Instructional Leadership Doesn’t Wait for Trust–It Builds It

Word for word, write down the last piece of feedback you gave a teacher. Don’t embellish. I’ve done this with my own feedback, and it wasn’t comfortable. Keep it for later. We will come back to it.

The Myth

Conventional wisdom tells school leaders that the most important factor on campus is relationships. Trust first, hard conversations later. This school of thought is nearly universal. I’ve never heard a principal say that they have put a hold on instructional leadership. Instead, I hear that the focus is on the culture and climate of the school, even at three or more years of leadership.

What I hear from the principals I coach is that they understand why instructional leadership matters, but struggle to adhere consistently to a systematic process that supports the work. In these cases, the principal’s primary role as instructional leader is curtailed and achievement inevitably suffers.

The System

Principals who have moved student academic achievement have established trust with their teachers. They also have a system. At Orenda, we call our system the Instructional Leadership Platinum Ticket, and we believe that trust and systems do not exist in isolation. The system is not a tradeoff against trust, but the mechanism that produces it.

Bryk and Schneider (2002) found that trust is developed from repeated exchanges. These exchanges lead to teachers forming judgments based on four key areas: respect, competence, personal regard, and integrity. Every classroom visit is an opportunity for this exchange.

A principal doesn’t set trust aside to get to the instructional work. She weaves it into how she does the work, staying focused, documenting evidence rather than impressions, and returning when she said she would. Trust accumulates one visit at a time. When a principal walks back into the classroom at 10:07, exactly as promised, the teacher stops bracing for impact. It changes how the teacher receives the feedback, not because the feedback improved, but because the person delivering it did what she said she would.

The Practice

Principals need to know what to look for and not look for during a visit. Most walk in carrying every initiative at once: new curriculum, student engagement, writing process. A principal sees nothing she can name and leaves the classroom without providing the teacher any feedback.

Everything below is part of the Instructional Leadership Platinum Ticket. Tangible steps a leader can start on Monday. It’s not the whole model. How you communicate the focus before you ever walk into a classroom and how to differentiate your time in classrooms deserve their own post.

• Identify one focus per visit. (Identify a Focus) Follow One Course Until Successful.
• Collect evidence around the focus, not impressions. (Count to Monitor) Tell the teacher where they are, not how you feel about them.
• Align the teacher need to a support move. (Support) Everything doesn’t need to be a PD. PD is one of four support moves. How can you utilize elbow coaching, guided planning, and feedback?
• Set the return date. (Feedback) Feedback without a return date is a suggestion.

Collecting evidence is a counting discipline and shouldn’t be rooted in feelings. When principals describe their feedback to me, it’s usually a page of impressions. Pick the practice that matters most now – and make sure that it is something you can count.

Many leaders get trapped in the praise sandwich. Praise, give criticism, then praise again, to make the teacher feel good. Of course, when a teacher feels they are being attacked, nothing gets through. The problem is, most praise is subjective, and if your praise is a matter of your opinion, then so is everything after that. Teachers learn to anticipate the “but.” The threat is lowered by naming the one thing you came to look at.

Trust isn’t built by making teachers feel good. Trust happens when there is predictability. When the principal has the same lens, same evidence, and a return date after feedback, teachers trust, even in the absence of a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Classroom visitations often become a task to complete, rather than a tool to support instruction. In many cases that I have witnessed, the observation count goes up – but the instruction doesn’t improve. Grissom, Loeb & Master (2013) found that principals’ time spent broadly on instruction didn’t predict student achievement growth. Coaching and evaluation did.

Making Time

Unless you decide first, the day will make the decision on how you spend it.

“I don’t have time,” or “I haven’t been able to get into classrooms” are common responses I get from principals when I probe them about their instructional leadership systems. Take time to calendar your visits. Chances are, if they are not on your calendar, they won’t happen. Your instructional support time must be published; everyone should know when you are focused on instruction.

Provide your administrative assistant with a script for any parent or district call. “Principal Thomas is currently in classrooms observing instruction. She’ll be available in about an hour. Would you like me to take a message, schedule an appointment, or wait here?”

Before Monday, name the adults on the campus who will respond to the needs of students and adults while you are in classrooms. Make this public to all; otherwise, all issues will default back to you. Delegate the paperwork, not the judgment. The test isn’t whether the day stayed calm. It’s whether three teachers got evidence and a return date while the day did not stay calm.

The Audit

Go back to the feedback you wrote down. Now check for a time, a count or a quote, one next move, and a return date. Timely and specific are the easy two. Would a teacher be motivated to act on it? Now, rewrite.

A year in, the 10:07 return time isn’t remarkable. The teacher knows what you came to look for before you enter the room, and she is no longer listening and waiting for the “but.”

Most principals can’t pass an audit of their feedback the first time. I couldn’t either. Teaching administrators how to build trust with their teachers within a feedback system is one way we support principal growth at Orenda.