Educational Leadership with Principal JL
Principal JL is an educational leader who explores various topics facing educational leaders today! The Mission of this podcast is to inform and inspire other Educational Leaders on how to be their best for their Schools by honing their skills and talents so they may impact their teachers, staff members, students, parents/guardians, and community members positively for their School District! Come with a Growth Mindset as we journey through Educational Leadership!
Educational Leadership with Principal JL
Episode 10: Coach'EM Up Leadership Series: Establishing a Vision and Setting Expectations!
Unlock the secrets to effective educational leadership as we explore the dynamic role of school leaders who, much like skilled coaches, inspire their teams through collaboration and empathy. Discover how to establish a shared vision, set clear expectations, and foster a culture of high expectations within your school. Through personal anecdotes, we reveal innovative strategies such as forming a school improvement team, addressing common challenges like cell phone usage and attendance, and the power of collaborative problem-solving. This episode is packed with practical insights and humor, emphasizing that leadership is not about managing tasks but about inspiring a collective effort toward common goals.
In the latter half of this episode, we delve into cultivating excellence and accountability in schools by involving staff in the vision-making process, ensuring their needs are understood and fostering a supportive culture. We advocate for embracing a growth mindset and encouraging risk-taking among educators to innovate without fear of failure. Learn about the importance of modeling excellence and maintaining accountability through shared commitments, all while creating a positive school culture that celebrates milestones and recognizes success. By setting the right tone and leading with adaptability and humor, school leaders can create thriving environments where both teachers and students can excel.
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Email: the.principal.jl@gmail.com
Hey there, educational leaders, it's great to be back with you guys today. Today we're going to continue our Coach Em Up leadership series. This episode is about establishing a vision and setting expectations. So we're going to kind of take a step back from what we talked about in the last episode and really kind of hone in on these couple of areas to try to help you become a better educational leader.
Principal JL:Now, if you guys know, if you think about it, you know educational leadership doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be something that doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be something that you know. You have to make it difficult. Basically, what I'm trying to say is to be a good educational leader. All you have to do is be a good coach. All right.
Principal JL:As a coach, what do we do? We have a vision. We create a vision for our team. We say, ok, this is where our team is at, this is where we need to go. For our team, we say, okay, this is where our team is at, this is where we need to go. But how you do that is you have to work with, you have to collaborate with your coaching staff and you have to collaborate with your players. You have to create buy-in, all right. Then you got to embed the things that you do in practice. You know, and that's part of building that culture you have to lead by example. You always have to be able to adapt from one thing to the next because, you know, in coaching things change and you have to learn to adapt to that. And then you got to celebrate milestones and with that you also got to set expectations within your team so you can get the results that you want. Now, if you take that type of mindset as a coach and apply it as an educational leader, there's really no difference. Okay, leadership and education isn't about managing the day-to-day task all the time. It's about inspiring your team to aim higher and move forward together.
Principal JL:So in this episode, we're going to break down how to craft a shared now keyword shared vision and foster a culture of high expectations in schools using collaboration, empathy and you know what Even humor. First thing we're going to talk about today is we're going to talk about creating a shared vision. Now, listen to what I just said. I'm talking about creating a shared vision. This isn't a vision that, as a leader, you just dream up and you say this is what we're going to do.
Principal JL:When I got into being a principal, I really didn't understand how to create a vision. I didn't know really where to go, how to start. They don't teach you that. All right. You go to school, you get your educational administration master's and you just kind of learn, you kind of wing things. Unless you have a good mentor and people you can talk to and rely on and building a good network, you kind of are out there winging it at times.
Principal JL:Now, what I did is not necessarily what you have to do, but this is kind of how I, my approach to creating that shared vision works. So I didn't just come in and say this is what we're going to do, this is our vision, this is our path. I didn't do that. I actually took a step back and I just observed, I watched, I monitored, I talked to people, I listened. I talked to people, I listened. Ok, I was trying to figure out what were the problems that the staff and the teachers were facing, and once we can identify what those problems were, then we look to create solutions for those issues. So I didn't sit here and just create this vision. I collaborated with my teachers to help create the vision, if that makes sense.
