The Principal's Handbook

Five Traits of Strong Instructional Leaders
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[00:00:00] In this episode, we're talking about five traits of a strong instructional leader. That's all coming up next right here on the Principal's Handbook.

Speaker: Welcome to the Principal's Handbook, your go-to resource for principals looking to revamp their leadership approach and prioritize self-care. I'm Barb Flowers, a certified life coach with eight years of experience as an elementary principal. Tune in each week as we delve into strategies for boosting mental resilience, managing time effectively, and nurturing overall wellness.

From tackling daily challenges to maintaining a healthy work-life balance. We'll navigate the complexities of school leadership together. Join me in fostering your sense of purpose as a principal and reigniting your passion for the job. Welcome to a podcast where your wellbeing is the top priority. I.

welcome everyone to the podcast. Today we are talking about five traits of a strong instructional leader. And I came up with this podcast episode because I've just been coaching [00:01:00] different principles and there are some traits that I started to notice of really strong instructional leaders.

And then it got me thinking about my dissertation because when I was working on my PhD, I actually did my dissertation on instructional leadership. In elementary urban settings, and so I really started to think about this idea of instructional leadership and all of the research behind it. When I was working at my dissertation, I had to do so much research in my lit review about instructional leadership and its impact on student achievement.

And I just found so many studies, I'm not gonna cite all the studies, but so many studies that talked about how strong leadership increases student achievement.

Also the importance of principals and school leaders and their direction and influence and how it actually helps to improve an organization. And so when we think about that, that's really what drives me as a principal. The job of a principal is so hard. I was just talking to a coach about this,

, [00:02:00] it's such a difficult job. We're navigating so many things. But what drives me is the instructional leadership piece. , When I was a teacher, I obviously loved instruction and curriculum and seeing my kids grow, and that's the same as a leader, just on that bigger impact. I wanna see teachers grow.

I wanna see kids grow, and if we lose sight of that instructional leadership. Component. I think for many of us, we forget about why are we doing this in the first place. And so that really drives me. And so I thought, you know what? I need to do a podcast episode on that. So that's what we're talking about today.

So I want you to think about a principal that you might know who was an instructional leader. Who for you comes to mind? , Is it somebody who is always in classrooms? Is it one whose teachers feel supported? Challenged? Maybe it's somebody who has really high expectations. Think about that for a second.

Just take a second and think about and instructional leader. Who comes to mind and what that looks like. Okay? [00:03:00] And so as you think about that, think about, what is the type of instructional leader you wanna be? What are those areas that you would like to get better at?

Because that's really what this is about, is how are we constantly improving as leaders and how can we improve as instructional leaders? So today I am just gonna jump right into those five traits that I consistently see in principals who lead learning and are not just managing the building. So the first trait is they're always learning.

So strong instructional leaders , see themselves as learners first. They read books on important topics related to instruction and what that looks like at their building. They might listen to podcasts, they talk with other leaders, not just to consume, but they're constantly applying what they're learning and reflecting.

Now, I wanna be clear when I say this, I one, , one principal I talked to who is an amazing instructional leader, she's actually an assistant principal whose job is instructional leadership. She is not, like [00:04:00] recently we had this conversation reading all the books. . But the thing I have to say is she's still reading articles, she's still finding best practices, she's still going to pd.

So I say people who read books and that could be one way. , But she was just telling me how she feels like she's not as strong as she'd like to be because she's not a person who reads every new book that comes out. And I just wanna say, if you're like that. Awesome. If you're not, that doesn't mean you're not always learning.

There are different ways that you can take in information. So just think about that as, what are the ways that you're always learning? And I think a huge piece of this is how are you learning from other people? Her case she has , a new curriculum and instruction director and she's really learning from her.

She's got other people that have really been mentors to her that she's learning from them as well. And I think, when I say always learning. These, , principles that I see as instructional leaders, even though they're already very strong instructional leaders, they'll listen to coaches, they'll listen to other principals, they'll listen to [00:05:00] mentors with a totally open mind to continue to learn more.

They're really curious about different ideas, different perspectives. They're not thinking, I'm already a really strong instructional leader. I don't need to do that, or I don't need to take their advice. , And just recognizing there's always more to learn about teaching leadership and people.

And so when you. When you model that learning, your staff sees it and they're going to, mirror that. So you wanna keep modeling that for them and it becomes part of your building's culture. , One thing that I do, in my new school that I'm in, we are a Title one school. We have been performing, when I've taken over, we are a one star building out of five stars.

So we get all of these different resources from the state to try to, improve student achievement. And I'm working with, , specialists in PBIS and specialists in literacy and math and just overall MTSS, all these different areas. And I could think to myself, okay, I [00:06:00] already know a lot of things to apply, but I actually look at it like I get expertise from all these people and I'm taking nuggets from everybody.

