How Superintendents Should Work with Their Principals

In this Kappan article, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo, managing director of the nine North Star charter schools in Newark, NJ, says superintendents need to have a “growth” mindset working with their school leaders (as described by Carol Dweck in her book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Random House, 2006). Superintendents with a “fixed” mindset believe that if principals aren’t charismatic, charming, and energetic, they never will be. The growth mindset, on the other hand, leads superintendents to spend most of their time in classrooms, corridors, auditoriums, and team meetings coaching principals to get better at what they do.  

“Nothing better represents the divide between fixed and growth mindsets than the feedback we give to current and aspiring principals,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. Most principals get an annual evaluation report with numerous recommendations – which are overwhelming and rarely make any difference. A far more effective approach is giving principals bite-sized feedback, one item at a time, throughout the year. “Growth does not come through elaborate rubrics,” he says; “it comes from small, easily applied changes.” 

Bambrick-Santoyo describes how an aspiring North Star principal flubbed her first all-student assembly, which the previous principal had handled masterfully, including firing questions at students and leading them in inspirational chants. “It was a totally embarrassing experience,” the novice said afterward. A group of mentors sat with her and initially made the mistake of dissecting her missteps in great detail. But then they focused on one specific change she needed to make for the next assembly: script and memorize the math and vocabulary questions she would ask students. Things went a little better in the second assembly, and afterward her coaches gave her a second suggestion: change the intonation of her voice to build students’ excitement. After she did that, her goal was to identify two students ahead of time to answer questions. Following that, she worked on scaffolding the thinking of a student’s incorrect answer with follow-up questions. Her performance gradually improved until she had mastered a skill that didn’t come naturally at first.

Her coaches’ suggestions were not only focused; they were actionable. They never said, Be more prepared or Show more excitement. Instead, they suggested writing a script and varying the tone of her voice. “Together, each small change made a powerful difference,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. “Yet the best coaches don’t just tell their players what to do; they guide them through it.”

Two other elements in this leader’s coaching made a difference: repeated role-plays after each assembly, and watching her actual performance with students on videotape. “Practice in this manner is relatively unfamiliar in education, let alone at the principal rank,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. “But these actions are particularly crucial to growing great leaders quickly.”

“Across the country, school leaders vary tremendously in their starting points,” he concludes. “If we believe that their skills are immutable, then this is a fact of life. But if we accept a growth mindset – and if we put it to work to get there – then we can achieve extraordinary things.” 

“Good Coaching Leads to Good Leadership” by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo in Phi Delta Kappan, December 2012/January 2013 (Vol. 94, #4, p. 70-71), www.kappanmagazine.org

From the Marshall Memo #466