School leaders have a barrage of tasks that require constant attention on a daily basis. Throw in the complexities of an urban school district and the list gets even longer! Task lists are never-ending and seem to magically grow as the day continues. The more things get checked off the list, the more tasks get piled on. Between instruction, budget, parents, students, staff, scheduling, facilities, and the list goes on and on, there seems to be little time to ever catch up to the bottomless list of tasks urban school leaders face. The time spent on each task is a matter of time management and delegation, so it is essential to discern if the task is big fish or small fish. Both can be delegated to staff, but the big fish are tasks that directly impact instruction.
In my 1st year as a principal of one of the largest elementary schools in a district that served about 84,000 students, I began to feel an overwhelming sense of inadequacy as I realized that the rate I was going was not sustainable for the long term. Still learning the staff and sifting through years of a troubled climate, I was still in the “interview” phase of relationships with staff, you know, the forming stage of team development where all the politeness and niceties were swirling around like a sandstorm. They were feeling me out just as I was with them. There were several operational changes that were needed and at the time, I thought it required me to initiate all the operational processes because I felt it would be quicker if I just “got it out the way.” This made my list of tasks grow exponentially and naturally, the most important lever as an urban school leader did not get the attention it deserved. It began to bother me for the most obvious reason: as an instructional leader, my responsibility was to ensure instruction was supported and monitored to positively impact student outcomes, my North Star.
Additionally, my time was spent with staff addressing questions I believed had intuitive answers, but I realized that staff tended to check with me for little things to make sure they were meeting my expectations. I thought that spoke to skill but soon learned that staff just wanted to get any task I requested right and, in their eyes, the only way to get it right was to ask questions, even for the little things. This level of questioning revealed a lack of confidence staff had about their abilities and I had to change that mindset by building their capacity to lead and make decisions. So instead of providing answers when they asked me a question, I began asking staff three questions to help develop their problem-solving capacity:
What do you think should happen and why?
What is in the best interest of students?
Now what? What were some suggestions for the next steps?
Responses to these follow-up questions became the expectation for staff. Through supportive discussions, eventually, they learned they had to at least attempt to solve the issue before presenting a scenario to me and they met that expectation. It was a win-win scenario. They developed confidence in their decision-making which allowed me to delegate with confidence, and it built my credibility as a capacity builder and colleague. Trust was established. Tasks not associated with instruction were assigned to staff with a clear description of the expectations. Eventually, the small fish slowly moved off my plate which gave me time to concentrate on what I loved most, instruction.
Here's a scenario that describes what delegation looks like in practice:
Student and staff safety and creating undisturbed instructional time for interventions are on your list of tasks. You have created a process for how stakeholders will access the school building ensuring all visitors are accounted for and limiting visitation to classrooms during certain times to honor intervention time. You must communicate with stakeholders to inform them of this new process. There are several things to consider such as which of the 21 access points will be made accessible, who will be stationed at the various access points and at what time of the day, what happens when a visitor is non-compliant with the new process, creating signage to make visitors aware, drafting a letter to families announcing the change, ensuring staff is clear on the new process, creating a visiting schedule to ensure intervention is protected and determining what data will be gathered to determine if the new process is serving its intended purpose.
Big Fish: Communication to staff and families. Why? Because if there is no communication instruction will be disrupted by visitors. As the leader, you are creating a culture and climate that prioritizes instruction and learning.
Small Fish: Signage style and location of signs. Please let this go, please.
Delegate with clear expectations and debriefing: Deciding access points, who will be stationed and a schedule, developing a plan for visitor non-compliance and determining the data to be gathered. Keep in mind that your core leadership team (CLT) has collaborated on this process and in a high-functioning CLT, these tasks are already owned by members of the team. We'll dig deeper into CLT at another time.
Delegation of fish is absolutely critical for school leaders to maintain sanity, manage time more effectively and build the capacity of staff. Let’s get ‘em fried up and served!
Zealously,
Dr. D
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