Principal JL:So, when creating this shared vision, you need to create a team of teachers and staff members. You need to create what we call a school improvement team. All right, now we have teachers from each department in our school improvement team. Now I have taught, or I've coached and taught, and I've been a principal, in small rural school. I've also coached and taught in metropolitan areas in bigger schools, like I'm at right now. Now, in a small school, you can still create a collaborative team. You can still create a team of teachers and have representation from your ability to create that vision. All right, you can. In the larger district you have, you can still do that as well. You're just going to have a bigger school improvement. You have more teachers involved. I think at my smaller district, we probably had a good five, six, maybe seven people involved. In my larger district, we have around 15 to almost 18 people involved with the school improvement team.
Principal JL:Now, with that, the team was really really important. All right, that's where I had to listen to. What is the things that we want to solve? What are the issues that teachers are having? It could be in the classroom, it could be building-wise, it could be whatever issue, what is it? And then how are we as a team going to solve that problem? So I'm going to go ahead and give you an example.
Principal JL:So our school improvement team a few years back identified hey, cell phones in the classroom is an issue. Kids are wandering the hallways. All right, we're not getting kids in class. You know that's an issue. So how do we solve it? Well, school improvement team, school improvement team sat down, got together and they ended up creating solutions for the problems. Now, there's a lot of different ways we looked at it, but guess what? Everybody that was in that room had a say. They had their thoughts, opinions and ideas. The goal was to create something that we all can get together on.
Principal JL:Okay. So when we're creating this share vision, we're collaborating. And the reason why we're collaborating is because we're creating buy-in. Okay, as a leader, you got to have your teachers buy in to that vision. They got to buy in to the solution of the issue that you're facing. If they don't buy in, they're not going to take ownership in that vision. And also, as a leader, when you have that buy in and you collaborate and you have that solution to that issue, you can also go back and say, hey, this is what we decided on as a team. We need to make sure we're tight on this and we are doing the best we can so we can get to the goals that we needed to get to.
Principal JL:So with that, with our cell phone policy and our issues with kids not being in class and wandering, we ended up creating a new cell phone policy. We ended up having an e-haul pass system put in place, and then we also created an extra duty called hall monitors to make sure kids are where they need to be. All right, we did all that in one year and we implemented it and we ended up getting some really good success. So we had more kids in class. Cell phones became less of an issue because we had a policy that basically hold everybody accountable, and then, with that, the hallways got clear because we have an e-hall pass system, which which ended up creating more accountability. The hall monitors were in there, helping the kids get to where they need to be. That was great to see.
Principal JL:Now, if you go into our school, there's less kids wandering, more kids in class and less kids on their phone because of these things that we did as a team. Now, what they would do as a team. We'd create this solution, but they would take it out to the staff that weren't in those meetings and they would do as a team. We'd create this solution, but they would take it out to the staff that weren't in those meetings and they would have discussions. Then we would bring it back into the meeting and talk about OK, this is where we're at. What are people saying? Because you got to realize, we have 15, 18 people in a group making decisions for the rest of the building. I have about 74, 75 teachers on top of that. I got another 55, 60-ish, depending on the day, support staff on top of that. So I have about 135 people in my building. And when we're creating these solutions, we're creating it for everyone. But we wanted everybody to kind of have a seat at the table and have input, and that's kind of what we did. So we were able to collaborate, create buy-in.
Principal JL:Now, the way we had to do it, especially with, like the cell phone policy, the e-hall pass, um, we had to embed that in for, embed that into our day-to-day practices. Okay, so, our hall monitors every day we'd have a rehaul pass system. They'd go out, make sure kids were where they need to be. Okay, that was step one. And then the cell phones. The teachers all together worked on hey, this is our expectation with the cell phones, and if you don't comply by it, this is what your consequences are going to be. So I'm not going to really get into all that, but what I'm going to say is, with the teachers buying in and collaborating, those policies and those procedures got embedded into our day-to-day routines, and it made a huge difference to creating a great school environment and getting kids where they need to be so they can learn, but also being able to learn more effectively in class because of these policies that we created.
