by these people each day. They are teachers, students, parents, support staff members, and administrators who have taken action to initiate meaningful change in their classrooms or schools. These leaders don’t just talk the talk; they also walk the walk. They lead by example in what might be the most effective way possible: by modeling. They don’t expect others to do what they aren’t willing to do. It doesn’t take a title or a new position for these leaders to be agents of change. LBAs drive sustainable change and make the transformation of learning possible.
Never underestimate your own unique talents and abilities; they have the power to shape the future of our schools and create a better learning culture that our students need and deserve. Everyone has the ability to lead in some capacity, and our schools—and the kids who are being shaped inside them—need more educators to embrace this challenge.1
Leadership is defined by action, not by one’s title on a business card. In life, your success is intimately tied to your actions.
Stop & Reflect
When you think of the words “school leader,” who comes to mind? What characteristics does that individual consistently display?
From my experience, quite often, especially in toxic environments, educators will talk about “a lack of leadership,” which is often paired with comments about “low morale.” Toxic school cultures are real. Toxic, egocentric, self-serving “leadership” is real. Innovation will not thrive in these school and classroom cultures, and risk-taking will be minimal. In these spaces, it is ultimately the students who have the most to lose.
In life, your success is intimately tied to your actions.
This cycle of toxicity will continue until hearts change or other leaders rise.
Some of the most dynamic school leaders I’ve ever worked with are perhaps not whom you’d expect. It has been the third-year teacher that runs through walls for kids every single day. It has been the support staff member who earns far less than she deserves yet is a backbone to the building and knows every child within it. It has been the thirty-five-year veteran, teaching her last year but making every day count. She’d been teaching second grade for twenty years, but she still recognized that her students only had one year in second grade, so she did whatever it took for them to have their best year yet.
The best leaders, whether in the classroom or the office, don’t believe it is someone else’s responsibility to make great things happen. The best leaders don’t believe it is someone else’s responsibility to make their schools a great place to work. The best leaders don’t point the finger outward before they point the finger at themselves and examine inward.
Leadership starts with you.
Regardless of your role, regardless of your position, if you work in a school, you are a leader for kids. If you work in a toxic environment, you have two choices: maximize blame and minimize impact or maximize impact and minimize blame. If you work in a toxic environment and the perceived consensus is that the toxicity is due to one person, what would happen if you and every other adult in the building did everything in their power to make yours the greatest school on the planet in which to work? Some may call it a utopian thought. But why?
Toxic environments are real, but to move out of that environment, we must own our parts in the learning culture, regardless of our titles.
So much of the role of leadership comes down to one word—mindset. It’s easier to point the finger than it is to take responsibility. It’s easier to make an excuse than to fight an uphill battle. It’s easier to hide than it is to rise in the midst of uncertainty.
If you want your school to have great leadership, it begins with you. If I want my organization to have great leadership, it begins with me. Our mindsets, our actions, and our circles of influence can move us forward. We can’t do it for others. We can only do it for ourselves.
Every one of us is responsible for our workplace cultures. Each of us contributes to it. Each of us either builds it up or tears it down, even just a little bit, each day. Right now, your school’s culture perfectly aligns with the mindset and actions of the adults in your building. If we want things to change, we must look inward before we look around us. We must move forward if we want the whole group to move forward; otherwise, we’re simply solidifying the foundation of the status quo.
Right now, your school’s culture perfectly aligns with the mindset and actions of the adults in your building.
While toxic school cultures and poor leadership are very real, so are the countless schools and districts that people flock to each day. These are places of joy, places where both students and staff want to be. These are places where leaders take responsibility and model the way, where the adults do whatever it takes for students to thrive. These places aren’t created by one person. Cultures of innovation are the culmination of action-oriented leadership by many inside an organization.
Where leaders rise, kids win.
The top levels of leadership of an organization set the tone for the culture within. In toxic cultures, innovation will not and cannot thrive. In cultures of innovation, the unthinkable becomes possible. It’s a superintendent and her team who set the tone for a district, principal for her school, and a teacher for his classroom.
“Culture,” as defined by Merriam-Webster, is “the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.”
Take a moment to consider the following questions:
What are the shared attitudes of those in your school or district?
What shared values are consistent among those that work with you?
What shared goals are in place and owned by those on your team?
What types of practices are most consistent?
Do the attitudes and practices in your school propel or hinder learning that is personal and authentic?
Cultures of innovation are the culmination of action-oriented leadership by many inside an organization.
For learning to be personal and authentic, an inclusive culture must be in place so students know they belong, regardless of differences they may have from those around them. In these cultures of innovation, the adults model the desired behaviors, and both staff and students understand that every person and every interaction matters.
Try This
Hire by committee. Give teachers a voice in who their next colleague will be.
Provide mentors for new teachers for their first three years, giving veteran teachers opportunities to build capacity in the next generation of the profession.
Empower teachers to plan and lead professional learning throughout the year. If most professional learning is top-down, there will be significant resistance and, quite often, minimal impact.
Set aside time for reflection at all levels. Reflecting on experience propels growth.
Principals: Sometimes the best things happen when we get out of the way and let our people run! Build capacity and give them the opportunity to do so.
Educational leaders are not simply those that have chosen the career field, but are those who send their children to school every day with their best hopes
