Timeout for Leadership-your one-minute leadership idea.

The Principal Coaching Clinic #3

What have you done to get better?

It seems to me in a school district everyone wants to blame someone else.  No one wants to take responsibility for their own actions.  No one wants to hold themselves accountable.  And yes, as the principal, most fingers always point back to you.  The principal becomes responsible for everything. Although the bucks stops there, at times this is just wrong.  Whether you are a teacher, coach, secretary, custodian, paraprofessional or security officer, you are responsible for you!

My job as the principal is to provide you growth opportunities, to guide you, and to support you.  Yes, I will try to motivate you, but you must be intrinsically motivated and personally driven.  It is that personal drive, that motivation from within, that I find missing in so many individuals.

On a personal level, in my younger athletic days, I lifted weights and trained for my chosen sport.  I committed to this daily regimen and I was able to very simply measure my progress.  It may be as simple as running faster, covering more distance or lifting a greater quantity of weight today than yesterday.  In order to compete and perform at my highest level, I did this.  It may have been tedious, boring and both physically and mentally demanding.  But to get better, I did it.  And I did it without ever asking the question of “why.”  I knew that this training was essential for me.

Then why when we land that first teaching job, we tend to forget this simple postulate about training to get better.  As the leader, ask your teachers, your staff, and do not forget to ask yourself, the following questions:

• What was the last book that you read that would help you perform better or learn more about your job?
• What was the last workshop or conference that you attended because you wanted to, not because you had to?
• Did you actively engage yourself at your last in-house professional development activity or did you just stare at the clock or play with your phone?  Did you merely try to escape this activity at all costs?  What lies did you tell to get yourself excused?  Did you stay home and call in sick on the professional development day?
• What professional organizations do you belong to?  (And for this activity let us not include your national associations like the NEA or the AFT)
• What professional periodicals do you subscribe to and regularly read?
• Can you recall your last professional discussion with a colleague focusing on your content or pedagogy? On teaching and learning? (complaining about the students, the principal or your peers do not count.)
• Have you written for or presented for your peers in your school, the state or on the national level?
• Did you actively contribute to your last Professional Learning Community meeting?
• When was the last graduate course that you took for your personal growth?
• When was the last time you actively participated at a faculty meeting or perhaps asked a question about teaching and learning?  (whining does not count.)

I know that for the teachers that read this article they will feel that I am teacher bashing.  I assure you that I am not because as a superintendent I would ask these questions of my principals and administrators and in most cases, I would get the same disappointing answers.

So why does this professional shutdown occur?  I am sure the answers are quite complex but they are most likely to include the following:

• Laziness.
• Apathy.
• You have become beaten down by the system.  You are just tired.
• You have attained the career goal in your life.  You do not feel that you need to do more.
• You have tried and tried and you feel unsupported and so you just gave up.

When the athlete stops training, they are soon replaced by a younger, hungrier competitor.  It seems at times when an educator (both teacher and principal) stops training, they are granted tenure.  It just doesn’t seem right.  It just doesn’t seem fair.

The good news is that you can do something about it.  You can do something about it immediately.  Do something today that will make you better.  Then build on that tomorrow.   It is in your hands.  PREPARE LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY. TEACH LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY.  LEAD LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY.