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The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning
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The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning

Shaping a vision of academic success for all students

Although they say it in different ways, researchers who have examined education leadership agree that effective principals are responsible for establishing a schoolwide vision of commitment to high standards and the success of all students.

Newcomers to the education discussion might find this puzzling: Hasn't concern with the academic achievement of every student always topped principals' agendas? The short answer is, no. Historically, public school principals were seen as school managers, 5 and as recently as two decades ago, high standards were thought to be the province of the college bound. "Success" could be defined as entry-level manufacturing work for students who had followed a "general track," and low-skilled employment for dropouts. Only in the last few decades has the emphasis shifted to academic expectations for all.
"Having high expectations for all is one key to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and less advantaged students."
This change comes in part as a response to twin realizations: Career success in a global economy depends on a strong education; for all segments of U.S. society to be able to compete fairly, the yawning gap in academic achievement between disadvantaged and advantaged students needs to narrow. In a school, that begins with a principal's spelling out " high standards and rigorous learning goals," Vanderbilt University researchers assert with underlined emphasis. Specifically, they say, "The research literature over the last quarter century has consistently supported the notion that having high expectations for all, including clear and public standards, is one key to closing the achievement gap between advantaged and less advantaged students and for raising the overall achievement of all students."

"Seek Out the Best Preparation You Can Find"

Advice to Teachers Interested in Becoming a Principal

"There's a tradition of teachers who are really excellent exemplars in the classroom of saying, 'I don't want to be a principal because it has nothing to do with instruction,'" says Linda Darling-Hammond, a leading authority on education policy and the teaching profession. [See Q&A with her.] "But one of the things we found in our study was that as some of those people were reached out to and got the message that being a principal could be about... building the quality of instruction, they said, 'Oh, well I might actually want to do that.' They've become spectacular school principals, and we've seen them in action.So number one, do it if that's what you're passionate about.

"Number two, seek out the best preparation you can find for instructional management, for organizational development, for change management - for these things that we know matter because [being a principal] is a different use of your skills and talents. There is a broader knowledge base to capture, and not every place you may look to build your skills will have those pieces in place. Be aggressive about finding the right support and training for yourself.

"Third, collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. Go into this with the idea that, 'I'm going to build a team. It's not going to just have to be me. My job is to really find the expertise and the skills and the abilities of the people that I work with, cultivate those, glue them together.' You will be both a more successful principal and you will be a saner principal who has at least a little bit of a life beyond all of the effort that you put into the work in the schools."

So, developing a shared vision around standards and success for all students is an essential element of school leadership. As the Cheshire cat pointed out to Alice, if you don't know where you're going, any road will lead you there.

Creating a climate hospitable to education

Effective principals ensure that their schools allow both adults and children to put learning at the center of their daily activities. Such "a healthy school environment," as Vanderbilt researchers call it, is characterized by basics like safety and orderliness, as well as less tangible qualities such as a "supportive, responsive" attitude toward the children and a sense by teachers that they are part of a community of professionals focused on good instruction.

Is it a surprise, then, that principals at schools with high teacher ratings for "instructional climate" outrank other principals in developing an atmosphere of caring and trust? Or that their teachers are more likely than faculty members elsewhere to find the principals' motives and intentions are good?

One former principal, in reflecting on his experiences, recalled a typical staff meeting years ago at an urban school where "morale never seemed to get out of the basement." Discussion centered on "field trips, war stories about troubled students, and other management issues" rather than matters like "using student work and data to fine-tune teaching." Almost inevitably, teacher pessimism was a significant barrier, with teachers regarding themselves as "hardworking martyrs in a hopeless cause."

To change this kind of climate - and begin to combat teacher isolation, closed doors, negativism, defeatism and teacher resistance - the most effective principals focus on building a sense of school community, with the attendant characteristics. These include respect for every member of the school community; "an upbeat, welcoming, solution-oriented, no-blame, professional environment;" and efforts to involve staff and students in a variety of activities, many of them schoolwide.

Engaging parents and the community: continued interest, uncertain evidence
Many principals work to engage parents and others outside the immediate school community, such as local business people. But what does it take to make sure these efforts are worth the time and toil required? While there is considerable interest in this question, the evidence on how to answer it is relatively weak. For example, the Minnesota-Toronto study found that in schools with higher achievement on math tests, teachers tended to share in leadership and believed that parents were involved with the school. The researchers noted, however, that "the relationships here are correlational, not causal," and the finding could be at odds with another finding from the study. Separately, the VAL-ED principal performance assessment (developed with support from The Wallace Foundation) measures principals on community and parent engagement. Vanderbilt researchers who developed the assessment are undertaking further study on how important this practice is in affecting students, achievement. In short, the principal's role in engaging the external community is little understood.
Principals play a major role in developing a "professional community" of teachers who guide one another in improving instruction.
Cultivating leadership in others

In fact if test scores are any indication, the more willing principals are to spread leadership around, the better for the students. One of the most striking findings of the universities of Minnesota and Toronto report is that effective leadership from all sources - principals, influential teachers, staff teams and others - is associated with better student performance on math and reading tests.

University of Washington research on leadership in urban school systems emphasizes the need for a leadership team (led by the principal and including assistant principals and teacher leaders) and shared responsibility for student progress, a responsibility "reflected in a set of agreements as well as unspoken norms among school staff."

Effective principals studied by the University of Washington urged teachers to work with one another and with the administration on a variety of activities, including "developing and aligning curriculum, instructional practices, and assessments; problem solving; and participating in peer observations." These leaders also looked for ways to encourage collaboration, paying special attention to how school time was allocated. They might replace some administrative meeting time with teacher planning time, for example. The importance of collaboration gets backing from the Minnesota-Toronto researchers, too. They found that principals rated highly for the strength of their actions to improve instruction were also more apt to encourage the staff to work collaboratively.

What does "professional community" look like? Its components include things like consistent and well-defined learning expectations for children, frequent conversations among teachers about pedagogy, and an atmosphere in which it's common for teachers to visit one another's classrooms to observe and critique instruction.
A central part of being a great leader is cultivating leadership in others.
Most principals would welcome hearing what one urban school administrator had to say about how team-based school transformation works at its best: "like a well-oiled machine," with results that could be seen in "student behavior, student conduct, and student achievement."

