10 Traits of Highly Effective Principals

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10 Traits of Highly Effective Principals

• Elaine K. McEwan

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Lewis Carroll, Alice Adventures in Wonderland

• Cheshire-Puss,would you tell me, please, which
  way I ought to go from here? That depends a
  good deal on where you want to go, said the Cat.
  I dont much care where said Alice. Then it
  doesnt matter which way you go, said the Cat.
  so long as I get somewhere, Alice added as an
  explanation. Oh, youre sure to do that, said
  the Cat, if you only walk long enough.

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Where there is no vision, the people perish.

• Proverbs 2918 KJV

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The Soulnever thinks without a picture.

• Aristotle

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Management

• The capacity to handle multiple problems,
  neutralize various constituencies, motivate
  personnel

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Leadership

• Is an essential moral act, not as in-- most
  managementan essentially protective act. It is
  the assertion of a VISION!

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The Envisioner

• There is no more powerful engine driving an
  organization toward excellence and long-range
  success than an attractive, worthwhile, and
  achievable vision of the future, widely shared.
• Nanus (1992. p3)

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Envisioner Exemplar Larry Fieber

• A Leader needs to be able to envision success
  instead of failure.
• -- Principal Lois Scrivener

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Envisioner Benchmarks

• Leaders spend considerable effort gazing across
  the horizon of time, imagining what it will be
  like when they have arrived at their final
  destination. Some call it vision others
  describe it as a purpose, mission, goal, or even
  a personal agenda. Regardless of what we call
  it, there is a desire to make something happen,
  to change the way things are, to create something
  that no one else has ever created before.
• --Kouzes and Posner (1987, p.9)

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Envisioners are Hedgehogs

• Focus is the force that enables Envisioners to
  intuitively know whether or not a particular
  action or decision will move their school forward
  or take it off course. They have what the
  Japanese call hoshin, a sense of direction that
  points their internal compass toward true north.

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Envisioners Feel Called

• Highly effective principals feel called not to a
  job per se but to the opportunity to make a
  difference, change the educational landscape,
  heal an ailing school, or work for the concepts
  of equity and excellence.

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Envisioners have Resolve, Goals, and Lifevision

• Committed to a specific cause, ideal, value or
  principle.

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Envisioners Can See the Invisible

• Descriptors such as universal, immeasurable, an
  object of the imagination, and unusual
  discernment or foresight come to mind. Vision is
  not what you will do tomorrow but where you are
  going in the next five to ten years.

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Envisioners Know Where they are Headed

• Mission is the direction that emerges from the
  vision and guides the day to day behavior of the
  school.

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Envisioners Have Compelling Visions

• Highly effective principals are passionate people
  with a compelling vision that have captured the
  hearts and minds of the staff members.

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Envisioners Can Articulate their Visions and then
Make them Happen
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The Big Thing

• Average Principals keep the buses, budgets, and
  boilers humming.
• Good Principals are warm and caring people.
• Great Principals do and are all of the
  aforementioned plus they have focus, purpose,
  vision and mission.
• The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog
  knows one big thing.