5 Guiding Principles from a Principal

While October has passed and National Principal Month has come and gone, I am always here to support and offer insight to principals. I am someone who served as a principal. By no means do I believe I am a principal expert; however, I am passionate about principalship and love supporting principals. I want to share with you some guiding principles I learned during my tenure as a principal.

Guiding Principle 1: Check Your Ego – You have a big office. Yes, you have the assigned parking space. Yes, you get paid the highest salary. Yes, you are the one that everyone knows in the building. Do not let those facts go to your head. Principals, you must check your ego. The principal title does not make you; you make the principal title. Too often, principals let their egos get in the way. Trust me, when your ego gets in the way, you think you can do it all, and you will find out the hard way when no one wants to work for you that you let your ego get in the way. 

Guiding Principle 2: Flex – Your summer ra ra speak is all good to get your staff excited about the school year. The quotes you put in your Sunday email from the latest leadership book will be good for a few days. As a principal, you must flex. Flex means you must not let anyone forget how you got to the principal seat. You got here by being good, if not a great teacher first. Remind your staff you can still teach. Whether that is modeling the new strategy your PD is covers, going in the classroom and co-teaching, or even getting in front of the class and teaching a lesson for your teachers. This reminder will go a long way toward your credibility as the leader in the building. 

Guiding Principle 3: You are a Type A Personality – Most people in the principal seat have a type A personality. Principals check most, if not all, the type A personalities: competitive, ambitious, impatient, and aggressive. There is nothing wrong with being a Type A personality, but you have to embrace it. If you embrace it, you can leverage the characteristics to work for your advantage and not your disadvantage. Also, knowing that you are a Type A personality, you can fully understand it is not healthy to be this type all the time. You often hear about principals who burn out. Some of it is because they allow their aggressiveness and obsession to get the best of them. 

Guiding Principle 4: Never Forget You Are Always a Teacher – From some principals, this maybe hard if you have never been a teacher, but for most of us who cut our teeth as classroom teachers, this cannot be a principle we forget. Sometimes we forget because we have the weight of the entire building on our shoulders. We are responsible for the teachers, the students, the parents, and even the community, and because of that, we forget when things were more straightforward in the classroom. Sometimes when we are making those tough decisions, we must remember our time in the classroom and how our teacher self would react to our decisions. If you all were anything like me as a teacher, as in outgoing, I am sure you gave your principal an earful (respectfully, of course) when he/she pushed new initiatives. It was important for me to consider how I would react, giving me a different perspective.

Guiding Principle 5: Be the Umbrella – When it rains, it is much easier to manage when you have an umbrella. You are more likely to go out in the rain with your umbrella. Principals, we have to be the umbrella for our students, our staff, our families, and our community. It is our job to be the umbrella in our schools. There is so much coming down upon students, staff, and parents that we must be the umbrella shielding them when principals are effective at being the umbrella. With everything coming down, we allow our teachers to teach and remain dry. Our students can learn and stay dry. Our parents can show up as parents and remain dry. Yes, we get wet as we protect someone else, but that is why we have the big office and the assigned parking space and make big money.