Improving instruction

Effective principals work relentlessly to improve achievement by focusing on the quality of instruction. They help define and promote high expectations; they attack teacher isolation and fragmented effort; and they connect directly with teachers and the classroom, University of Washington researchers found.

Effective principals also encourage continual professional learning. They emphasize research-based strategies to improve teaching and learning and initiate discussions about instructional approaches, both in teams and with individual teachers. They pursue these strategies despite the preference of many teachers to be left alone.

In practice this all means that leaders must become intimately familiar with the "technical core" of schooling - what is required to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

A PROFILE IN LEADERSHIP: DEWEY HENSLEY

Nearly all 390 students at Louisville's J. B. Atkinson Academy for Excellence in Teaching and Learning live in poverty. But from 2006 to 2011, principal Dewey Hensley showed this needn't stand in the way of their succeeding in school. Under Hensley's watch, students at Atkinson, once one of the lowest performing elementary schools in Kentucky, doubled their proficiency rates in reading, math and writing. Most recently, the school was one of only 17 percent in the school district that met all of its "adequate yearly progress" goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

Hensley's is not a tale of lonely-at-the-top heroics, however. Rather, it is a story about leadership that combines a firm belief in each child's potential with an unrelenting focus on improving instruction - and a conviction that principals can't go it alone. "Building a school is not about bricks," Hensley says. "It's about teachers. From inside out, you have to build the strengths. I'm not the leader. I'm a leader. I've tried to build strong leaders across the board."

Today Hensley is chief academic officer of Jefferson County, Ky., Public Schools. Principals there and elsewhere could learn a lot from how he led Atkinson with a style that mirrors in many ways the characteristics of effective school leadership identified in research.

Shaping a vision of academic success for all students
His first week on the job, Hensley drew a picture of a school on poster board and asked the faculty to annotate it. "Let's create a vision of a school that's perfect," he recalls telling them, adding: "When we get there, then we'll rest." Hensley, the first person in his extended family to graduate from high school and then college, sought to instill in his staff the idea that all children could learn, with appropriate support. "I understand the power of a school to make a difference in a child's life," he says. "They [all] have to have someone who will give them dreams they may not have."

Creating a climate hospitable to education
School suspensions at Atkinson were among the highest in the state when Hensley took over. Determined to create a more suitable climate for learning, Hensley visited the homes of the 25 most frequent student offenders, telling the families that their children would be protected, but other children would be protected from them, too, if necessary. Hensley brought in teams to diagnose each child's academic and emotional needs and develop individual "prescriptions" that might include anything from home visits to intensive tutoring to eyeglasses. Chess club, a special program for truant students and ballroom dancing lessons culminating in a formal candlelit dinner that included students' parents were other tone-changers, along with school corridors with names like Teamwork Trail and street signs directing students 982 miles to Harvard or 2,352 miles to Stanford.

Cultivating leadership in others
Hensley set up a leadership structure with two notable characteristics. First, it was simple, comprising only three committees: culture, climate, and community; instructional leadership; and student support. Second, it made leadership a shared enterprise. The committees were populated and headed by teachers, with every faculty member assigned to one. "I relinquished leadership in order to get control," Hensley says. "I asked people to be about leadership."

He also encouraged his teachers to learn from one another. Science teacher Heather Lynd recalls the day Hensley visited her classroom and then asked her to lead a faculty meeting on anchor charts, annotated diagrams that can be used to explain everything from the water cycle to punctuation tips. "He's built on teachers' strengths to share them with others," says reading specialist Lori Atherton. "That creates leadership."

Improving instruction
Hensley did a lot of first-hand observation in classrooms, leaving behind detailed notes for teachers, sharing "gold nuggets" of exemplary practices, things to think about and next steps for improvement. He also introduced cutting-edge professional development, obtaining a grant to set up the ideal classroom in the building, full of technology and instructional resources. And he formed a collaboration with the University of Louisville. In one project, professors observed how Atkinson's teachers kept students engaged and shared the collected data with the faculty in addition to using it for a research study.

Hensley also encouraged teachers to do skill building on their own. As a result, Atkinson teachers began attaining certification at a feverish pace from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, a private group that offers teachers an advanced credential based on rigorous standards. Finally, Hensley focused on getting students the instruction that tests and observations showed they needed. For example, Hensley paired struggling 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders with National Board-certified teachers who gave them intensive help in reading and writing until they reached grade level.

Managing people, data and processes
Data use figured prominently in Hensley's turnaround efforts. "We test them once, we see where they are," science teacher Lynd says of the students. "If they're not proficient, we re-teach and test again." To track progress across the school, Atkinson used a data board that lined one wall in the school's curriculum center. Under photos of each teacher, staff members could view the color-coded trajectory of students' achievement measured on three levels: grade level, below grade level and significantly below. The display was part of what Hensley calls the faculty's "tolerance for truth," honestly examining results and "taking ownership of each student's performance."

Such methods did not win plaudits from everyone; half the faculty transferred after his first year. But as time went by, the number of teachers seeking to leave the school declined to a trickle and the list of those seeking to transfer in ballooned. Moreover, if winning over skeptics is any indication of success, Hensley points with pride to a comment years later from a veteran teacher who had initially opposed his changes at Atkinson: "She said, 'They sent a lot of people here to fix this school. You're the only one who taught us how.'"

Principals themselves agree almost unanimously on the importance of several specific practices, according to one survey, including keeping track of teachers' professional development needs and monitoring teachers' work in the classroom (83 percent). Whether they call it formal evaluation, classroom visits or learning walks, principals intent on promoting growth in both students and adults spend time in classrooms (or ensure that someone who's qualified does), observing and commenting on what's working well and what is not. Moreover, they shift the pattern of the annual evaluation cycle to one of ongoing and informal interactions with teachers.

