Webinar Wednesday Recap: Hacking Leadership

Joe Sanfelippo offers 10 ways leaders inspire learning that teachers, students, and parents love.
Communicator
August 2018, Volume 41, Issue 12

This #WebinarWednessday featured ways to begin your hacking leadership journey and join teachers, students, and parents in a collaborative effort to improve teaching and learning.

Joe Sanfelippo, superintendent of the Fall Creek School District (go Crickets!) in Fall Creek, Wisconsin, identifies 10 common problems principals face in their schools and offers innovative solutions—or hacks, as he calls them—that allow principals to be intentional about the work they do, open doors, and build culture. Here are some takeaways:

Pull away from day-to-day operations to identify problems. When you’re fixated on what happens next, you don’t get a chance to think about whether there’s a better way to do things. Stepping back allows you to identify problems in your school and figure out the best way to fix them.

Build culture and relationships. Every time you connect with someone in your school community, you’re building or killing culture. Think about what you do daily to build culture. If you can’t think of much, here are a few ways to get started:

  • Cover a class for a teacher. Get in there and show them you’re on the same team.
  • Start the day with two notes to staff members. Will you be able to do it every day? Probably not. But it’s a good goal.
  • End your week by making five positive phone calls to parents. They’ll appreciate the feedback, and you’ll get to head into the weekend on a high note.

Open doors. There’s a difference between “right and reality.” What you know to be right might not be what others see as reality. “Flattening the walls” of your school means making sure people outside of the building know what’s happening inside the building. Visibility creates credibility.

Download the presentation or view the full webinar.

This webinar is in part of NAESP’s Webinar Wednesday series each month.

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