

District leaders should collaboratively develop clear policies for remote teaching and consider adopting technology standards for remote teaching equipment issued to teachers - such as laptops, cameras, and microphones - and provide necessary training to support remote teaching in the long term.

Related Products

The research described in this report was supported by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers and conducted by RAND Education and Labor.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Research report series. RAND reports present research findings and objective analysis that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND reports undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity.

Permission is given to duplicate this electronic document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Copies may not be duplicated for commercial purposes. Unauthorized posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are protected under copyright law. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit the RAND Permissions page.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

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Format:

Steiner, Elizabeth D. and Ashley Woo, Job-Related Stress Threatens the Teacher Supply: Key Findings from the 2021 State of the U.S. Teacher Survey. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2021. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-1.html.

Steiner, Elizabeth D. and Ashley Woo, Job-Related Stress Threatens the Teacher Supply: Key Findings from the 2021 State of the U.S. Teacher Survey, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND Corporation, RR-A1108-1, 2021. As of November 14, 2021: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RRA1108-1.html

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Job-Related Stress Threatens the Teacher Supply

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Nearly one in four teachers overall, and almost half of Black teachers in particular, said that they were likely to leave their jobs by the end of the 2020-21 school year. That's compared to one in six before the pandemic. They reported frequent stress and symptoms of depression more than the general population.

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1 in 4 teachers are considering quitting

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Texas Model for Comprehensive School Counseling

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Texas Model for Comprehensive School Counseling

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Why you should have a written leadership philosophy?

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Why you should have a written leadership philosophy?

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Deierlein, T. (2015). Why you should have a written leadership philosophy. Leader to Leader, 2015(77), 13–18.

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Teamwork 5 Dysfunctions | The Table Group

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organizational health, teams, teamwork, teambuilding, online assessment, team assessment, team effectiveness, team survey, team field guide, executive team, offsite facilitation, executive consulting, Lencioni keynote speaker, team video

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The Table Group is a firm dedicated to making companies more successful and work more fulfilling.

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Shackleton's Way Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer

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Shackleton's Way Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer Home Page

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Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for Students Webinar

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Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for Students Webinar

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Webinar from the authors

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Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for Students helps students to become emotionally intelligent leaders. Research from around the world has demonstrated that there is a relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership. For the second edition of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, the authors have incorporated their revised emotionally intelligent leadership (EIL) model into an engaging text for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. This fast paced and energetic webinar will focus on the model and how it can be applied to curricular and co-curricular settings.

Within this webinar, the authors, Scott Allen, professor of management at John Carroll University, Paige Haber-Curran, professor and program coordinator of student affairs in higher education master's program at Texas State University, and Marcy Shankman, vice president of strategy and director of Leadership Cleveland, will outline the EIL model (consciousness of context, consciousness of self, and consciousness of others) and explore the 21 capacities that define the emotionally intelligent leader.

Join the ILA in this webinar and learn more about the concept of leadership as a process among people working together productively in a group and not just a top-down phenomenon. The authors will explain how leadership is within everyone's ability to develop and is not just for those in official roles in formal organizations. You'll explore more about applying practical leadership skills and hear more about leadership as a learnable skill based on developing healthy and effective relationships.

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Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for Students - International Leadership Association

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Emotionally Intelligent Leadership: A Guide for Students helps students to become emotionally intelligent leaders. Research from around the world has demonstrated that there is a relationship between emotional intelligence and leadership. For the second edition of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, the authors have incorporated their revised emotionally intelligent leadership (EIL) model into an engaging text for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students.

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School counselors are uniquely equipped to bridge the gaps between administration, teachers, parents, and students. As the demands placed on everyone in a school community increase, it's vital that we view and include school counselors as part of our leadership teams. Let's make sure we recognize all they do and put their strengths to work for our students! Here are 11 ways school counselors serve as leaders in your building.

1. School counselors recognize and showcase diversity.

In many buildings, school counselors are considered the "heart" of the school. They help create an inclusive environment that is respectful, welcoming, kind, and open to all.

2. School counselors develop community partnerships.

Counseling staff work collaboratively with universities, community colleges, technical schools, local unions, military reps, and apprentice programs to provide a variety of opportunities for students. They are especially vital in ensuring underserved and first-generation students have access to and the tools to reach all possible post-high school options.

3. School counselors help during difficult situations.

Strengths such as listening, reflecting, and high emotional intelligence make school counselors valuable allies when trying to get buy-in from staff or the greater community on difficult issues. Counselors foster a culture of change via strong lines of communication and valuing input from all parties involved.

4. School counselors maintain strong home-school connections.

Counselors tend to be the liaison for parents when it comes to communicating with the school. This leadership role is especially important when assisting families who are not familiar with the school setting or have issues trusting staff.

5. School counselors maximize educational success.

School counselors can help to maximize the educational attainment of all students by providing students with mental health services (school or community-based) and developmental guidance that takes a proactive approach in helping students set and reach academic goals.

6. School counselors lead staff trainings.

Administrators who use their counseling staff (rather than outside contractors) to lead building-wide trainings can save a lot of money and gain quicker buy-in from staff. School counselors are experts on topics such as student engagement, positive discipline, suicide/self-harm, students-as-leaders, peer mentoring programs, and academic/social interventions for low-performing students.

7. School counselors protect and advocate for disadvantaged students.

Counselors identify and amend policies and practices that negatively impact disadvantaged students and advocate for equitable services for all students.

8. School counselors use expertise to bring data to life.

Like administrators, counselors are trained in data collection and analysis. They are skilled at using this information to drive decisions about placement, intervention, and overall student health and wellbeing.

9. School counselors mediate difficult situations between parents/students and staff.

Counselors are consistently looking for ways to support the relationship between school staff and parents. Acting as a mediator when one or both parties are upset about a situation is a critical way in which school counselors serve as leaders.

10. School counselors organize and lead crisis response.

Counselors are on the front lines after a tragedy has happened in a school or community. Staff, students, parents, and community members look to the counselors for guidance and support immediately following an event. Because of their training in emotional/mental, the counseling staff is critical in advocating for and teaching self-care to staff, parents, and students during a crisis.

11. School counselors empower and inspire.

School counselors inherently believe in people and work tirelessly to communicate that. By being visible and accessible at all times, their calming, caring, and encouraging presence helps support and empower staff in the building.

School counselors serve as leaders in many ways and we need to value their perspectives and strengths. They are vital to building positive learning environments in which students thrive.
Join our Facebook group Principal Life for more conversation about and insights into the challenges of school leadership.

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11 Ways Your School Counselors Serve as Leaders - WeAreTeachers

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School counselors are uniquely equipped to bridge the gaps between administration, teachers, parents, and students. As the demands placed on everyone in a school community increase, it's vital that we view and include school counselors as part of our leadership teams. Let's make sure we recognize all they do and put their strengths to work for our students!

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Building Leadership as a School Counselor

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Building Leadership as a School Counselor