The Minnesota-Toronto study paints a picture of strong and weak instructional leadership. "Both high- and low-scoring principals said that they frequently visit classrooms and are 'very visible,'" the researchers write. "However, differences between principals in the two groups come into sharp focus as they describe their reasons for making classroom visits. High-scoring principals frequently observed classroom instruction for short periods of time, making 20 to 60 observations a week, and most of the observations were spontaneous. Their visits enabled them to make formative observations that were clearly about learning and professional growth, coupled with direct and immediate feedback. High-scoring principals believed that every teacher, whether a first-year teacher or a veteran, can learn and grow.
Effective leaders view data as a means not only to pinpoint problems but to understand their nature and causes.
"... In contrast, low-scoring principals described a very different approach to observations. Their informal visits or observations in classrooms were usually not for instructional purposes. Even informal observations were often planned in advance so that teachers knew when the principal would be stopping by. The most damaging finding became clear in reports from teachers in buildings with low-scoring principals who said they received little or no feedback after informal observations."

As noted above, a central part of being a great leader is cultivating leadership in others. The learning-focused principal is intent on helping teachers improve their practice either directly or with the aid of school leaders like department chairs and other teaching experts.

Managing people, data and processes

"In the great scheme of things," noted one research report, "...schools may be relatively small organizations. But their leadership challenges are far from small, or simple." To get the job done, effective leaders need to make good use of the resources at hand. In other words, they have to be good managers.

Effective leaders studied by University of Washington researchers nurtured and supported their staffs, while facing the reality that sometimes teachers don't work out. They hired carefully, but - adhering to union and district personnel policies - they also engaged in "aggressively weeding out individuals who did not show the capacity to grow."

The simple fact is that without effective leaders most of the goals of educational improvement will be very difficult to achieve. Absent attention to that reality, we are in danger of undermining the very standards and goals we have set for ourselves. Fortunately, we have a decade of experience and new research demonstrating the critical importance of leadership for school principals and documenting an empirical link between school leadership and student growth. And we have the benefit of the professional standards developed by ISLLC and principal evaluation tools like VAL-ED.

Still, the lives of too many principals, especially new principals, are characterized by "churn and burn," as the turnover findings bear out. So what can be done to lessen turnover and provide all teachers and students with the highly skilled school leadership they need and deserve? In other words, how do we create a pipeline of leaders who can make a real difference for the better, especially in troubled schools?

A pipeline for effective leadership
Wallace's work over the last decade suggests such a pipeline would have four necessary and interlocking parts:

Defining the job of the principal and assistant principal. Districts create clear, rigorous job requirements that detail what principals and assistant principals must know and do, and that emerge from what research tells us are the knowledge, skills and behaviors principals need to improve teaching and learning.

Providing high-quality training for aspiring school leaders. Principal training programs, whether run by universities, nonprofits or districts, recruit and select only the people with the potential and desire to become effective principals in the districts the programs feed into. The programs provide the future leaders with high-quality training and internships that reflect the realities education leaders face in the field.

Hiring selectively. Districts hire only well-trained candidates for principal and assistant principal jobs.

Evaluating principals and giving them the on-the-job support they need. Districts regularly evaluate principals, assessing the behaviors that research tells us are most closely tied to improving teaching and student achievement. Districts then provide professional develop- ment, including mentoring, that responds to what the evaluations find for each individual.

Coordination of state and district efforts
Effective school leadership depends on support from district and state officials. Except for the most entrepreneurial, principals are unlikely to proceed with a leadership style focused on learning if the district and state are unsupportive, disinterested or pursuing other agendas.

Leadership and the transformation of failing schools
Armed with what we've learned about the potential for leadership over the last decade, we have cause for optimism that the education community's long neglect of leadership is at last coming to an end. We still have a lot to learn, but we have already learned a great deal. In the face of this growing body of knowledge and experience, it is clear that now is the time to step up efforts to strengthen school leadership. Without effective principals, the national goal we've set of transforming failing schools will be next to impossible to achieve.

But with an effective principal in every school comes promise.

THE PRINCIPAL-TEACHER CONNECTION: A SCHOLAR'S VIEW
Linda Darling-Hammond is the Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University. One of the nation's leading authorities on education policy as well as teachers and the teaching profession, Darling-Hammond has served on The Wallace Foundation's board of directors since 2009. She was interviewed in April 2012 by Lucas Held, Wallace's communications director. These are edited excerpts of the interview. Lucas Held: What do we know about the link between effective teaching and good principals? You note in your 2010 book, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future, that good principals are the number one reason why teachers stay in school.
Linda Darling-Hammond: That comes up in survey after survey. If you ask teachers, "What kept you in a school that you're in?" or "What caused you to leave?" administrative leadership and support is one of the most critical elements because everything the teacher does is framed by the way the leadership operates. It is possible to be an effective teacher in a poorly led school but it's not easy. That takes a toll. And it is possible to become an ever more effective and successful teacher in a well-led school. Teachers go into the profession to be successful with kids. If they are working with a leadership team led by a principal who understands what it takes to be successful with kids, how the organization should be organized, what kind of supports need to be there, how learning for teachers can be encouraged as well as learning for students, how to get the community and the parental supports in place, that lets the teacher do her or his job effectively and achieve the most important intrinsic motivation: success with kids.
LH: Is that connection generally known?
LDH: You would think it would be obvious. But in schools where there has not been much cultivation of leaders, there is often a hunkering down and just saying, "Well, there's leadership over [t]here and there's teaching over here." That misses the boat in terms of creating effective learning organizations.
LH: How do principals and teachers work together to create a collaborative focus on learning?
LDH: In thriving schools you have a professional learning community. If there isn't one, it's something that teachers and leaders have to build together, getting past the closed-door culture which is often inherited in schools: "We're all doing our own thing in our own classroom."

