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Principals partner with supervisors, teacher leaders

Principals as leaders of learning
#4 in a series

By Dennis Sparks

Results, December/January 2005

Copyright, National Staff Development Council, 2005. All rights reserved.

"Everyone in the organization is expected to be constantly in a teaching and learning mode. ... [T]rue learning takes place only when the leader/teacher invests the time and emotional energy to engage those around him or her in a dialogue that produces mutual understanding."
-Noel Tichy

Leadership of the complex social organization of the modern school is far too demanding to be the work of just one individual. Therefore, successful principals invest energy in developing both their supervisors and teacher leaders through dialogue and other means to continuously improve teaching and learning.

Successful principals "develop up" on the organizational chart by skillfully and persistently educating district leaders about hig

h-quality professional learning and advocating for the policies, data, tools, resources, and other forms of support that are essential in their schools. They ask their supervisors to evaluate them based on the quality of professional learning and the culture of their schools as well as on more traditional areas. They request regularly-scheduled meetings to discuss goals and assess progress using various sources of evidence. These principals tap supervisors' thinking about educational issues and enlist district administrators as allies and partners in the continuous improvement of their schools.

Successful principals develop the leadership talents of teachers by delegating increasingly more complex responsibilities to them and nurturing the knowledge and skills to successfully fulfill those responsibilities. They do so by arranging formal learning experiences for teacher leaders and aspiring administrators and by engaging teachers in more sophisticated and demanding leadership tasks. They also provide generous amounts of one-on-one time with teacher leaders that enables them to reflect on and extract lessons from their experiences and to create plans for future learning and work.

An important way in which principals distribute leadership within schools is to recruit, develop, and support teachers to serve in special assignments within their schools. These individuals may function as team leaders or committee chairs, as full- or part-time instructional coaches, or as mentors for beginning teachers or veteran teachers who are struggling with their assignments. As a result of principals' efforts, teacher leaders feel well trained for their new roles and perceive that they and their principals are functioning as a team to improve the quality of teaching, learning, and job satisfaction in their schools.

Developing and distributing leadership within the school requires that principals be well grounded in instruction, curriculum, assessment, and professional development. While they do not have to know as much as teachers do about the fine-grained details of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, it is important that principals know enough to engage in deep and extended growth-promoting conversations with teachers about issues of teaching and learning.

Expanding the leadership capacity of others in the organization also requires sophisticated interpersonal skills. Successful principals are clear about their values and intentions, know how to succinctly and powerfully express their views, engage in dialogue to penetrate more deeply into the heart of issues, make requests for what they want, and act with integrity. They also know how to listen deeply and to honor the perspectives of others, even though they may not agree with them.

Principals who successfully promote high levels of learning in their schools know that they cannot do it by themselves. They understand the value of strong partnerships with their supervisors and teacher leaders. Most importantly, they know such partnerships are too important to be left to chance.