What a Principal Means to School Leadership

Since a principal is said to be the most important person in creating an effective school, vision is important in many ways. First of all, a principal needs to have a vision, but more importantly the principal needs to be able to share this vision with teachers and community members and find ways to involve them in sharing this vision. What it comes down to is understanding one's community well enough to begin a process of creating a shared vision. The principal most also understand teachers, state standards, and other factors in order to make sure all stakeholders play a role in this vision.

The principal must first be extremely familiar with his/her community. Spending time with people and joining key organizations can help greatly. He/she must draw people into conversations about education. The same must be done with the teachers at school. Teachers must have a safe environment to be able to talk about the positives and negatives of their school as well as what their ideal school would look and feel like. In this, the principal must be the educational leader-throwing out ideas and providing them with the time and resources to do this. The principal can certainly steer them toward key points of his/her vision by asking the right questions and providing them with experts who share his/her views.

Once those questions are explored, the staff and the principal can begin listing core visions for a school. Again, the principal is the educational leader and can lead in a way that his/her vision becomes part of the shared vision. However, having all the major stakeholders is crucial. A principal should never come into a school and just explain a vision to his faculty and believe that they will jump onboard and follow him/her.

Once the core visions are listed, then the faculty can begin coming up with goals or ways to address these visions. The principal's job again is as a guide, and to make sure that the vision of his/her school fits into the general plan for the district. He/she must then make sure that the changes actually begin happening and help the staff come up with ways to help them institute these changes without overtaxing them as professionals.

As a principal, one can certainly share one's vision with all the major stakeholders. But the principal must be careful to share it little by little as a way to guide others toward it, rather than appearing top-down. Stakeholders have to be given time and opportunity to "buy into it" and feel empowered in becoming part of the process. Being an educational leader is key to this process.