Leaders who are effective often have a distributed leadership approach. The principal functions as a principal teacher who is really focusing on instruction along with [and] by the side of teachers - not top down mandates and edicts. When principals are trying to help create such a culture, [they] begin to open the doors and say, "Let's talk about our practice. Let's show our student work. Let's go look at each other's classrooms and see what we're doing." Obviously the teachers who will benefit from that can facilitate [matters] by opening their doors and working with each other and bringing ideas to the table. One of the best practices that I've seen when new cultures are being planted is holding the faculty meeting in a different room every time and allowing teachers to talk about strategies they're using that are proving successful. Being willing to open your door and say, "Here's what's going on in my little kingdom here" is the beginning of planting seeds to create a collaborative culture where learning is always building on what teachers and leaders are doing together.
LH: Is it your sense that most schools are operating this way or does this remain the exception?
LDH: More and more teachers are willing and eager to collaborate with one another. More and more leaders are becoming aware of how important that is. But it is certainly not everywhere. There [was] an interesting survey not long ago, The Schools and Staffing Survey, which the federal government does. It asked teachers, "How many of you have the opportunity to collaborate with each other?" Something like 80 or more percent said, "Yes, I have that opportunity." But [when the survey] asked how many would strongly agree or would agree that there is a collaborative culture in their schools where people collaborate frequently, only 15 percent said that. What it says to me is that we have a little bit of collaboration going around everywhere, but we have a lot of collaboration going on in very few places.

One reason for that is that we design our schools in most cases still in the United States based on the factory model of 100 years ago, where the idea was that teachers are only working when they're in classrooms instructing children. If you look at schools in many countries in Europe and Asia, teachers have about 15 hours a week or more where they collaborate with each other on planning, to do action research, to do lesson study, to go into each other's classrooms and look at what they're doing, to meet with parents and students about issues that have come up or that they're trying to address. That differential use of time allows teachers to continually get better at what they're doing. We need to restructure schools to be able to do that.
LH: What you're saying, in a sense, is that a collaborative learning environment is so important that time needs to be carved out to focus on building that work.
LDH: That's right - and being sure that whenever somebody is doing something right, it's getting shared, and whenever somebody has a problem, they have people to go to to help them solve their problem. [There are] very interesting studies about gains in student achievement that have gone on in recent years, and a couple of them are particularly important. They find that there's much greater gain in student achievement in a school when people work collaboratively in teams and when teams of teachers stay together over a period of time and build their collective know ledge and collective capacity. The whole can be greater than the sum of the parts. That's one of the major jobs of good leadership.
LH: Do teachers need to understand what effective principals do?
LGH: I think so for many reasons. One is so that [they] know what to expect. [Another] is that there's increasing use of 360-evaluations, where everyone is inputting to perceptions about the effectiveness of their leaders. [It's important] also [to understand] how to work as a team, how to be supportive of one another.

A lot of a principal's work can be invisible to teachers when they're in the classroom. I often use the metaphor of the conductor of the orchestra. We watch the conductor, we're in the audience and we say, "I could do that. Piece of cake. Right?" That's true of teachers' skill in the classroom; it's also true of principals' skill in orchestrating the collective, harmonious work of teachers. [The principal's work] includes organizational design and development. It includes instructional leadership and the development of learning opportunities for kids and teachers. It includes change management, moving an organization from where it is to where it needs to be. It includes outreach with various publics and communities that maintain support for the school - the school board, the parent community, others in the community who are resources to the work of the school.... It's important to understand those things, both to be able to expect and support them, and to also provide good feedback and evaluation.
LH: What advice would you give teachers to become part of the process of making their schools better places?
LDH: Obviously everyone works in their own vineyard, in their own classroom. Beyond that, it's important for teachers to learn from the beginning of their careers - and throughout their careers - how to be good collaborators and community members, how to reach out to others (both to offer to share ideas and thoughts, and to ask and learn from others), how to propose ways that collaboration may be able to take root, to sometimes reach out to the principal and say, "Can I help with this? Is there a way that I can facilitate some of this work getting done or enable you to be able to facilitate it?" There is still quite often this idea that each teacher is a lone agent and the principal is a lone agent, just like the superwoman or superman image, with the cape. And in fact, sometimes school leaders are alone and isolated and may not even realize that they can get help from the faculty to move an agenda forward.
LH: Sounds like a two-way street.
LDH: Absolutely. There actually is a lot to learn about how to be a good collaborator, how to manage differences of opinion, how to talk to each other in ways that will be productive and then get to a place where the conversations can be better and richer. In our efforts to develop the profession, we have to make sure that kind of learning is available to everyone.
LH: Let's talk about some of the features that distinguish high-performing schools from low-performing schools.
LDH: One of the features that we've talked about is lots of collaboration around good practice. That's built on a strong foundation of trust. Some really important research [has] looked at the relational elements of effective schools. It's not just focusing on data about the test scores and so on. It's also building trust between and among the professionals, seeing teachers as respected professionals, that is, people not to be mandated to or barked at but as colleagues who have expertise to be orchestrated and shared - and as professionals who want to continue to grow. Finding ways for the perspectives of teachers and other members of the school community to be shared - as a basis for problem solving, as a basis for school improvement planning - is really important.

In highly successful environments, efforts have been made to make it possible for teachers to be successful. That means making sure that they have the instructional resources they need - textbooks and other tools of learning (computers, good curriculum). [It means] that they are asked to work in ways that will allow them to be successful. For example, we know that when a teacher can either loop with the same students or stay in the same or similar grade level for a period of time, they become more skilled than if you say, "Oh, this year you're teaching kindergarten and next year you're going to teach fifth grade, and then I'm going to put you in the fourth and then maybe the seventh." That is, in a way, very disrespectful to teachers, but it also makes them less effective. We know that from research. Respecting the opportunities for teachers to be efficacious in their teaching by giving them the opportunities, the tools and the relationship time with students to be able to be successful [is very important]. That sometimes means reorganizing the school organization so that it supports the work in a more productive way.

Sara Kay Bonti describes one of her early principals as the "lawn-mowed/books-ordered/supplies-filled" kind of manager. Looking back over 23 years as a high school English teacher in Florida, she remembers him as particularly demoralizing.

"He kept spreadsheets on who attended - or missed - every meeting," Bonti said. "He couldn't tell you what you were teaching or how you were teaching, but he could tell you what time you arrived at school every morning. Students told me the first time they ever saw him was when he handed them their diplomas at graduation. The turnover rate for teachers was very high."

