BRAVO Principal!

Building Relationships with Actions that Value Others

Sandra Harris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317529736
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Leadership nella didattica

It is only through effective leadership actions that principals can become outstanding leaders. By building relationships that value all stakeholders—including teachers, students, parents, and community members—your actions will lead to a thriving school. This book provides you with the tools for emphasizing shared purpose, caring, integrity, and honesty so you can Build Relationships with Actions that Value Others.

In this updated edition, you'll find out how to:

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• Establish trusting relationship based on mutual support, respect, and empowerment.

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• Demonstrate cultural responsiveness by embracing diversity and integrating multicultural awareness throughout the curriculum.

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• Employ creative concern-solving strategies and address conflicts with students, parents, and staff.

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• Develop a learning culture to nurture student and teacher achievement.

Each chapter concludes with a set of review questions to help you to reflect, evaluate, and improve upon your leadership skills. Filled with suggestions for actions that you can apply today, this book shows you how to become a BRAVO Principal!

BRAVO Principals Establish Trust

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

—Golda Meir

In my early teaching career, I taught in a small, rural school. There was no teacher’s lounge, so when my class was at PE or music, I often sat at a desk in the hall planning lessons or grading papers. Nearly every day the kindergarten class passed this desk on the way outside for recess. Each time the children passed by, a little boy in the class would look at me, smile, and say, “You sure are pretty.” Of course, I always gave him a delighted smile before I returned to my work. This happened so often that I told my husband and friends about it, laughing, of course, but, still flattered. After all, a compliment is a compliment, even if it comes from a 5-year-old!

One day as I sat at the desk, the kindergarten class walked by. Sure enough, my little admirer smiled and said, “You sure are pretty.” I acknowledged his compliment with a smile and turned back to my papers. Then I heard him say to the little fellow in front of him, “I say that every day. Doesn’t matter who’s sitting there.”

To my chagrin, this little kindergartner was giving lip service to something that he did not really believe. From this point on, of course, I had no confidence in this little character. I did not trust his compliments, no matter how lovely they sounded.

Unfortunately, many principals do the same thing. They often say one thing, when they believe another, or they say what they think we want to hear. Just like the little kindergartner who said what he did not really believe, too often, principals give lip service to the idea of being trustworthy, but their actions clearly indicate that trust is of little value.

What is trust? According to various dictionary sources, trust is synonymous with confidence. When we trust someone or an organization, we have confidence that the individual or the organization will respond in certain ways. We have all heard the saying that trust is like air—we don’t notice it until it’s polluted! Indeed, it is generally easier to identify lack of trust than it is the presence of trust. Just last week I met with a doctoral student who was frustrated and concerned because her district leadership had charged her with bringing about school improvement, but whenever she tried to implement new ideas, she was told it couldn’t be done. I was reminded of this story:

There is a cage containing five apes. In the cage, there is a banana hanging on a string with stairs under it. Before long an ape will go up the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as the ape touches the banana, all the apes are sprayed with cold water. After a while, another ape makes an attempt with the same result—all the apes are sprayed with cold water. Then the cold water is turned off.

Now if another ape tries to climb the stairs for the banana the other apes will try to prevent it even though no water sprays them. Now one of the five apes is removed from the cage and replaced with a new one. The new ape sees the banana and tries to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the apes attack him. After another attempt he is again attacked. He knows now that if he attempts to climb the stairs he will be assaulted.

Next, another of the original five apes is removed and replaced with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm. Again, remove another of the original five apes and replace with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four apes that beat him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest ape. After replacing the fourth and fifth of the original apes there are no longer any apes that have been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, no ape ever again approaches the banana. Why not? Because that’s the way it’s always been in this place.

The story of the five apes is a story about how policies started (How Policies Begin, 2007). I believe instead it is a message about trust or, rather, what happens when there is a lack of trust. When there is low-trust on the campus or in the district, it is nearly impossible for a principal to do anything differently than it has been done before. New ideas and new practices are all treated with disdain; it’s simply not the way it’s been done before. Consequently, before a principal can nurture or even sustain school improvement, establishing trust is a must. Establishing trust on a school campus builds relationships with faculty and with students that are at the heart of belonging and keeping them engaged in the business of school (Dweck, 1986).

There are many ways for principals to build trust (see Combs, Edmonson, & Harris, 2013), but I suggest that three actions are foundational for principals to build trust on the school campus. Principals collaborate to create a shared vision. Principals demonstrate confidence through empowering others. Principals build leadership at every level. BRAVO principals understand that the only way to build capacity for trust in a school is to build capacity for trust in people.

Establish Trust: Collaborate on a Shared Vision

I often speak to groups of educators about trust. I generally begin by asking teachers what their principals do to promote a positive school climate that supports teacher quality and student learning. All of the teachers identify the presence of trust as being central to promoting this positive school climate. When I ask them to be specific about what their principal does to establish this trust, they say something like this: she included me in a committee to create the school vision, or he engaged all of us in a faculty meeting to discuss and clarify our school vision. This act of collaborating on the school mission communicates to the teachers that the principal trusts them professionally and has confidence in their potential as leaders. Collaborating to create a shared vision establishes trust as it restores the original vision for educators. Trust is also established when the shared vision is framed around student success.

Restore the Original Vision

Often, the very act of being involved in creating the vision for the school enhances feelings of responsibility to student learning, not just because it is what teachers are supposed to do, but because it renews their vision of why they became teachers in the first place: to help young people. A student in one of my university classes told me that after teaching for 10 years, she had considered leaving teaching. She no longer enjoyed teaching, did not feel that she was doing anything worthwhile, and, ultimately, felt powerless as an educator. She was so busy with lesson plans, grading papers, and testing, she could not even remember why she had become a teacher.