Principal JL:Now we did the same thing with our attendance policy, and I'm going to tell you right now, our attendance policy after a semester is working really, really well. But I don't think our attendance policy works as well if we didn't have the other things solved first, and so that's kind of how we are envisioning our school is figuring out. These are issues. We want our kids to have a great education, we want them to be present, we want them be engaged, we want them to learn and become successful adults, but we have to be able to do these things together in order to get there. And so we are able to embed these things into our in our day-to-day life, in our day-to-day interactions or day-to-day life in our day-to-day interactions, our day-to-day processes and systems, and we utilize an MTSS process when we go with our attendance this year, just like we would do with our academics, our behavior and our mental health or our social-emotional learning as well.
Principal JL:And so, with that said, as a leader, when you have these things there, you have to lead by example. We have to lead like I have to show that you, a leader, when you have these things there, you have to lead by example. We have to lead like I have to show that you know what. When I'm teaching, I'm not going to have my phone out, right, hey? When I, I shouldn't be out in the hallway running around on my phone. As a leader, if we tell them not to, now I try to do that inside my closed door. There's times I have to take calls while I'm on the run, but once in a while we want to lead by example so we can show people. This is the expectation. Like we require students to wear IDs, I wear my ID everywhere I go because I want the kids to know that it's important to follow the expectations we have on the, that we have in our building, because, a it keeps them safe, but B it helps us identify yep, this student belongs to us, but we also could help them get to where they need to be so they could be in class and learning and everything.
Principal JL:And so being able to be visible and leading by example with your school improvement team, with that shared vision, is very, very important. And the next thing you have to understand that when you create these different solutions to your issues, you have to be able to adapt. You gotta be able to look at them and say, hey, what we're doing, is it working? How is it working? Because you wanna have some metrics and things in place to kind of go okay, this is the data, what the data's telling me. So we know that the things that are in place are working and so those are things to keep in mind. So when the data says something, how do you readjust it? And we always go back and talk to it as the school improvement.
Principal JL:Even this year, at the beginning of the year, I was saying hey, this is our cell phone policy. Do we want to tweak it a little bit and make it a little bit more rigorous than it already is, because it's where it's at now and we kind of talked about it, but we felt like the policy worked really well last year. We're going to continue on because the kids understand that expectation. We really didn't want to tweak it and go further than what we've done already, but what we do is working because we have that collaboration and buy-in from that. You have to be able to adapt and revisit those things that you are finding solutions to so you can make things better Because, like this year with the attendance policy, we are learning things as we go and we're learning. Okay, this is how we do this, this is how we do that, and we're tweaking things throughout the semester to make it better. And so those are things that we have to do as a leader to make sure that the shared vision you guys have as a leadership team and as a school improvement team is being successful. And then the last thing is celebrate the milestones in that shared vision.
Principal JL:So what I will do sometimes and I'll just talk about our attendance policy I'll go back and I'll run the data on our daily average attendance rate and I'll run it on our chronic absenteeism and then I'll share it out. I'll share it out to all my staff so they can know what we're doing makes a difference. I'll tell them thank you for everything you've done and I really appreciate the hard work you're doing because I want them to know that they are making a difference. My assistant's principals bust their rear on this attendance policy and I want them to know like hey, here's what the data's telling me. What you're doing is mattering. What you're doing is having a positive effect on our students and on our school and on our culture. So, being able to celebrate those things, because you're going to boost their morale and you're going to keep their commitment within the things that you've already put in there, because you work through that and you want them to be able to say, yes, the things we're doing are working, and they get really excited. Even you know, talking to my school improvement team, you know, over the last two and a half years, they're excited because we're actually creating solutions to issues that they've been talking about for a long time, created a systems and the checks and all the things we've done together has worked and it's created momentum for us to continue to solve problems in our school so we can have the school run the way that we would like to.
Principal JL:Therefore, that's where creating that shared vision comes in. It's not just the leader coming and saying this is my vision for the school. No, you don't really come in with a vision until you work with those staff members and understand the needs that they need to have so you can support them. Because when you do that, you can always come back and say, hey, these are the things that we agreed to be tied on and that's our expectation, this is the culture we want to set. So that's where I'm going to end.