Luckily for Bonti, this principal was not the only one she has encountered over the years. Indeed, other school principals - the kinds who instinctively champion instruction over paperwork - have been a source of inspiration for her. She has felt their efforts directly as a teacher, first in Pasco County, Fla., and now in Hillsborough County, which encompasses Tampa. And she has felt their work indirectly through a recent assignment that has sent her into about half the schools in Hillborough County, which, with almost 200,000 students, ranks among the country's 10 largest districts.

"What I've seen is that the common denominator in schools where students and teachers are successful is strong leadership," Bonti said.

Seeing the five practices at work
The five practices associated with effective leadership are on full display at these schools, in Bonti's experience. Take, for example, the first practice, knowing how to implant the notion that all students can learn and achieve. "I can tell by how I'm greeted at the school office how well a vision of student success has been communicated," Bonti said. "I will see a Student of the Month poster, or student art, or maybe in a high school there will be pennants around the walls of all the colleges where the students have been accepted. The students get the message."

Bonti has also seen how a principal can create a learning-friendly atmosphere that breeds enthusiasm among teachers and students. She cited as an example a principal who takes steps to boost student morale during the important Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). He makes sure breakfast is available. He can be seen walking the halls, quizzing students - "What does 'inference' mean?" he might ask - and a correct answer wins an ice cream coupon. He even organizes an FCAT pep rally.

She has also experienced firsthand how effective principals cultivate leadership in others. Bonti recalls being recruited to organize a Parents Night at the school where she taught most recently, Freedom High School. She also spent one summer working with middle school English teachers to help ensure that middle-school lessons flowed well into the senior high school courses. "Principals have found talents in me that I didn't know I had," Bonti said. "You can feel enriched beyond the classroom, and it's great to feel you are a part of helping the whole school succeed."

In addition, Bonti has seen how a skillful principal can use data to bring teachers into efforts to improve schools. After one statewide "Florida Writes!" assessment, Bonti's principal showed the school's English teachers that 10th grade students had unusually low scores for persuasive essays. The teachers determined that students were reluctant to take a strong stand on an issue - a requirement for making a credible argument - so the changes they instituted included providing more examples of strong persuasive essays in the lesson plans.
"The principal was good at pulling together all the pieces, not leaving us to feel we were working in isolation."
Bonti felt the principal had managed to balance leadership with a bow to the faculty's expertise. "We knew the curriculum. He didn't. So, he depended on us for the answer," she said. But he didn't stop there. He took the finding to other departments, so they knew to incorporate the results in their writing assignments. "He was good at pulling together all the pieces, not leaving us to feel we were working in isolation," Bonti said.

The power to improve instruction: spur to a career move?
Finally, there is the effective leader's fierce focus on improving instruction. That was Bonti's inspiration for taking on a three-year assignment as a full-time "peer evaluator" in the district's recently introduced teacher evaluation program. As part of the program, every teacher is observed at least three times a year by the school principal and a peer evaluator. Then, within one to three days, the teachers receive their assessments, with praise for their strengths and steps for overcoming weaknesses. "You can see why if a principal gives a physics teacher a 'requires action,' that teacher is going to want to know why, and then a principal has to explain not only why but specifically how to improve," Bonti said. "Teachers want that specificity, and they have a right to it."

That means principals have to be current on academic research. It means they need to be skillful at delegating some of their old management duties to make time for their instructional tasks. And it means they spend much of their time in classrooms, not in the seclusion of their offices.

Bonti finds the value in the new ways both self-evident and inspiring. That's why, when her gig as a peer evaluator ends, she is considering pursuing a new goal: becoming a principal herself.

The Knowledge Center at www.wallacefoundation.org contains more than 70 publications about school leadership. Here's a sampling:

Central Office Transformation for District-wide Teaching and Learning Improvement, Meredith I. Honig, Michael A. Copland, Lydia Rainey, Juli Anna Lorton and Morena Newton, University of Washington, 2010.

Educational Leadership Policy Standards: ISLLC 2008, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2008.

How Leaders Invest Staffing Resources for Learning Improvement, Margaret L. Plecki, Michael S. Knapp, Tino Castaneda, Tom Halverson, Robin LaSota and Chad Lochmiller, University of Washington, 2009.

Improving School Leadership: The Promise of Cohesive Leadership Systems, Catherine H. Augustine, Gabriella Gonzalez, Gina Schuyler Ikemoto, Jennifer Russell, Gail L. Zellman, Louay Constant, Jane Armstrong and Jacob W. Dembosky, RAND Corporation, 2009.

Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools, Bradley S. Portin, Michael S. Knapp, Scott Dareff, Sue Feldman, Felice A. Russell, Catherine Samuelson and Theresa Ling Yeh, University of Washington, 2009.

Learning-Focused Leadership and Leadership Support: Meaning and Practice in Urban Systems, Michael S. Knapp, Michael A. Copland, Meredith I. Honig, Margaret L. Plecki and Bradley S. Portin, University of Washington, 2010.

Learning From Leadership: Investigating the Links to Improved Student Learning: Final Report of Research Findings, Karen Seashore Louis, Kenneth Leithwood, Kyla L. Wahlstrom and Stephen E. Anderson, University of Minnesota and University of Toronto, 2010.

Making Sense of Leading Schools: A Study of the School Principalship, Bradley S. Portin, Paul Schneider, Michael DeArmond and Lauren Gundlach, University of Washington, 2003.

Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons From Exemplary Leadership Development Programs - Final Report, Linda Darling-Hammond, Michelle LaPointe, Debra Meyerson, Margaret Terry Orr and Carol Cohen. Stanford University, 2007.

Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning, Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, Stephen E. Anderson and Kyla L. Wahlstrom, University of Minnesota and University of Toronto, 2004.

Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education: Technical Manual, Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, Ellen Goldring, Stephen N. Elliott, Morgan S. Polikoff and Henry May, Vanderbilt University, 2008.

References

5. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 78.

6. Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, Ellen Goldring, Stephen N. Elliott, Morgan S. Polikoff and Henry May, Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education: Technical Manual, Version 1.0, Vanderbilt University, 2008, 13.

