10 Traits of Highly Effective Principals

10 Traits of Highly Effective PrincipalsElaine K. McEwan

Lewis Carroll, Alice Adventures in Wonderland

“Cheshire-Puss,…would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to go,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—” said Alice. Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. “– so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

Proverbs 29:18 KJV

The Soul…never thinks without a picture.

Aristotle

Management

The capacity to handle multiple problems, neutralize various constituencies, motivate personnel…

Leadership

Is an essential moral act, not as in-- most management—an essentially protective act. It is the assertion of a VISION!

The Envisioner

“There is no more powerful engine driving an organization toward excellence and long-range success than an attractive, worthwhile, and achievable vision of the future, widely shared.”

Nanus (1992. p3)

Envisioner Exemplar: Larry Fieber

“A Leader needs to be able to envision success instead of failure.”

-- Principal Lois Scrivener

Envisioner Benchmarks

Leaders spend considerable effort gazing across the horizon of time, imagining what it will be like when they have arrived at their final destination. Some call it vision; others describe it as a purpose, mission, goal, or even a personal agenda. Regardless of what we call it, there is a desire to make something happen, to change the way things are, to create something that no one else has ever created before.”

--Kouzes and Posner (1987, p.9)

Envisioners are Hedgehogs Focus is the force that enables

Envisioners to intuitively know whether or not a particular action or decision will move their school forward or take it off course. They have what the Japanese call hoshin, a sense of direction that points their internal compass toward “true north.”

Envisioners Feel Called

Highly effective principals feel called not to a job per se but to the opportunity to make a difference, change the educational landscape, heal an ailing school, or work for the concepts of equity and excellence.

Envisioners have Resolve, Goals, and Lifevision

Committed to a specific cause, ideal, value or principle.

Envisioners Can See the Invisible

Descriptors such as universal, immeasurable, an object of the imagination, and unusual discernment or foresight come to mind. Vision is not what you will do tomorrow but where you are going in the next five to ten years.

Envisioners Know Where they are Headed

Mission is the direction that emerges from the vision and guides the day to day behavior of the school.

Envisioners Have Compelling Visions

Highly effective principals are passionate people with a compelling vision that have captured the hearts and minds of the staff members.

Envisioners Can Articulate their Visions and then Make them

Happen

The Big Thing

Average Principals keep the buses, budgets, and boilers humming.

Good Principals are warm and caring people.

Great Principals do and are all of the aforementioned plus they have focus, purpose, vision and mission.

“The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”