Dive Brief:
- Results from Education Dive's recent quiz found 31% of our audience of K-12 administrators identify their leadership style as "orderly and efficient," followed closely by 26% of leaders who say they are more "hands-off and thoughtful."
- A majority of administrators (38%) said they'd be therapists if they weren't in education, and 32% said they'd be lawyers.
- The informal survey included more than 1,100 respondents, and also found administrators torn between Denver (29%) and Nashville (27%) as the cities in which they'd like to live, 39% would go for an Old Fashioned after a long work day, and the same number are drawn to deep shades of purple.
Dive Insight:
The best school principals are those who see themselves as learners, those who are constantly filtering decisions through the lens of what's best for students and those who understand the concept of shared governance — a term which has become so prevalent in higher ed circles that it is often uttered tongue-in-cheekily, but one which is rarely mentioned in K-12 circles.
More than order and efficiency, those principals and district administrators who value a model of distributive leadership, and strong, caring relations are the exemplary leaders. It does not benefit anyone when the principal has “a blue-collar management mentality where the principal sees themselves — if they don’t think so explicitly, it’s implicit — where they see themselves not unlike the foreman of a factory 50-60 years ago, where it’s their responsibility to set the expectations from a top-down accountability model,” Jason Dougal, CEO of the National Institute for School Leadership, in an interview last year. He added, “unfortunately, we still see a lot of leaders who adhere to that mindset.” While order and efficiency are certainly important as well, the hands-off and thoughtful leaders, and those who see themselves as therapists if not educators, are closer to the ideal Dougal described.