The Intellectual Work of Instructional Leadership, or, Why Leaders Need Time to Think
As a school leader, you can quickly become immersed in fighting fires and punching checklists – but leading improvement requires a different approach
In 1996, Kim Marshall (of Marshall Memo fame!) coined the phrase “hyperactive superficial principal syndrome.” In a 2003 follow-up piece, he described what HSPS looked like in action:
In my early years as a principal, I was constantly swamped by over-the-transom demands on my time – a weeping girl with a splinter under her fingernail, a fight in the cafeteria, a teacher going through a personal crisis, a dog sneaking into the school, a parent cursing to the secretary about a bully on the bus, a jammed photocopier, a paraprofessional having a seizure, the laminating machine grabbing the end of my favorite tie, a call from the central office in support of that angry parent, a delivery from a trucker who refused to lift anything, and more.
A lot has changed in the decades since Marshall first wrote about this issue, yet the day-in-the-life of a principal illustrated above certainly resonated with my own experience and will likely feel recognizable to leaders presently in the role. If anything, the types of daily crises that leaders must address have only grown in the past four years of post-pandemic schooling. As EdWeek’s Denisa Superville noted in a 2021 piece, “while principals are used to handling crises on a daily basis, the sheer scale of the pandemic and other challenges of the year – protests, political division, natural disasters – left them lurching from one extraordinary event to the next.” Two school years later, amidst increased teacher turnover and a soaring mental health crisis, the contemporary principalship demands an intense degree of responsiveness and even reactivity to present circumstances.
This begs a question – do school leaders even have time for instructional leadership?
When Marshall initially self-diagnosed with HSPS, this was the same question he had asked himself. Marshall knew that in order to drive improved student outcomes in his school, he needed to find ways to focus on the work of improving teaching and learning. And yet he also realized there was something about the cycle of hyper-visible, moment-to-moment problem-solving that – exhausting as that never-ending game of whack-a-mole may be – made it hard to give up. Marshall writes:
As I got better and better at juggling people and activities, I began to find the frenetic pace enjoyable, ego-boosting – and quite addictive. There was something about rushing around solving problems, attending to this and that. I was becoming what a friend calls an “intensity junkie.”
Committed to breaking the cycle and re-prioritizing the less urgent but nonetheless critically important work of improving teaching and learning, Marshall detailed the habits and routines that worked for him, and that enabled him to fundamentally reshape how he spent his time and accomplished his priorities. Harnessing moves that would make James Clear (author of Atomic Habits) proud, Marshall set goals, but more importantly, rose to the level of his systems – and was rigorously self-disciplined about doing so.
Clearly, time for instructional leadership would not magically appear on its own. But Marshall found a way to make time for the critical work of improving teaching and learning.1 As school leaders reflect on their own practices and systems toward the final quarter of the school year – and begin preparing for the next – here are a few thoughts on how to ensure your time reflects your priorities, and your actions reflect the results you want to see:
Examine not just HOW but WHY you’re currently spending your time the way you are. Marshall’s reflections are a great model of this. Every time he describes how he’s spending his time, he goes deeper and tries to uncover what’s at the root of why. In doing so, he identifies reasons he avoids certain activities, such as observing teachers he anticipates will be resistant to his feedback. Recognizing the things that pull him both toward and away particular actions, he’s able to hone in on a set of changes that are within his locus of control to make. While another leader might blame external factors or contextual challenges, his probing of both how and why enables him to assess and overcome competing commitments so that he can recommit to the work of instructional leadership.
Beware exchanging one form of busyness for another. Marshall develops a system for observation and feedback that works for him – he’s clear on the purpose and the strategy.2 But in another leader’s hands, the robust schedule of classroom visits followed by feedback conversations can easily become yet another way to maintain the appearance of looking like an instructional leader without actually getting beneath the surface of what it takes to actually change adult practice and improve student outcomes. Consider this – as an instructional leader aiming to positively transform outcomes in your school, your job is not just to *do observations.* Your job is to diagnose instructional quality and identify barriers to success, which can be revealed through observation and data study. Furthermore, your job is not just to *run PD.* Your job is to facilitate change in teacher practice and to improve the conditions across the school that allow teachers and kids to do their best work. Which leads to my next point . . .
