source: www.exkalibur.com

As we are planning for an upcoming PrincipalPLN podcast, we got on the subject of School Leadership teams. We put the idea into our voxer chat and it elicited a lively discussion.

There are some schools with a a large leadership team and other schools with a small leadership team. No matter what size the team is, it is important to understand a few things about the team first.

Here are a few things I gleaned from the conversation and preparation for our upcoming show:

• What are the long term goals of your leadership team? For instance, if you are a teacher-leader, coach, or perhaps a guidance counselor, do you plan to stay in that role or are you seeking experience for further advancement? As a leader, how can you help others improve the school and at the same time set them up for future career advancement?
• Do you have the opportunity to have structured meetings that encourage collaboration, questioning and open discussion
• Establish norms – how are you going to participate in the meetings on school improvement?
• Establishing two types of teams – 1 team could be for the administrative and immediate needs of the teaching staff and the 2nd could be for a school based team to tackle issues in the building and prepare for the future.

As a leader, I feel that is important to model the expectations, and there may be times where people need to be honest and open with criticism. In that same scenario, the leader needs to also be able to have the important conversations about expectations and improving the team (no matter what type of leadership team).

What would you add?