Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea

Message from the Lead Dog Principal -Summer rant #6

Sure, let’s follow the contract. Are you OK with that?

I just loved it when my staff would magically whip the contract out and decide to hold me to the letter of the law. I am OK with that, but can it please operate like a two-way street? Some people are never hesitant to ask for a favor, but when the situation becomes reversed, suddenly that same person develops a case of amnesia.

I believe in unions and associations. I know sometimes the union, in some districts, likes to call itself an association to make it sound better. It doesn’t matter to me what you call it.

I believe in contracts and the need to follow them. 

But I also believe in doing the right things for the kids in the school and sometimes following the contract and doing right for the kids becomes incompatible. To support a positive school culture, there needs to be an informal give and take between the teachers and the support staff and the school administration. I believed that, and I always hoped that my teachers felt the same way. I think most of them understood this unless it was contract renewal time. Then, depending upon union leadership, it could become laughable with senseless job actions caused by following the contract to the letter of the law. I saw the look on many of my teachers’ faces. They were embarrassed, yet they felt compelled to go long. I felt bad for these folks because, mostly, they would do anything for you or the school. And I got it. Every two or three years, you had to do this dance.

I could never understand the ability of some people to come and ask me a favor one minute and then hold the contract in my face the next. Sometimes, people walked around with a pocket-sized bound contract in their breast pocket for all to see. I also wanted to scream that if my faculty meeting ran over the designated ending time on a meeting date, a disrespectful group would parade out of the back door.

Yes, a successful implementation of the contract is a give and take. It is an ebb and flow. Both sides giving and taking. That is the sort of attitude that can set the right tome for the school. This is the stuff that we build positive school cultures and climates upon.

Sometimes we lose track of who are our clients. Everything must be about what is best for the kids. As the principal of the school, I assure you it will challenge you. Do the right thing…….. for the kids!