Under-the-Radar Teaching Skills

But teachers leave themselves vulnerable and on slippery ground if they fail to manage their principal.

Of course, this means providing help and support to the principal, not figuring out clever ways to delegate from below.

Sidebar

"Delegating from below" is the career-limiting strategy of getting your boss to do the work that you were assigned.

We will not delve into the specific tactics of delegating from below because the tactics benefit no one, neither in the short-term, or in the long-run.

A Mutual Success Relationship

Managing your principal means building a relationship that is beneficial to your principal and to you.

This includes identifying how the principal operates, finding out what the principal needs from you, and delivering all the help that you can. This means doing your work in ways that meet the needs of your principal, and does not mean doing the principal's work.

This process does not include arguing with your principal (either in public or in private) and does not include exerting influence upon your principal to change to your way of thinking…or to change the principal to your way of operating.

Campus Culture, Management Style and Sphere of Influence Skills

Before you can get positive principal attention, before you can obtain approval for implementing your ideas and before you become recognized as a key member of the campus faculty; you have to produce results that benefit your students, that benefit your principal, and that benefit your school district.

Just "doing your own thing" is unlikely to provide a benefit to your principal, or to produce any support from your principal.

What is required is for you to pinpoint exactly what you need to do, then follow through with your support plan.

Once this relationship is established, you will be trusted; and you can count on your ideas receiving a positive audience.

Campus culture refers to understanding how the folks on the campus where you work interact and operate. For example, is the campus…

• Performance-Based or Test-Score-Driven?


• Political, Bureaucratic, Centralized or Decentralized?


• Planning-Based or Ad Hoc?


• Clique-Driven or Best-Idea-Driven?


• Collegial or Adversarial?


• Stressed or Relaxed?


• Adversarial or Supportive?


• Are Decisions Made Slowly and Deliberately or Quickly


• Etc.?

Management Style refers to.…

• Authoritarian, Democratic of Laissez-Faire Leadership


• Accessible or Inaccessible Decision-Making


• Open of Closed Budget Management


• Formality of Informality


• Importance of Paperwork vs. Informal Reporting Conversations

The idea here is to match your principal's method of working so that the principal is comfortable with the way you interact and relate.

"Sphere of Influence" Skills

Here are the questions to ask (of yourself) to determine if your management relationship with your principal is on the right track…

• Does the principal respect your work and rely on what you do?


• Does the principal listen when you make suggestions or share ideas?


• Do you know what is going on campus, and does the principal keep you informed?


• Do you avoid rumors and trust the information that the principal gives you?


• Do you solicit feedback about how you are relating to the principal? Do you pay attention and act on that feedback in a positive way?


• Do you avoid cliques and keep on positive terms with all departments and factions on campus?


• Do you treat everyone with respect, including students, parents, faculty and staff?


• Do you focus upon facts and research instead of personalities if you disagree with decisions?


• Do you listen before you answer?


• Do you know what the principal expects you to deliver?


• Do you keep your cool when disagreements occur or when temper fuses ignite powder kegs?


• Are you prepared to do what it takes so that your contribution to the campus is positive and beneficial?

Goal: What is Good for your Campus

The reason for managing our principal is to work in harmony with your principal for the good of the campus.

Manage your principal correctly avoids schemes to get your way, avoids power plays to push your ideas, or avoids conniving to cut yourself a "bigger slice" of whatever is on the table (as long as it isn't more work).

Harmony, cooperation, collegiality and avoiding stress are hallmarks of a Master Teacher who is managing their principal.

A competent and fully successful principal will appreciate (and maybe reciprocate) in providing the help and support that you need when you manage the relationship with skill.

But, even a substandard, incompetent and less-than-fully-functional principal will be helped by your diligence in managing the relationship.

Managing your principal is in everyone's best interest.

Be sure to do so skillfully and wisely for a positive and productive campus.