School leaders play a major role in the education of students as well as the way a school is perceived. The better the leadership, the more likely the school will reach its academic goals. With so much responsibility comes the need for an effective and talented leader who is willing to go the extra mile. To know whether or not you fit the bill, here are fifteen qualities of excellent school leaders.
1: A Thirst for Knowledge
While the goal of a school leader is to better the education for their students, they must also seek out knowledge themselves. So, remember to make the most out of any education on offer on your journey up the academic ladder. After all, without a thirst for knowledge, how will you pass on the desire to learn?
If you want to kick-start your academic career while maintaining your current professional role, consider an online EdD to learn real leadership. With the benefit of flexibility alongside an education that teaches you leadership skills and ethics, you can become a school leader without needing to give up your current professional career.
2: A Clear Vision
The vision of a teacher differs from the vision of a school leader. While a teacher focuses solely on their class, a leader thinks about the school as a whole, which requires having a vision. To become a great school leader, then, you’ll need to think about what changes you’d like to see and what goals you’d want to move toward.
Are you passionate about the school going green? Do you want to see more emphasis on creative education? By having a sensible and viable vision, you are already on your way to having the qualities that make up an excellent school leader.
3: Excellent Organization Skills
No matter how creative your vision is or how much you love to learn, there’s no becoming a great school leader without excellent organizational skills. After all, you’ll be spending your days managing the running of a school, which takes a lot of planning and delegating.
Whether you are planning meetings, revising procedures, or hiring new staff members, you’ll need to keep your days and weeks as organized as possible. Many school leaders ensure they are prepared by keeping a diary and a weekly goals list. It’s a good idea to keep post-it notes around your workspace, too, for the times you need to keep a note of something a little more time-sensitive.
4: A Community Spirit
Community spirit is in the heart of all excellent school leaders. Without a genuine passion for uplifting and empowering the community as a whole, your leadership skills will waver. It’s not just one area of the community you must be passionate about, either. As much as you might love the school football team or admire the high-grade achievers at the school, it’s important to care about the entire school community and give each section the same amount of attention.
The best school leaders have community spirit for the community outside the school doors, too. If your school is located in a small town, for example, you should keep up with the goings-on, issues, and events happening around that area.
5: An Open Mind
While great school leaders have a clear vision, they also are open-minded to new ideas and suggestions. That is because, despite being the one in charge, they understand that others have just as much innovation and intelligence to come up with ways to improve the school. If they are presented with the idea that they have never thought of before, instead of shoving it to the side, they consider it and talk it through.
School leaders must also be open-minded when it comes to students. After all, you’re likely to come across staff and students from all walks of life, and you must treat everyone the same and provide equal opportunities.
6: Interpersonal Skills
School leaders meet with multiple people every single working day. Whether you’re speaking to students, faculty members, or parents, it’s important to make people feel comfortable around you while gaining their respect. Some people have natural interpersonal skills that help them achieve leadership positions, whereas others need to work hard to attain them.
If you are the latter, don’t worry, as there are plenty of books, courses, and pieces of advice out there to help you improve your interactions with others. Some simple ways to improve your interpersonal skills include –
. Maintain Positive Body Language
A lot is said in the way you hold yourself. If you’re constantly closing your arms or looking at the ground, you’ll give off a bad impression. Focus on keeping a good posture, maintaining eye contact, and keeping your body open.
. Control Emotions
If you show every single one of your emotions, people will start to feel uneasy around you. Instead, try to control your emotions while you’re at work to maintain professionalism.
. Have Confidence
Having confidence gives off an aura that people cling to. Don’t mistake it for arrogance, though, or it could have the opposite effect.
7: Ability to Admit when Wrong
No leader is always in the right, and as a school leader, you must be able to admit to that. While you might want all of your ideas to succeed, the truth is, some of them won’t, and in times like this, it’s better to hold your hands up and admit where you went wrong rather than shift the blame. By doing this, you maintain the respect of the faculty while ensuring you learn from your mistakes.
8: Works Well in a Team
As mentioned, you’ll often need to communicate with others, which means you must be a great team player. Even as the ones in charge, school leaders know when to take the back seat and let others shine. After all, running a school takes far more than the leaders – it takes the entire faculty.
9: Always Professional
The best school leaders maintain professionalism throughout anything and everything. No matter what happens, they know how to keep their cool and address the situation properly. If you aim to be a great leader, then you must learn how to do this.
A couple of ways to always appear professional is to show up prepared, wear proper clothing, always be on time, and keep your calm through tricky situations. It’s not the easiest quality to consistently maintain, but that’s what makes great school leaders stand out from the crowd.
10: Open to Risk-Taking
While great school leaders are organized and focused, the ones who succeed beyond anyone else are those willing to take risks. After all, breakthroughs don’t happen by trying the same method over and over again. They must be able to think about a problem, list all the ideas tried before, and then try a new one that, while presenting a risk, would also help the school in numerous ways.
11: Respectful
Think back to your favorite school leaders, and the chances are you liked them so much because of how respectful they were of you and everyone else. If you want to achieve success as a school leader, you must not only treat people with respect but genuinely and whole-heartedly respect them as people, whether they are new students or an old faculty member. Remember – to receive respect, and you must first give it.
12: Great Encouragers
Much like teachers, school leaders are also great encouragers. While they might not be stood in front of a class day to day, they have to encourage their staff and their students to put in their best efforts every day to benefit the entire school. It’s important, then, to be able to inspire people each day through communication as well as setting an example.
13: Inclusive
As a school leader, you can’t leave anyone out, whether they are part of the faculty or a student. After all, every single person’s voice makes up the school community. So, whether you are debating opening a new club for a group of students or holding a staff meeting, you must always make sure you include everyone as a school leader.
14: Active Listeners
If you think that being a leader means more talking, then you’d be wrong. A lot of what it means to be a school leader is listening to the opinions of others, whether that’s an idea from a staff member or a student. For this reason, you must be an active listener and take in everything people say if you become a school leader. Also, if someone comes to you with a great idea, instead of just listening to the words, consider the meaning.
15: Truly Passionate
Above all, the greatest school leaders are those who are endlessly passionate about education, the students, and the school as a whole. After all, with passion comes effort and change, which are two things required to transform a school into an excellent one. So, if your goal is to become a school leader, first make sure you are genuinely passionate about doing so.
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