Being part of your school’s Leadership Team is a valued role, one that serves your students, parents, and broader community.
There’s also no denying that it can a stressful job—one where you’re expected to take on various tasks to support the school. Oftentimes, job descriptions don’t exist, or don’t fully outline all the duties you are ultimately responsible for managing.
However, whether you work in the Business Office, serve as a Division Director, or support your school in an Advancement capacity, if you are an administrator on the Leadership Team, your job is clear. Your first and foremost responsibility is to support the School Head.
If you dig deeper into that statement, it has three general guidelines for how you should function within your school.
Learn the school’s strategic plan and strategic financial plan. Everyone who reports to the School Head must understand these two documents that outline the strategy and direction of your school. Given that the School Head reports to the Board of Trustees, their blueprint for the future—this plan—creates the framework for the Head’s tasks and your own.
Have a copy of the plan available at all times so you can refer back to it as needed when making strategic decisions. Additionally, explain how new ideas will fit in with the school’s overall strategy when discussing them with the School Head.
Recognize the leadership structure. Once you join the school’s Leadership Team, you are now in a role that has a “top-down” hierarchy. If you come from an academic focus area, you may be more familiar with a “bottom-up” hierarchy, where groups work together to achieve common goals. And while that’s still true in a “top-down” hierarchy, your first goal now is to support the School Head and help drive the school’s mission forward.
Understand the Head’s objectives to help guide your own. A large part of your job satisfaction and security rests on your performance evaluation. You should know what you’re supposed to do, do it well, and receive consistent and meaningful feedback on areas of strengths and improvements from your School Head.
But, because your first job is to support the School Head, you must understand what’s expected of him or her before you can set your own job expectations. Ask your Head how he or she is evaluated and about his or her objectives. Once that information has been shared, you can clearly see how you’ll be able to support him or her effectively.
If you keep these three guidelines in mind when making decisions as part of the Leadership Team, you will help create better synergies among your colleagues, support your mission, and ultimately help improve your school.
Additional ISM resources:
The Source for School Heads Vol. 16 No. 1 Six Tips for Setting Your Leadership Team Up for Success
The Source for School Heads Vol. 14 No. 5 19 Qualities of Superior Academic Leadership
Additional ISM resources for Gold members:
I&P Vol. 42 No. 14 Executive Leadership: The Relationships Between Predictability and Support, the School Head's Well-Being, and Faculty Culture
