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THE DELIBERATE AND COURAGEOUS PRINCIPAL
cycle of caring for others: staff, students, parents, and community members, not to mention their own families. This chapter includes three strategies for your consideration to build healthy habits in your leadership: (1) getting quiet each day, (2) journaling, and (3) connecting with a colleague. This final chapter’s focus is simple: you can’t take care of your staff and school unless you’re taking care of yourself.
The Power of Principals As we begin to explore the essential actions and skills of principals in high-achieving schools, one basic understanding must be clear: principals make a huge difference throughout their schools, including an influence on student test scores (when reviewing gains throughout their tenure) and so much more! In a research report commissioned by the Wallace Foundation, the authors write: Effective principals are at least as important for student achievement as previous reports have included—and in fact, their importance may not have been stated strongly enough. . . . We now have rigorous, arguably causal studies based on longitudinal data that can estimate the size of principal’s effect on achievement. Effective principals have large effects. Replacing a belowaverage principal (at the 25th percentile) with an above-average one (at the 75th percentile) would increase the typical student’s learning by nearly three months in both math and reading annually. (Grissom, Egalite, & Lindsay, 2021, p. 91)
In addition, Kristian Holden (2018), researcher with the American Institutes for Research, writes that “research suggests positive associations between principals’ time use [and] organizational management skills . . . [and] principal quality also appears to play an important role in teacher turnover and differential retention of effective teachers” (p. i). It’s clear that the actions and skills of principals lead to school achievement in multiple ways. A fundamental path to achievement is the way leaders work with teachers to build collective success. High-achieving principals are keenly aware that the impact of their work is what creates this collaborative environment for teachers. These principals shoulder the heavy responsibility that their leadership affects the learning of students in the school. And they work hard to ensure that teachers in turn own the responsibility of affecting the learning of their students. Moving into the principal’s role is a difficult transition. Or at least I believe it should be a difficult transition. You were probably a highly effective teacher and successful in building relationships with your students and achieving student results. You demonstrated leadership capabilities, and following a promotion, you now are in charge of teachers, who do the job you used to do. It goes without saying that the most important people in your school are the students. But your focus is no longer aimed directly at your students; it is now aimed at your teachers. Your role is now all about leading, supporting, and uniting the teachers for the work of your school. What happens in teachers’ classrooms is the most important work. You now are in a position to ultimately affect all students by supporting their teachers. University of Houston professor and best-selling author Brené Brown (2018) writes,