Principal JL:When we come to just sharing a vision, the next thing we're going to go into is setting high expectations, and what I'm talking about setting high expectations. This is so you can set the expectations, so you can support the shared vision that you just created. But, yeah, you have people understand like, hey, we're serious about what we want to do here. We're we're committed to making you the best student as possible. We're committed to making you the best teacher as possible. So you want to really go. You want to kind of shift your focus for metrics, because a lot of times we talk about hey, we want to see 10% growth on our math, at our math standards, or we want to see 5% growth in reading. I mean, those are all good, good things to have and all good goals to have, but I think really what you want to get down to is the culture and environment you're building, because you want to create a growth mindset for your teachers, but also for your students, and if you embed that growth mindset throughout, you're able to set a high standard. All right, and then you'll be able to provide support, and you can provide support in a lot of ways. There could be mentorships. You collaborate opportunities, so our school improvement team is a collaborative effort. So that's an opportunity for teachers to get supported through that and help create that share of vision.
Principal JL:Professional development so we create professional development. That's meaningful. I don't want to set my staff through professional development that doesn't do anything to help us move the needle. So I want to make sure they get the things they need so they can become the better teacher, and I encourage risk-taking. I tell teachers don't be afraid to fail as a leader. I can't be afraid to fail. For us as a leadership team and for us as a school improvement team. We can't be afraid to fail. We have to try some, and this attendance policy that we implemented is a testament to that, because we were like going you know what? What we're seeing isn't improving and we are going to try something different and if we fail, at least we can say we tried All right.
Principal JL:Encourage risk taking is important. I tell staff all the time if you have a new teaching strategy you want to do, try it. If you fail, so what? You learn from it? Because we learn from our failures and I want them to be OK to try new things and take risks, because if you're not, if you're afraid to fail, you're never going to step out of your comfort zone and get better, never going to grow that way. Make it OK for teachers to fail, it's all right, then you're. When you're there, you help, support them and build them back up. When they do so, you can show them that you're there to support them. Even though they're not, you know they're failing at something, it's okay. Okay, we call that productive struggle All right. As a math teacher, I use perfect the struggle a lot. I had a lot of kids that didn't like math, so I used productive struggle strategies in order to help them overcome some of their mistakes and be able to be okay. It's okay to fail.
Principal JL:Next thing I'm going to talk about is modeling excellence. So when we set high expectations for our staff, you need to model it. I will never tell my staff to do something that I either haven't done or be willing to do as a teacher. And I think that's so important because if I expect my teachers to uphold the expectations in the building, dang it. I better hold the expectations myself, because I am not being a good leader if I'm not being able to model and lead by example and modeling what this looks like. It comes down to how do you approach people, how do you talk to people? How do you interact with people? You model that because, as a building leader, they're watching you All right, and they're going to see what you do and how you interact, and those things matter. And that's the thing we forget about sometimes is we forget that people are watching you when you don't at least expect it. So being able to model the excellence is super important, because when you hold yourself to a high standard, then everybody else is going to come up to that. Okay, because when you set the bar and ask people to meet it. I'm telling you they'll meet it and that's proof in the pudding from what I've seen the last two and a half years in the school I'm currently a principal at, because we're setting expectations for our students. We set the expectations for our staff and guess what? They're accomplishing it? They're, they're meeting those expectations.
Principal JL:Now we also have to have accountability and, as a leader, my best way to have accountability is through the school improvement team, because when the school improvement team decides this is how we're going to do things, because this is important to us and we feel like it's what's best for our staff and our students, I can always go back and say hey, remember when we had these conversations and these are the things you said that we want to be tight on, and you said this is we're going to do it. We're all in. We need you all in on this, because if we're not, it's not going to work. And so I have to send out reminders of hey, here's some things we're slipping on, we need to get better and it's okay. It's just more of a reminder. Remember, these are the things we decided to be tight on. Let's make sure we're doing the things we decided to be tight on. Let's make sure we're doing the things we need to be tight on.
Principal JL:That's part of my job is holding people accountable. Holding not just staff but also students accountable to things like, especially like the IDs we have. I'll sit out there and I will talk to kids about their IDs, making sure they have them, give them a temporary talk to them about making sure they're doing the things they're supposed to be doing, but I will also say, hey, you're doing a great job modeling today. I really love the fact that you have your ID on. You're a role model today because you're doing the things you're supposed to be doing. Thank you for that, you know. So giving positive feedback as well is also another way to ensure some accountability, but also to show people that you are modeling and holding things accountable as you go through.
