of your school, and how your leadership is being perceived by all parties? Have you ever stepped outside of yourself to scrutinize your own leadership with a critical eye? If so, what did you see? Did you like what you saw? Did you feel that what you were observing was the best possible version of yourself? Were you dissatisfied with what you saw? Did you see room for improvement? Did you see areas of concern that required your immediate attention?
The goal of this book is to help you examine your leadership identity and the value that it brings to your school. I sincerely hope that you do in fact feel some discomfort as you read the pages that follow and that you use that energy to rectify any underlying issues.
With all this said, let us now delve into the who, what, where, why, and when of your leadership approach. By the time you're finished with this book, I want you to be able to definitively say, "Yes! My school is a better school because I lead it!"
Chapter 1
My Leadership Identity—Who I Am
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Q1: Who am I as the leader of my school?
Great leaders possess a very clear and evident leadership identity. Their leadership attributes are clearly visible, identifiable, and distinguishable. When you interact with them, you can sense their leadership. Consider, for example, one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There is no question who he was as a leader. We know who he was and what he represented by the way he conducted himself in his leadership capacity.
Clarity of identity leads to certain expectations. When I see a person in a pilot's uniform at the airport, for example, my expectation is not only that he or she will be flying a plane but also that the pilot has an expertise in flying planes. This is a result of my knowledge of his or her professional identity via the uniform. Your leadership identity in school should be as clearly distinguishable as a pilot's uniform, making a statement from the outset.
So, who are you as the leader of your school? Who are you once you put that "principal's uniform" on? What is it about your leadership that sets you apart from everyone else? The answers that you come up with are your contention of your identity as a leader—how you see yourself through your own set of lenses.
The ensuing challenge is to identify evidence that supports your contention of your leadership identity. Volume and quality of classroom visits and pre- and post-observation conferences are certainly data points to examine, for example, but the most important evidence is your staff's perception of your qualities as a leader. Do staff members feel that they have grown in their practice thanks to your instructional leadership? Is there in any way a disconnect between your contention and staff's perceptions of you?
Q2: Is who I think I am as the leader of my school consistent with the evidence?
It is easy to reflect upon who we are as school leaders and reach the wrong conclusion. I have engaged countless principals of challenging schools in conversations about the obstacles they face ensuring schoolwide success. Very often, they will attribute any problems to fellow staff, difficult parents, apathetic students, poverty, crime, drugs, and so on, without a word about their own leadership. In these educators' eyes, once all external factors are addressed, their leadership is bound to flourish.
This perspective ignores a central tenet of school leadership: effective leaders inspire excellence regardless of factors outside their control. If you believe you are a strong leader, you must earnestly examine the evidence at hand and ask yourself honestly: Does it support what I contend about myself? It is imperative that you see yourself objectively if you are to succeed as a leader in your school.
Q3: Is who I think I am as the leader of my school consistent with who my students and staff perceive me to be?
When you walk into your school every morning, are you the same person your students and staff perceive you to be? Every day, school leaders enter their buildings with a certain leadership identity. This may be a deliberate chosen presentation or one that you take for granted. In my case, I deliberately chose a leadership identity—though I had to adjust it during my early years of leadership.
In my first year as principal, I aspired to be like Joe Clark, the tough and unconventional but undoubtedly effective principal of an inner-city school portrayed in the 1989 movie Lean on Me. I figured that if I acted like Joe Clark, I would naturally achieve the same results.
I very quickly realized that this was a fantasy.
An effective leadership identity must be true to who you are as a leader, an educator, and a person while also modeling for staff and students how to carry oneself with dignity and professionalism. Just because principals don't work in the classroom doesn't mean they shouldn't teach! Motivation and inspiration are methods of teaching. Leadership itself is a series of lessons that you provide to students, staff, and even parents on how to approach matters big and small. Your leadership identity must exude enthusiasm for learning at every moment and with every individual; only then will others' perceptions of your abilities align with your own.
Once, before a presentation at a school in the Midwest, I met with the principal in his office to discuss areas of concern he might want me to address. During our discussion, the principal boasted to me about his leadership abilities. Some moments later, as he was introducing me to an auditorium full of teachers, I realized how wrong this principal's contention was: the entire time he spoke, the audience kept talking among themselves as though nobody was on stage. If this is how they act here, I thought, imagine what the disconnect reveals during regular school hours!
Q4: How does my leadership identity correlate with how I lead my school?
In leadership, the responsibilities are endless. As I always say to my audiences, that one day where the principal can kick back and say, "Yes, everything is done" just doesn't exist in the world of a school leader. There is always work to be completed. In fact, there is always urgent work to be completed—though much of it your staff will never know about. A lot of leadership work is behind the scenes, unseen and therefore not always factored into your identity by students and staff, but taken into account by administrators at the district level. As important as the work is that no one will ever see—budgeting, for example, or resource allocation—teaching and learning must always be central to any leadership decisions in school.
School leaders wear countless hats to get the job done, and those hats can change by the minute. For me personally, the most important hat that I wore was that of "motivator." In fact, it was the hat that mattered most to me relative to my students' perception of me and my leadership. Students will never excel if they are not inspired and eager to learn. Some kids come to school every day from unimaginably challenging home lives, and they especially must be motivated to grow in their education. That motivation starts with you, the school leader.
What about you? How does your leadership identity correlate with how you lead your school? What is it about your leadership identity that defines how you lead? Is your identity consistent from day to day? Does it drive you? Does it shape who you are, what you say, and how you act as a leader?
Q5: How do I mentally transition into my leadership identity every morning?
Throughout my years as a school leader, not a day went by that I didn't consider this question. I challenge you to do the same. In the mornings before you go to work, look at yourself in the mirror and make a brutally honest assessment of what you need to do to get into a frame of mind conducive to powerful leadership. You need to prepare to be at the top of your game every single day. Continuous self-reflection of this sort is essential for making the right adjustments to your leadership approach. Upon waking up in the morning, I would assess my attitude. I knew that I needed to have the right attitude if I was going to be productive on any given day. I used to continue