This teacher’s school faculty rotated every year onto a very inactive, uninvolved site-based council, and it had become her turn to serve. This year the school had a new principal. In August, she had gone to the new principal, explained her “burnout” and tried to get out of serving on the committee. He told her he did not want to force her to be on the committee, but he did want her to at least begin the year by serving on it. This is what she said:

I served all year. When the year was up I had seen a whole new aspect of the processes that impacted student learning. The principal began the year by engaging the committee in discussing our vision for the school. He listened to our suggestions and many of them were actually implemented. For the first time in a long time, I remembered the enthusiasm with which I began my first year of teaching and, to my shock, I began to feel that same excitement again.

When teachers are trusted to collaborate to create a shared vision for the school, this contributes to restoring their own original vision for becoming an educator. Unfortunately, too often as the years go by and educators are inundated with a multitude of changing policies, expectations, tests, curricula, duties, and assorted paper work … we forget that youthful idealism. It is the job of a leader to remind teachers of their original vision and then, working together, frame all that we do under a shared vision of helping students. One way to establish trust through creating a shared vision is to remind educators why we are educators. Three ways to do this include:

1. Provide time for faculty to remember why they chose to become an educator—in a faculty meeting or during professional development.
2. Provide a format for sharing why they became an educator with other educators through newsletters, videos, and blogs.
3. Encourage faculty to share why they became educators with students and parents.

Frame the Vision Around Student Success

Sergiovanni (1992) points out that through creating a shared vision, school leaders “restore meaning to what schools do” (p. 72). In establishing trust, creating a goal to improve schools for all children becomes a shared vision between principals, teachers, students, and others. This collaborative framing of the school vision emphasizes the connection between what we are doing and how it contributes to student success. Principals who build relationships with actions that value others establish trust by involving faculty members in creating a shared vision of student success.

One principal I know who involves the faculty in collaborating to create the school vision continuously reminds them that student success must be at the very heart of that vision. For example, as the teachers reviewed the academic indicator test data, they noted that math scores had decreased steadily over the past 3 years. The decline was small, but there was a decline. The site-based committee responsible for creating the campus plan committed the next several meetings to consider this problem. Committee members discussed texts being used, budget monies available, teacher experience, changing community demographics, and much more. But always, the principal begins each discussion by asking what decisions should be made to help students be successful. When decisions are being reached, he asks again, “Now, how will this contribute to student success?” In other words, the principal constantly keeps the vision for student success at the forefront of all decisions.

An award-winning principal in Massachusetts, John Ciesluk (in Harris, 2005), involved the faculty in creating a motto that framed and guided decisions the school made as it considered new initiatives. The motto? “Eyes on the child learning.” Ciesluk involved all of the school staff (including support staff and parents) in revising the school’s mission statement, which became: “To provide a safe, caring, respectful learning community that encourages every child to achieve at his or her full potential” (p. 20). Johnson and Johnson (2009) found that the more likely individuals perceive that a group is unified the greater the interpersonal bonds that develop. Thus, teachers and other faculty, when collaborating to create a shared vision, establish trusting relationships throughout the school campus.

Establish Trust: Demonstrate Confidence Through Empowerment

Principals establish trust when they acknowledge and demonstrate confidence in others. This occurs when we empower others. Empowerment does not happen in a vacuum. Empowerment is never about having power over. Instead, empowering is about sharing power with and giving your power away to others to be creative, identify problems, and do what needs to be done to help establish a positive climate in the school (Combs, Edmonson, & Harris, 2013). Principals generally only share power or give power away when there is confidence. Therefore, empowerment can only occur in an atmosphere where mutual trust is established.

Principals must have confidence to trust the wisdom and abilities of teachers, students, and community leaders. They show trust in community leaders and parents when they invite them onto the school campus to participate in planning and enriching school activities. Principals actively show trust in students when they listen and act on their input regarding school issues. Principals show trust in teachers when they involve them in educational decisions and treat them professionally. BRAVO principals give teachers the freedom to teach. They also establish trust with teachers through delegating responsibly.

Give Teachers the Freedom to Teach

In a survey I conducted several years ago, one teacher wrote, “[My principal] trusts our judgment by letting us teach. He doesn’t hover over us.” Another pointed out, “My principal is a gentleman of action but few words. He will basically leave you alone in the classroom as long as teaching results are good.” Another said, “He gives teachers the power to move forward. He … has given us the ‘go’ to do what it takes to get the job done. In other words, do what you know works” (Harris, 2000, p. 37). Teachers understand that when principals give them freedom to teach, it’s because the principal has confidence in their ability and trusts them to do the job effectively.

One of my doctoral students shared how she grew to trust her principal more because of the freedom he gave to be creative in the classroom. As an artist, she went to him for permission to collaborate on a cross-curricular project with the English teacher that allowed students to create a visual representation of a key scene from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Individual class groups were assigned different literary aspects (character, theme, conflict) of the play to analyze and illustrate on a single large mural. Combining visual arts (watching the play and creating the mural) with text and both class and small-group discussion resulted in a level of interest rarely seem among beginning Shakespeare students. This later led to a collaboration with the chemistry teacher—as students made their own ceramic pots as part of chemistry experiments. This kind of classroom freedom does not occur without trust.

Another challenge for principals in building trust is how they motivate the staff. Certainly there are ways to motivate, such as incentive pay, career ladder s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• 1 BRAVO Principals Establish Trust
• 2 BRAVO Principals Support Others
• 3 BRAVO Principals Respect Others
• 4 BRAVO Principals Demonstrate Cultural Responsiveness
• 5 BRAVO Principals Challenge the Imagination
• 6 BRAVO Principals Nurture Achievement
• 7 BRAVO Principals Demonstrate Courage
• 8 BRAVO Principals Make the World a Better Place
• References