Principal JL:And then the next thing is recognizing success, recognizing when things do well. So if you guys just listen to what I just did there when I had a student wearing their ID and I would talk about, hey, how it's so great to see them in their ID, that's me reinforcing them being successful on doing something that is an expectation of ours. And so that's another thing recognizing the success. Just this last couple of weeks ago, our business teacher did an outstanding job of working with another company. They actually this company donated t-shirts for every student. They also donated polos to every staff, but I had a staff member that was in charge of that. He did a great job and I I couldn't thank the staff member enough. I was always thanking him and saying doing a great job. I appreciate all the things you're doing because, with them taking the bull by the horn and doing things for the students and the staff, it was just really great to see and that just shows the type of people that I have. I have great people that I work with and it's an honor and a privilege to be their leader in their school and to be their principal and to go on this journey with them.
Principal JL:The last thing we're going to talk about is the power of humor. If you guys don't know me personally, I I like to joke around, I like to have fun, I like to be funny, I like to help people understand that, yes, I am a principal, I am a leader, but I'm also a human being and I'm going to get frustrated just like they are, but I also don't want to take myself too seriously. I want people to know that when we come to work, we're going to have some fun, and so I do like to joke around with my staff. I like to joke around with the students. I like to have fun in those ways.
Principal JL:Just this past week it took two and a half years but my students found me on TikTok and it was kind of funny because they started like talking to me about my TikTok and you know the things I'm doing on there, and it's kind of interesting. They actually kind of liked it, like the fact that, hey, this is pretty cool and I'm like, ok, and I kind of joke around with them. Oh, that's not me, you know, that's my doppelganger, that's somebody you don't know. It is fun to joke around with your students, but with your staff as well, because they got to know that you are human, you are a person just like them and you're going to have your ups and downs, and to be able to use humor and have understanding and empathy is key. Now, some people aren't wired that way. That's just the way I'm wired.
Principal JL:But I just want to say you know, don't take yourself too seriously, don't think, don't do the don't take the things you do in your job um, personally, because you're going to have the days where things are going to hit you hard and people are going to tell you that you're not doing this right or why do you do this. They're questioning every move you make. But as long as you know that you're doing the best for your staff and you're doing the best for your teachers and your students, who gives a crap what everybody else says? Because you're doing what you need to do as a leader to support them and help them become better. Now, all these things, if you guys haven't noticed, are all things good coaches do.
Principal JL:Good coaches doesn't matter if it's like Nick Saban, doesn't matter if it is. You know Bill Belichick when he was at New England. Good coaches will do things that will help them build the culture in the school but also have high expectations so they could be successful. So that is kind of the premise behind this series is to figure out how can I lead and become a good coach for my staff so they can be good teachers for their students, and so everybody in the school is succeeding. Now here are my final thoughts.
Principal JL:When it comes to establishing a vision and setting expectations. Leadership is an ongoing journey. You're not going to be perfect at it. You're learning as you go and it's something that takes time for you to get good at. So that is why it's so important to maybe try to make it simple for you when you use a coaching acronym KISS. Keep it simple, stupid, right, like. Don't make leadership harder than it needs to be. Do what good coaches do.
Principal JL:Good coaches do these things. They create a shared vision with their staff, they collaborate, they embed that into their culture, they lead by example, they revisit, they adapt as they go, they celebrate milestones, they're supportive, they encourage risk-taking, they hold people accountable and they recognize success when they see it. And not everybody uses Herman, but I do, and it's okay to try to have fun and joke around and not take yourself so seriously. So, in conclusion, these are the things you need to do to set the tone for your school, because, as a building leader, you are the one that gets to set the tone for your school. You're the one that sets the tone for your staff. You're the one that helps create that culture and that environment that helps teachers and students become their very best. With that said, this concludes today's episode of the Coach Em Up Leadership Series. I really enjoy doing this. Until next time, always look to be 1% better.
