The classroom teacher is the most visible person in a child’s life at school, but it is the principal who is responsible for providing a high quality education for all students there. Principals vary in strategy, temperament and leadership style. They take responsibility for school success, lead teaching and learning, they hire, develop and retain excellent teachers and build a strong school community. Principals believe that the problems of the school are their problems and they never stop trying to solve them. If a student is having trouble learning, a successful principal knows how to figure out why, whether it is learning disability, trouble with attendance or gang involvement. Principals can also be creative in their problem solving and approach challenges with an entrepreneurial attitude. They find ways to implement good ideas, rather than accepting the status quo. Most schools today have very limited budgets, making it difficult to pay for innovative new programs. An administrator should not waste time lamenting the lack of funding instead, get busy looking for a new program that will benefit the students by thinking who you can ask to help support the program or perhaps create partnerships with business establishments, local colleges , universities and health care professionals that help enrich the school’s curriculum.
Whatever changes principal’s force, they don’t make excuses why their schools can’t succeed. They make it their top priority to figure out how the school can excel and will do everything they can to make it happen. Principals/administrators should understand the strengths and needs of their students and they know what is happening in the classrooms in their schools.
They ensure that school time and resources are focused on student achievement. One important role of a principal is ensuring that every student is taught by an effective teacher. Hiring teachers who are not competent, whether a relative or not is detrimental to the learning process of students. A graduate school degree is not a guarantee that a teacher is competent in the classroom. There are instances where a non- graduate degree holder teaches well in the classroom and can relate with the students. The principal has to do some classroom observation to determine the capacity of teachers to teach using different strategies to be able to make the lesson interesting and understandable by the students. A head of a school must be civil and not tactless when dealing with his/her constituents. A demanding administrator is likely to create hostility and animosity between himself and the faculty and staff. Everyone has the capacity to be a leader through determination to be better for the common good. Leaders choose to become so and are ultimately defined by their ability to initiate change in the face of adversity.
Leadership is not innate, but learned through the actions that we choose to take as well as critical analysis both good and bad. When someone with a title is referred to as a leader think about what he or she has really done in his/her respective position to champion real change. Upon pondering that the realization might be, that a true leader is actually you, even though you don’t have the Ph.D or Ed.D title . Good camaraderie and management within the school will reflect a God send and successful administrator.
By MICHAEL C. ABOC