7. Michael S. Knapp, Michael A. Copland, Meredith I. Honig, Margaret L. Plecki, and Bradley S. Portin, Learning-focused Leadership and Leadership Support: Meaning and Practice in Urban Systems, University of Washington, 2010 , 2.

8. Bradley S. Portin, Michael S. Knapp, Scott Dareff, Sue Feldman, Felice A. Russell, Catherine Samuelson and Theresa Ling Yeh, Leadership for Learning Improvement in Urban Schools, University of Washington, 2009, 55.

9. Ellen Goldring, Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Muprhy, Stephen N. Elliott, Xiu Cravens, Assessing Learning-Centered Leadership: Connections to Research, Professional Standards and Current Practices, Vanderbilt University, 2007, 7-8.

10. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 81.

11. Knapp et al., 1, citing Kim Marshall from "A Principal Looks Back: Standards Matter," Phi Delta Kappan, October 2003, 104-113, and noting Marshall is also cited in Charles M. Payne's So Much Reform, So Little Change: The Persistence of Failure in Urban Schools, 2008, 33-34.

12. Portin, Knapp et al., p. 59.

13. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 116-118.

14. Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, et al., Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, 15.

15. See for example, J.W. Gardner, On Leadership, The Free Press, 1993; J. Kouzes, J. and B. Posner, The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2008; and G. Yukl, Leadership in Organizations, Prentice-Hall, 2009.

16. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 81-82

17. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 35.

18. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 35.

19. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 19.

20. Seashore Louis, Leithwood, 35.

21. Knapp, Copland et al., 3

22. Portin, Knapp et al., 56.

23. Portin, Knapp et al., 59.

24. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 82.

25. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 48.

26. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 282.

27. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 45.

28. Portin, Knapp et al., 56.

29. Portin, Knapp et al., v.

30. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 77, 91.

31. Kenneth Leithwood, Karen Seashore Louis, Stephen Anderson, Kyla Wahlstrom, Review of Research: How Leadership Influences Student Learning, University of Minnesota and University of Toronto, 2004, 24.

32. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 71.

33. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 86.

34. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 87-90.

35. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 92.

36. Portin, Schneider et al., 14.

37. Portin, Knapp et al., 52.

38. Portin, Knapp et al., v.

39. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 195.

40. Andrew C. Porter, Joseph Murphy, et al. Vanderbilt Assessment of Leadership in Education, 16-19

41. Porter, Murphy, et al., 141-142.

42. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 168-171.

43. Seashore Louis, Leithwood et al., 165-166.

44. Meredith I. Honig, Michael A. Copland, Lydia Rainey, Juli Anna Lorton and Morena Newton, Central Office Transformation for District-Wide Teaching and Learning Improvement, University of Washington, 2010.

45. Catherine H. Augustine, Gabriella Gonzalez, Gina Schuyler Ikemotoa, Jennifer Russell, Gail L.Zellman, Louay Constant, Jane Armstrong, and Jacob W. Dembosky, Improving School Leadership: The Promise of Cohesive Leadership Systems, RAND Corporation, 2009; and Linda Darling-Hammond, Michelle LaPointe, Debra Meyerson, Margaret Terry Orr, Carol Cohen, Preparing School Leaders for a Changing World: Lessons from Exemplary Leadership Development Programs - Final Report, Stanford University, 2007, 127-129, 139-140.

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Five Key Responsibilities - The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning

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The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning Click here to download the full report: The School Principal as Leader: Guiding Schools to Better Teaching and Learning Although they say it in different ways, researchers who have examined education leadership agree that effective principals are responsible for establishing a schoolwide vision of commitment to high standards and the success of all students.

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Talking to high school students about leadership and character is tricky. Most of what is said sounds cliche at best and patronizing at worst. So I turned to Ted Talks for a little help. Following is a list of talks that are brief - six minutes at most - and often funny. They approach the topics in new ways that engage students instead of turning them off to the ideas.

I found this one through a comment on my previous post about Ted Talks. Dudley, the speaker, gives insight into how we've falsely built leaders up as having to be extraordinary Earth-changing individuals. But in reality, we all do something that positively impacts others and makes us leaders as well. His example from his own life is hysterical and something students can relate to.

I use this in my school with every student sharing their "lollipop moment" for a collaborative bulletin board that shows the leadership in the school. You can see his talk here.

A volunteer firefighter humorously tells about how he was the second to arrive at a fire, so instead of saving the dog, he saved the shoes. He was bummed, but learned later that getting shoes for a woman who was having the worst day of her life was pretty important as well. Similar to the above talk, this one reminds students that small acts of kindness, courage, leadership, etc. can positively impact others just as much as the large ones.

In closing, he reminds the audience to "save the shoes." If presented with the opportunity to do something good or kind, do it. It may seem small but it's always worth it. You can see this talk here.

Change is overwhelming and at times seems impossible. Cutts, the speaker, made small changes in his life like biking to work, hiking, and even writing. He did them one at a time and for thirty days each. The results were amazing: increased confidence, healthier lifestyle, and a published novel! Okay, so the novel is terrible and is not published; but he can now say he's an author and he did it.

Cutts explains how 30 days is just the right amount of time to create, or eradicate, a habit. So after 30 days, as long as your change is small enough to be manageable, you're likely to keep doing it.

I use this with my students and encourage them to pick something that day that they will start to do and will continue to do for 30 days. We discuss what is manageable and the possible benefits. I love hearing my students comment on what they are still doing months later! Check out the talk by clicking here.

This speaker uses a movie to show a movement in creation. Hilariously, the movement is a dance party of sorts in a field. The message of the talk is spot-on for most of my students: you don't have to be a leader to impact a movement. Sivers, the speaker of this talk, explains the importance of the early followers who take the risk of being one of the first, and have the essential job of getting more followers and teaching them how to follow as well.

The video used to demonstrate the movement is great and the message co-insides with the other videos: you can make an impact. You can watch the talk here.

Okay, not exactly funny. But the speaker, Narayan, keeps it light given the bleak topic. Narayan's focus in on how a majority of the obituaries that are not paid for by the families are for people in the arts who positively impacted their communities.

