Philosophy of School Leadership

 

Love, Learn, Lead

Caring enough to take effective action and change outcomes

 

This phrase is one of the organizational values of the Saint Paul Public Schools. 

As a value it resonates with my philosophy of school leadership

and forms the basis for my thoughts on the topic.

Love

The passion in the soul of an effective school leader influences the work and informs the leader’s purpose.  For most school leaders this passion develops as a teacher in the beginning of a teaching career finding rewards in the successes of students, the involvement of parents, and contributing to a positive school community through teaching.  This love of “all things teaching and learning” evolves as central purpose for the life’s work supported by ideals for the field of education and the belief that students, families, teachers, and schools will succeed. The love a school leader feels toward the school community is evident in how the leader passionately and positively clarifies the vision of the school’s work. To accomplish this task, the leader builds an effective school culture based on love of teaching and learning, supporting and modeling desired behaviors, and explicitly, passionately, and collaboratively creating the path to success.

 

Learn

Acquiring knowledge and constructing meaningful situational applications is a lifelong process.  And from the very beginning of life, learning occurs in social context.  A successful school leader reflects on the history of the organization and his / her own early social constructs as a basis for developing action.  An effective school leader continues to learn from the social dynamics of the school and staff, from interaction with parents and families, from professional expertise in the field, and from the influences of the decisions of the school district and community. Societal and global factors inform the urgency of the need for school graduates who are skilled critical thinkers, creative problem solvers, and compassionate human beings.  Through on-going socially constructed learning, school leaders continue to develop and implement action plans for curricular, instructional, and school wide practices that ensure positive outcomes. Carefully designed plans, and evaluated results, promise to be effective in helping everyone in the school continue to construct their knowledge for action as a learning community.

 

Lead

Through the priorities identified in the learning process school leaders embark on leading schools in the right work.  Like learning, leading is a social process.  In leading a school, distributing the responsibility, the joys, the pain, and the recognition for the success of the work whenever possible is critical to the growth of the community.  Successful school leaders will maximize the opportunity to share in leadership whenever possible.  At the same time effective leaders are visionary, decisive, instill a belief of success by working along side others, and tackle the difficult barriers to the success of students and school staff.  This success is the legacy of the school leader.

 

                                                                                              Spring 2010