problems. In fact, the staff ended up cutting suspension and expulsion rates in half in a very short period of time. Even though the community hadn’t changed and the problems students were facing hadn’t gone away, our context allowed us to approach those problems differently and ultimately clarify our perceptions.
See Things Better Than They Actually Are
One of the more empowering things you can do as a principal is to not only take these elements of vision building into account but also encourage your staff to consistently envision their future in a way that’s empowering and successful. For fun, let’s refer to this process as establishing Bettervision: a vision of what’s just ahead that’s better than what we have right now.
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working almost daily with Brian Mueller, president and CEO of Grand Canyon University, while I was chairing the school’s very first doctoral program. In every meeting I attended with him, he had the uncanny ability to lead the discussion toward a vision of possibility that was outlandishly successful. He would talk in very concrete terms about doubling or quadrupling the business in a short period of time due to outstanding strategy and the energized efforts of everyone in the room. His construction of a future that was better than today was relentless, and you couldn’t help but be inspired by the exciting potential he portrayed.
I stayed at Grand Canyon long enough to realize that many of the visions he had for the future didn’t exactly come to fruition in as glorious a form as he had projected, but remarkably, they came relatively close in most cases. The message here is that when constructing a vision for what’s possible, we dream too small. If we can consistently get those who work in your school to see a compelling and successful future, even if you fall short of a glorious expectation, you’re likely to still lurch forward and make progress where growth had perhaps eluded your predecessors.
Within this context, you may also want to ask how clear the vision is in the school, what you can do as principal to help make the vision and direction clearer, and what each staff member can do to help clarify your path forward and make sure everyone understands the vision. This can be an inquiry that’s held extemporaneously one on one with a staff member, or it can be part of a small- or large-group processing point to help you move forward. Certainly, this approach can lead you toward the process of clarifying a vision for the future that’s engaging, appealing, and worth striving for.
Critical Conversations: Remember the Prize of Clarity and Vision
The idea of establishing clarity for where you’re going is incredibly important. The clearer the vision, the more likely it is that the members of the institution will be able to work together toward a solution. Imagine if everyone in your school had great clarity about what was expected and how it was growing and evolving. That collective clarity could result in the ability to pull together and find solutions more readily than ever before. Reminding the staff of the importance of vision is important, as is openly asking them what the results would be of getting really good at establishing vision and being clear about what vision means to each person. If you do this right, you’ll establish a culture and a climate in your school that will hopefully outlast your tenure as principal.
Exemplars and Signs of Mastery
Tim is the principal of a small rural high school in Ohio. He shared some interesting thoughts with me on how vision can impact leadership, learning, and innovation.
Casey: So, Tim, how do you establish a vision for where you’re going in your school?
Tim: Well, it’s kind of like you’ve always said, Casey. It’s more about our ability as a staff to come together and reflect on what all of us hope and dream in terms of bringing improvement to the school. We all have to come together and have that conversation to make that vision a reality.
Casey: Did you find that early in your tenure there was an overreliance on the staff’s expectation that you would provide the vision?
Tim: Absolutely. I think it is part of the feeling-out process that many principals have to go through early in their tenure. Staff members are curious as to what you might be up to and the types of changes you might be interested in manifesting. As a result, they ask a lot of questions and consistently expect you to articulate your vision.
Casey: It’s kind of like a tennis match, isn’t it? They want you to serve the ball, but you have to bounce it back to them, don’t you?
Tim: Yes! And, it doesn’t have to be a negative process. I think that you can actually learn a lot from one another in those early formative conversations. They learned from me right away that I wasn’t an educator without ideas about how to improve the school. But they also learned that I was someone who was open, would listen to others, and wanted to help create a school that would be in the image of everyone who was here to create it.
Casey: It’s not just about you, is it?
Tim [laughing]: No, it isn’t.
Casey: How do the school’s history and the mental models associated with that history affect the school’s vision?
Tim: It affects them quite a lot. I think, in many cases, principals neglect to dig in deep in terms of trying to understand the history, background, and mental models, as you call them, in the school. I grew up in the state of Ohio and went to a school very similar to the building where I’m now principal. That said, there are still a number of unique components to this community, to this school district, and specifically to this staff that make our work here very unique. The longer I’m here, the more I continue to reveal certain aspects of that unique history to make my efforts to lead even more effective and efficient.
Casey: So you think your vision for the school gets better the longer you’re here?
Tim: No, I believe our vision together for what’s possible gets better. The longer my staff work in this culture and climate of shared leadership with a vision that we all build together, the more we learn to become effective and efficient as a team and the better job we do in serving our students.
To reiterate, vision is one of the most important aspects of leadership and goal attainment. Simply put, you can’t get anywhere very quickly if you don’t know where you’re going and aren’t clear about your destination. Unfortunately, vision is a terribly overused, imprecise word. The more specificity we can add to the process of clarifying our vision by defining our mental models, history, and current learning context, the more likely leaders will be able to both understand and be understood. Building, implementing, and sustaining a systemic vision is a never-ending job; by using tools and strategies that complement learning, thoughtful school leaders can improve the clarity of the school vision.
The Impact
Hopefully this chapter has helped demystify the vision process a bit. If, as a school leader, you’re able to understand the mechanics of establishing a vision and use those mechanics to the advantage of everyone in the school, your school will have more clarity about what’s possible regarding innovation, learning, and leading. In terms of culture, a unique advantage of clarity is that you’ll notice a greater sense of calm and fulfillment in your building due to the fact that people tend to feel better when they have a clear idea of where they’re going. Everyone can relate to the nervousness of driving down the road unsure if you are heading toward the destination. When you’ve removed that confusion from the system and given the staff at your school the confidence they need to believe they are indeed moving in the right direction, there is a much greater likelihood that the resulting school culture will be calmer, more reflective, and more fulfilled, with more creative outcomes.
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