The Leaders’ Corner (Managers, Principals & Superintendents)

In April 9th’s blog, we talked about two of Sayles’ leadership dimensions — direction and representation.  Now let’s talk about his third dimension — responsiveness and how it, too, relies upon the notion of “capital” of some sort.

Responsiveness can have several meanings.  In the first case, it can be having the capacity and ability to respond to the changing environmental factors that will impact upon an organization in some way and will likely call for adjustments or new initiatives to remain competitive or to capitalize on those factors to give the organization an advantage in the field.

But there is another form of responsiveness that carries with it a band of internal emotional capital that, if husbanded, can pay dividends for the organization and can serve as yet another springboard for “energizing” the enterprise and its staff.  This responsiveness deals with the degree to which certain kinds of formal and informal interactions with staff serve to underline the degree to which each staff member is valued as a person, not just an employee.  This is not some hidden form of transactional leadership which, in its worst form, seeks to build a “you owe me for past favours” kind of relationship.  It is a relationship built upon the notion of genuine caring and concern of the leader for her/his team members.  It can show itself in awareness of personal issues of which the leader inquires with empathy or understanding on an almost incidental basis or with regular practices that are opportunities to express thanks and appreciation for some tasks well done.  In Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens reminds us that “thanks are always worth having”.

As a principal, I always designated Thursday nights as “thank you nights”.  What that meant was that I reviewed the past week and noted those staff members who had, in some way, gone beyond normal expectations or achieved something for the school and its students.  In each case, on a “Note from Dan”  I wrote a brief message of thanks to the individual and made certain it was in that person’s mailbox before classes started on Friday morning.  For many years afterwards, when I met up with staff, I was always surprised to be told that they had kept all the notes because they were so meaningful to them.  It was time well spent and it always proved to be fruitful in terms of what more they were prepared to do.

Responsiveness can take another — and more formal — configuration.  Many of my staff were first-rate teachers, department heads and vice-principals — and many of them were interested in making their way up the ladder to a new position of responsibility.  While recognizing that I might be “impoverishing” my school by helping promote good people, I annually ran an in-school program on the district’s selection procedures for department heads, vice-principals and principals and deliberately “tapped people on the shoulder” to take the program.  In addition, every one of my teachers who was a candidate for a position outside the school was given a mock interview with myself and my vice-principals and was privy to all the information I could compile on who would form the interview team and what could be expected from them as interviewers and assessors.  In retrospect, I guess I was being both an advocate and a mentor to them — though I didn’t understand it in those terms at the time — but I was very interested in making certain that the candidates in my school were given as much help and support as I could offer.  Over the course of the last three years, I had in my last school, I saw 17 staff members get promoted.  It was, of course, at some risk to my school but I was reminded that a principal is a principal of a school but also a principal in a district — and district improvement was just as important as school improvement.

In doing so I was expanding my emotional capital built on the success of others and was able to use that as a way of attracting new staff through transfer and all who saw the school as a place where their own hopes for career enrichment and advancement would be actively fostered.  They came with a “can do” attitude that helped energize others on staff as well.

There is an undeniable relationship among energizing staff, building emotional capital as a leader and heightening the chances for school improvement.  As is always the case, human resources are the most important resources — and an effective leader should always be in the business of making certain that staff efforts are noticed, valued and justifiably rewarded.  The careful enhancing of professional relationships through responsiveness will pay dividends — for everyone.

Dr. Dan

Look for more ideas in our “The Art of Teaching Creatively” series!