Who's coming to the building to help. So really having that open mind and utilizing these people because, , really it's my option for how much they come into the building. And so I'm just utilizing them as much as possible. Trying to sit with people, looking at data. Maybe they're seeing something that I didn't see.

I constantly can be learning from the people around me and just from different professional development, podcasts, whatever. . Again, strong instructional leaders see themselves as learners first and are always learning even if you have 30 years of experience. , The other trait I see of strong instructional leaders is they prioritize it so.

Instructional leadership. It doesn't happen by accident, it's scheduled. You have to protect that time and it is prioritized. And so my example of this is in the new building that I am in, we are very [00:07:00] reactive When I came in, it's a very reactive culture building. , We're constantly like reacting to all the things that we have to do.

And what I had to do at the beginning of the year is get to a place where I'm feeling more. Proactive in scheduling things because, I was just like treading. I always say treading to keep my head above water at the beginning. You know,, As I'm recording this,, this is mid-October and we started in August.

, But when I first started, probably that first. Five weeks. We were just really trying to get systems in place because we merged two buildings together. It just, we don't have a lot of staff for recess and other duties. And so it's like constantly trying to get staff and honestly, like the other day we didn't even have subs to fill in, , for all these duties.

So again, even on any given week, I can be back to focusing on just. Making sure the building's running efficiently and not even having time for instructional leadership. However, what I have seen with really good instructional [00:08:00] leaders that I'm trying to replicate is it doesn't matter what's going on in the building, they are finding ways to protect that.

They are finding ways to make sure that, they are being an instructional leader in the building. Even when discipline could take over the whole day or a parent calls, and is, really upset and it could take over so much time, you still carve out times to get in the classroom. You still, you know, make sure that you're planning for meetings and you're not just going to meetings, you know, not prepared.

You're still making sure that you're giving teachers pd like you are still having that proactive focus. On what leadership looks like in that building and how you wanna be an instructional leader. And I'm not saying it's easy, but it is really important to prioritize it because if you make everything a priority, nothing's a priority.

You know, strong leaders decide ahead of time that the instruction has to be a priority in the building. What teachers are teaching and what students are learning. [00:09:00] Has to be a priority. And so part of instructional leadership is making sure you have systems in place to make sure that happens, whether it's MTSS, even PBIS, so that the building's running smoothly so that teachers have time to teach some sort of professional learning communities.

Lots of professional development. These are things that we need instructionally, but first you have to make sure it's the principal that you're prioritizing it. The third trait I see of really strong instructional leaders are they value teacher growth, so great instructional leaders. They don't just see evaluations as compliance, , I just have to do this evaluation. They see them as a tool to help their teachers grow. So you're always looking at, if you're focused on instructional leadership, you're always looking for how can I use this opportunity to help grow my teachers?

So if you do professional growth plans in Ohio, our teachers have to do a [00:10:00] professional growth plan, and then they also do their evaluation. , Those professional growth plans, , when I first started in my last building, teachers were like, oh, we don't even look at those after we write them. You know? And it's getting everybody in this mindset, well, the whole point of a growth plan is to continue growing. And so really making sure that we're tying them to our real classroom goals, real professional development that we wanna do, real ways we wanna.

See improvement in the building and not just a way to check off. Yes, we did that professional growth plan. The other thing, when you value teacher growth, , as an instructional leader, you find ways to incorporate PD in everything. So my last district had a little bit more pd, not a ton.

My kids' school has a lot of pd. I feel like they're always off school for professional development. . But my new school really does not have a lot of pd. We have one PD day that is mandatory and the other one is a flex day. And so we do a lot of professional development during our staff meetings, our grade level meetings, [00:11:00] we have to incorporate it in everything.

And I always say our meetings have to be fast and efficient. Like I have to have a really clear agenda of what we need to get done in that time. And what we need to get from that time together because we don't have a lot of time. So there's no time to be wasted. , If I don't come to that staff meeting really prepared with a quick, good professional development, , that I'm sharing with teachers, then I'm wasting time.

So always making sure that you're valuing teacher growth, you're really being intentional with any little bit of time, and you're offering that PD for teachers. So some ideas that I had, like I said, turning staff meetings into many PD sessions. I did that in my last building. I am doing that in my current building, highlighting teacher strategies that you see that are really effective.

A lot of one-on-one conversations with teachers. , Another idea that I did a lot in my last building was creating peer observation opportunities. So teachers would go observe each other and that was a huge [00:12:00] win. I had a teacher who loved math and was really good at. Teaching math and asking open-ended questions, and he would even go in classrooms and model for people, and people really liked that.

