School Leadership: 3 Ways to Stay Engaged

You may also believe this about your career, but I think I have the best job in the world.

Leading a K-12 school is an amazing opportunity to see the best in people (most of the time) and to shape an environment for students to learn and grow. I have a wonderful team of leaders who work with me, and to be honest, they're the ones who make it happen. The vision of a learning environment that meets student needs is a central focus in each of my leader's days. (Without these individuals carrying out the school's mission and vision, I might have to re-state my earlier comment about this being the best job in the world.)

I'm a big picture kind of guy, and am constantly thinking about where we'll be in 18 to 24 months. But there's a problem with that. If I spend too much time in the future and never take a look at the present, a disconnect between me and my school will occur. So here are three things I work on daily to stay engaged:

1. Get up and walk around. I wasn't always very good at this. I would spend most of my time in my office with my head buried in charts and graphs. But now, I spend as much time possible in the school hallways observing and watching ... just walking around. I want to see our students as they engage with each other between classes. I want to see the elementary projects hanging in the hallways. I want to hear the voices of our future as they live their present.
    
2. Talk with people daily. I was probably worse at this than the walking around part. But people want to know you are interested, and having small conversations with staff at breaks during the day, eating lunch with teachers and just general small talk goes a long way.
    
3.  Listen to stakeholders. I constantly ask for feedback and use it to improve. I firmly believe that our culture is an open place, partly because of the listening component. Of course, not every suggestion can be used, but people are made to feel as if they were at least heard.

I'm sure there are more research-based ways of staying in touch, but for me, these three ideas –– walking, talking and listening –– are working pretty well. Gotta go ... time to take a little walk.