It's a gentle reminder that if you want to be remembered when you're gone, be kind to others. I also love that this talk reiterates how you don't have to be an engineer or a lawyer to be successful. We overlook the importance and significance of the contributions from the artists of the world. You can watch this talk here.

Another talk from Sivers who points out some of the humorous miscommunications and understandings between different cultures. For example, doctors in some areas of China are only paid when their patients are healthy because it means the doctor is doing a good job. Makes sense!

Students have already heard that they should keep an open mind, but this talk helps them to remember to practice it as well. One example is when he shows a map flipped from the way we usually see it. When students say the map is upside down, it already shows they are set in thinking our perception of the map is more correct than someone else's even though it is actually of the same Earth. Very short but still impactful. You can watch this talk here.

These specific talks are perfect for class discussion and quick worksheet when you have 15 minutes or so to fill. Since the focus is on leadership and character, they can work in almost any classroom. They can also be combined to create a mini unit on leadership and character.

Short on time? I have my worksheets available here at my TeachersPayTeachers store.

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Quick Ted Talks to Develop Leadership and Character - Engaging and Effective Teaching

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Talking to high school students about leadership and character is tricky. Most of what is said sounds cliche at best and patronizing at worst. So I turned to Ted Talks for a little help. Following is a list of talks that are brief - six minutes at most - and often funny.

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Ten years ago, businesses were racing to understand and capitalize on concepts such as data mining, search technology, and virtual collaboration.

Today, digital transformation-which describes how digital technology is fundamentally changing the ways businesses operate and deliver value to customers-rules the roost and is disrupting companies everywhere, from their operating models to their infrastructures.

But that's only part of the equation. "Digital transformation is actually a human transformation," said Brian Solis, principal analyst at consulting and research company Altimeter. "We've learned that people have mistakenly overemphasized the role of technology in change. What this comes down to is leadership."

With that in mind, we spoke with nine executives and thought leaders about what makes good leaders great, the habits that inform success, and specific skills they must hone to realize this transformation.

1. Be Empathetic
Truly great digital transformation leaders understand how human dynamics-fear, politics, ego, sabotage, and safety-play into people's feelings about change. They don't assume their teams see the world their way. Rather, they see how others might perceive things, then "bridges between how they see it and what you're trying to do," Solis said.

"It's not about getting people to follow you. It's empowering people to lead their own initiatives and collaborate with you and others," he told CMO.com. "It's about unification of a bigger movement of getting people to bring about change because they want to-not because they have to."

Amid all that change, when products and processes are shifting, leaders are tasked with ensuring that they weave humanity into every touch point, said Leesa Wytock, senior director of experience at brand strategy and design firm Siegel+Gale. That's difficult to do without empathy.

"Empathy is what allows you to get the best work out of your team, it's what makes you a good partner to work with, and it's what makes your digital transformations successful," she told CMO.com. "A lot of user experience work deals with behavioral science and empathy. You need to put yourself in the user's shoes to get a product or process right."

2. Step Outside Your Box
According to Jeffrey Brandt, CIO at national law firm Jackson Kelly, seeking out connections, experiences, and information outside of your particular industry can help light on what other businesses are doing in their digital transformations.

"It's important to look at other industries and what's impacting and challenging them, how they're solving problems or implementing different techniques and workflows, and how all that may be applicable to what I'm doing," he said. "Sometimes you discover an approach to something that you never would have thought about."

Kathy Schneider, CMO at IT infrastructure company Sungard Availability Services, finds outside connections and opportunities at roundtable events.

"The dialogue and discussions are always immensely useful, and there's a great amount of peer learning," she said. "Talking with executives from other companies gives you perspective about what's working for them and what isn't, and how you might apply that where you are."

Equally important is finding these experiences and opportunities for your team, Wytock added. Siegel+Gale, for example, brings culture hackers or thought leaders into the office for Ted-Talk-style discussions.

"Bringing in outside influences helps shake people out of their day-to-day and inspires them," she said. "It's been great for everyone and has even resulted in new product ideas."

3. Hone Your Communication Skills
Communicating effectively-that is, knowing what to articulate, how, and in what context-is key to leading effectively, said Dominic Siano, digital marketing and transformation consultant at business and technology services company Cognizant. This means consciously reducing digital and technical jargon when you're presenting to business stakeholders or with customers.

"In all of your communications, you want your audience-whoever it may be-to feel like they're on your level and that they can participate in that conversation," he said. "Learning to convey complicated messages simply takes time and practice but pays dividends. Other leaders and employees will find you more approachable, easier to talk to, and fully understood, which is key in leading a digital transformation."

Another tip: Watch the room when others present or pitch ideas, Sungard Availability Services' Schneider said. Look for techniques that are well-received, and note which ones fall flat.

"Communication, especially during a digital transformation, is so, so important," she said. "It requires buy-in from executives and teams from across the organization, and knowing how to finesse your style and frame the argument for why you're doing this and why it's important is key to your success."

4. Ask 'Why?'
At the core of every transformation should be an "insatiable" curiosity-"whether it's about a new technology, the results you're seeing, or understanding what people are struggling with," according to Chris Hall, VP and GM of customer experience at Adobe (CMO.com's parent company).

"As leaders, we're presented with a lot of information about the 'what' when we really need to understand the 'why?'" she said. "For example, being told we fell short of our goal is not enough. We need to understand why did we miss? Are other markets experiencing something similar? What are the factors that are impacting it? If the answer is, "That's the way we've always done it,' then ... you need to challenge the norm."

Transformation, she added, can be "big and messy," accompanied by plenty of fatigue. "The faster you can arrive at a hypothesis and test for the 'why,' the more you can focus on the thing that really matters," she said. "Curiosity and focus are two things that differentiate most leaders. These need to be pervasive. Anchoring around curiosity and focus will get you beyond the 'what' to understand the 'why.'''

5. Tune Out The Noise
A digital detox might seem like a counterintuitive move for digital transformation leaders, but doing so has helped Jeff Pundyk, chief strategy officer at Techonomy, find more time to focus on strategy, innovation, and big-picture thinking.

"I cut my social media to a bare minimum and removed Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter from my phone. For me, these are all very low-value, high-time applications that, over the past 12 months, have sucked up an enormous amount of time and energy," he told CMO.com.