So, you know, get creative with the resources that you have. Like I said, I'm in a district, I have very low resources, and we just really try to get creative with what we can do to support the staff, because we need teachers to know that their growth is really seen and supported and that it's important.

So that's really important. Trait four that I see with strong instructional leaders is they look at data. They don't just have teachers do benchmark assessments and then not look at it.. They use their data to see if students are learning, if they're growing, so some examples could be formative data in PLCs.

If a principal's sitting in a PLC and looking at that formative data, , it could be. Walkthrough data we've got, we're working on that now, like a walkthrough tool to see about how the curriculum is being used with fidelity, , [00:13:00] and see if teachers are actually teaching with instructional practices aligned to the curriculum, aligned to the science of reading.

That's one way looking at that benchmark data and seeing are we making progress, in each benchmark are we making that growth? , Even seeing that summer slide, if your district has a huge summer slide, ours does, what can you do about it? Are there any resources or programs that you could do for that?

, So the best leaders, they're not just collecting data, but they're asking questions about it. They're getting curious about it. Not offended about it, but looking at what's working, what's not, what small tweaks that we can make, right? Because data is feedback. It's not necessarily judgment, it's just feedback.

The other thing I like to do is if you feel like you're not good at analyzing data is. Take some sort of data, take kids' names out of it, just look at the numbers, , or take last names out of it. And you can actually put the data in chat, GPT. And it'll tell you trends.

[00:14:00] So like for example, for our third grade, state test. At my last school, I actually put it in there just to look at it and we could see trends of what our strengths were from the test and what our weaknesses were. So that gave us some just overall data for kids. You could also give kids numbers if you wanted, versus their names to keep confidentiality.

And then you could look at specific kids when it came for the. When it came to the data, so just some things to think about as you're looking at data and trait five of strong instructional leaders is they have strong beliefs about teaching and learning, right? If you're actually prioritizing this. It really means that you have some sort of strong beliefs about it.

They know what great teaching looks like, they communicate it to their staff, clearly, consistently, constantly. , They're articulating a vision. , What they want classrooms to look like, maybe what instruction should be aligned to. They use the vision to guide decisions about pd, what the walkthrough [00:15:00] focus is, feedback.

, For example, for me, I am in an elementary. I am looking at good teaching, as in reading. It is aligned to the science of reading. It is explicit instruction in math. It is the opposite of explicit instruction. It is more of a constructivist approach where we're asking these open-ended questions and really prompting kids to think about, , different ways that they're solving the problems.

. You know it, it's opposite and that can be the hardest thing with elementary teachers. But you wanna think about what are your core beliefs about learning and how often do you actually communicate those to teachers? Are you talking about it all the time? One of my core beliefs too, I'm in a kindergarten, first and second grade building, is that we are the foundation.

And that's what I keep communicating to staff. We are the foundation. We're the foundation in behavior, we're the foundation in reading and math, , and everything. And so once they leave us, that's their foundation, whatever it is. And so that's my motivational piece of what we do matters.

And [00:16:00] it's really important that we're in the classroom focusing on good instructional practices, like I said, aligned to the science of reading, aligned to our. Math series that is this constructivist approach that we make a difference for kids because we're the foundation. ? And so how are you communicating that?

, To your staff, to the kids, all of that about what good teaching and learning looks like. So I just wanna go back and briefly summarize the five traits. So again, the instructional leader always learning. They prioritize instructional leadership, they value teacher growth, and they look at data and hold strong beliefs about teaching and learning.

So I want you to reflect as we, end this episode, which of these traits come naturally to you and which one could you focus on this month? Maybe for you prioritizing instructional leadership comes natural, but maybe looking at data does not, or always learning comes natural, but, sharing those strong beliefs about teaching and learning does not.

So [00:17:00] really think about that for you. What does that look like? What comes natural to you I hope you found that helpful, and if you wanna get better with your instructional leadership, I really invite you to join the eight to four principal leadership hub.

This is where you can get coaching tools and accountability to grow as leaders. But inside the hub we talk about it all. We talk about discipline, we talk about time management, we talk about staff emotions, and all that really can tie into instructional leadership. But this month our topic is time management.

We're going through the eight to four principle mindset and. This is such an important piece of instructional leadership because that is how you can prioritize instructional leadership. It's all about how you're managing your time. So if you wanna join us. Go to the eight to four principle.com, check out the eight to four principle leadership hub.

And like I said, this month, join us as we talk about time management and the eight to four principle blueprint. Well, I hope that you take this week to apply some of these [00:18:00] strategies. I hope you take time to reflect on yourself as an instructional leader . And I will see you on the podcast next time. .