That's not to say social media doesn't have value; understanding these technologies is important for any successful digital leader, he said. It's important, however, to acknowledge and act when they-and other time-sucks-become too consuming.

"You have to be disciplined," he said. "Not only does it take up time when you're using it, but it takes up headspace when you're not. In the moments when you could be thinking big thoughts, you're on social media. Those are missed opportunities."

6. Develop Emotional Intelligence
While it may be a trendy buzz-phrase in business today, emotional intelligence-the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others-sets leaders apart, said Michael Heiser, IT director for the Wyndham Hotel Group.

The term was coined in 1990 in a research paper by two psychology professors, and later put in business context by Rutgers University psychologist Daniel Goleman: "The most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way: They all have a high degree in what has come to be known as emotional intelligence. It's not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant. They do matter, but ... they are the entry-level requirements for executive positions," he wrote.

Heiser, who started his career as an engineer, said that honing his emotional intelligence has helped him develop and fortify his relationships with his engineers.

"They don't respect leaders who can't understand the technology that they're dealing with," he told CMO.com. "You need to know the right things and the wrong things to say in certain situations. You need that emotional intelligence to be a competent leader."

Empathy, mentioned earlier, also plays a role. Digital leaders need to identify with others' feelings-while also understanding their own-and use that information as a guide when making business decisions.

7. Think Like A Futurist
Because the future is anything but certain, digital transformation leaders need to stop ruminating about what may or may not happen as an absolute, said Jacob Morgan, author of " The Future of Work."

"When it comes to digital transformation, business leaders need to remember to think in terms of different scenarios and time horizons instead of thinking in terms of one outcome during one time period," he told CMO.com.

Focusing on the "transformation" piece of digital transformation and what businesses should do to prepare limits thinking, Morgan added. Instead, digital transformation leaders need to think about what they can do to build the future of work they want to see.

"This ... allows digital transformation leaders to go from being passive participants to being active creators," he said. "Everything we do is about choice. It's a chess match where each move we make can lead down a different path."

Keeping that in mind will ensure that business leaders are prepared for any uncertainty that comes their way, Morgan added. "We no longer work for factories," he said. "We work for laboratories, and those who can run the most experiments the most often will win."

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The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective Transformation Leaders

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Taking a business on its digital transformation journey requires great leaders. We spoke with nine executives and thought leaders about what makes good leaders great, the habits that inform success, and specific skills they must hone to realize this transformation.

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Spread the loveThere are four major styles of leadership which apply well in the educational setting. While each of these styles has its good points, there is a wide berth of variation, and in fact transformational leadership is truly an amalgamation of the best attributes of the other three.

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AASA | American Association of School Administrators

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Teachers in high-poverty schools collaborate just as much as teachers in low-poverty schools, researchers at the RAND Corporation recently found. However, teachers in both low- and high-poverty schools reported they didn't have enough time to devote to collaboration.

The study looked at survey responses from a nationally representative sample of 1,825 teachers to gain insight on how much time teachers have to collaborate, and the extent to which teachers receive helpful feedback through collaboration. The study was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (The foundation helps support Education Week's coverage of continuous improvement. Education Week retains sole editorial control over its content.)

"While collaboration appears to be an important component of instructional improvement for teachers, it is not happening universally among educators in the United States," the report said.

Of the types of collaboration analyzed-observations, discussing instructional practice, and reviewing student assessment-teachers participated in observing their colleagues' classrooms the least. Eighty percent of teachers either rarely or never observed another teacher to "get ideas for instruction or to offer feedback," with only 3 percent of teachers observing on a daily basis. About 30 percent of teachers meet with their colleagues one to two times per week to discuss student learning and develop instructional materials, the study found.

However, William Johnston, a coauthor of the study, said the biggest surprise in the findings came from his analysis of the results of high-poverty schools. Johnston said he originally thought that teachers in high-poverty schools would have fewer opportunities for collaboration because of an overall lack of resources.

But what Johnston found is that while teachers in higher-poverty schools are collaborating the same amount as teachers in better-resourced schools, the effectiveness and payoff of the collaboration is diminished.

"More collaboration is not necessarily more helpful in high-poverty schools because it's about quality, not quantity," Johnston said.

When peers meet without the support of mentors or experts-which is more common in high-poverty schools because there are fewer available resources-Johnston said teachers have less of a chance of receiving helpful feedback. With increasing teacher-turnover rates in high-poverty andurban districts, Johnston said school and district leaders need to make sure that the job is satisfying and rewarding-and quality collaboration time can help lower turnover rates, he said.

However, the results revealed that the biggest hindrance to collaboration in schools across the board is time. While 53 percent of teachers in all schoolssaid they have sufficient opportunites to collaborate, only 38 percent of teachers surveyed agree that they have enough time for collaboration.

With time constraints in mind, Johnston has three specific recommendations for schools-especially high-poverty ones-to increase the quality of their peer collaboration.

Embed collaboration time in the regular schedule so it's ongoing, and not ad hoc or after school. Consistency is key.

Supplement primary meeting times with substitute teachers. Allow teachers to get out of their classrooms to observe their colleagues' lessons.

Find a way to inject meaning in peer groups with mentorship and expertise. Teachers meeting without support isn't beneficial.

In a recent piece for Education Week Teacher, veteran teacher Linda Myers decried the decline of the "teacher workday" and dedicated collaboration time.

"Increasing time in the classroom and in collaboration with grade-level partners gives teachers the ability to plan and collaborate, which increases the quality of the instruction they deliver to students," she wrote, adding that replacing collaboration time with schoolwide professional development is a disservice to students.

Going forward, the RAND report recommends educators and policymakers examine the obstacles that limit teacher collaboration-as well as successful practices.
Charts via the RAND report

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Study Reveals Teachers Don't Have Enough Time for Peer Collaboration

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Teachers in high-poverty schools collaborate just as much as teachers in low-poverty schools, researchers at the RAND Corporation recently found. However, teachers in both low- and high-poverty schools reported they didn't have enough time to devote to collaboration.