Allow yourself the time to think. You need a strategy. Observation and feedback can be things you do in service of your strategy. So can PD and data analysis. But you need an idea about what the most important levers are to effect change within your school. Too often, leaders set goals and then go straight to action steps, but they neglect – in the wise words of
and Jennie Weiner in The Strategy Playbook for Education Leaders – to “design an approach to realize their aspirations.” This work requires that leaders give themselves time to step away from the day to day for meaningful reflection. Ask yourself how you might find this time in the coming weeks – is blocking out a morning possible? Could you create a weekly routine to continually consider whether the actions you’re engaged in are truly getting you closer to your goals? Could you plan strategic time into your schedule to consider how you’ll address barriers and/or concerns you’re seeing across classrooms, so that your work isn’t simply caught up in “fixing” what’s happening in various corners of your school? So often school leaders reinforce the importance of critical thinking among students and intellectual preparation among teachers – yet don’t give themselves the time to truly engage in the intellectual work necessary to effect the change they wish to see. If this resonates, consider how you can break this cycle so that you’re spending your time as impactfully as possible.Stop thinking you can do it alone. The hero complex is real. So often, our leaders feel they must shoulder the burden all on their own. Yet, research on collective leadership reinforces that leadership influence is an “infinite resource.” As Leithwood and Mascall (2008) write, “the more those in formal leadership roles give it away, the more they acquire.” Part of your role as a leader of instruction is to consider how you can galvanize others throughout your school community — from teachers to parents to family and community members — in service of a shared vision of educational excellence. The role of school leader also increasingly requires that you manage a team of leaders who, like you, do have formal authority. Your assistant principals and deans of instruction are looking to you to provide strategy and direction. As a principal, you can provide this for them and cultivate a sense of focus and clarity of purpose for your entire leadership team. But of course, like most things, doing this for your leadership team requires putting your own oxygen mask on first.
I’ll conclude with a few questions for reflection, particularly for leaders in the principalship:
What does a day-in-the-life look like for you?
To what extent does your schedule reflect your priorities? To what extent does it reflect competing (and perhaps unstated) priorities?
How much time do you give yourself to reflect upon the efficacy of your actions and strategize about the path forward?
With whom in your school community might you share leadership, and in doing so, invite others to share in the responsibility for improving outcomes across your school?
Asking these questions and engaging in the intellectual work of instructional leadership may be less visible than other activities, but it’s critically important — now if only we can make the time!!
For those interested, Marshall’s 1996 piece details the system he developed to:
Get into classrooms to observe instruction (at least four classes daily, for 5-minutes a piece),
Deliver feedback to teachers (orally, in conversation, before the end of the day if possible), and
Use this system to visit every teacher’s classroom and provide feedback every 2-3 weeks (by the end of the year, he repeats this cycle eleven times).
In his subsequent reflections on these systems, he notes the ways in which he comes to realize that his system for observation and feedback is just one piece of the puzzle, recognizing that a broader set of practices are necessary to improving outcomes across a school. The key practices he identifies include: (1) clarifying expectations for what students will learn and creating the conditions for teachers to engage in (2) curriculum planning, (3) lesson study, and (4) analysis of data and student work.
Michele, I appreciate your attention to the topic of engaging in instructional leadership. As a principal for 16 years, I found managing my time to get into classrooms a big challenge.
Through trial and (lots of) error, here are some strategies I found helpful:
1) Put classroom visits on the calendar. Make this time sacred.
2) Get clear with your assistant what is and is not an emergency.
3) Create systems that prevent others from taking your time to get into classrooms. For example, if students were sent to the office for misbehavior, they first had to complete a "think sheet": a list of questions they had to reflect upon and respond to in writing before they would speak with me.
4) Be clear with faculty that classroom visits are non-evaluative. This is where Kim Marshall and I may disagree. He uses his mini-observations as part of a teacher's evaluation process. Notes from my instructional walks were never entered into a teacher's observational record, unless they wanted it in there (and they often did).
5) Observe classrooms through the lens of an agreed-upon instructional framework. I avoided the teacher evaluation rubrics (see #4) and went with something more personalized to our school.
I will share one more strategy that should really be #1 on this list: build trust and relationships with teachers first. No notes, no feedback until leaders have made enough classroom visits to communicate that the intent of them is to focus first on strengths and build understanding of each teacher's practice.
I am hugely familiar with the challenges of being a Principal at a Success Academy Charter School. Many, so-called experts in school reform and school improvement have been offering advice based upon limited which knowledge accrued from working primarily in Charter Schools or in a school that is not nearly as challenging as leading or teaching in an inner-city school with predominantly students from impoverished families.
For starters, imagine leading or teaching in a school in which many of the students are multiple years behind in both ELA and Math. The ONLY research I can respect would be my own, having lead and taught successfully in the city's most challenging schools, in multiple grades, for 4+ decades, or others, with similar experiences. FIXING OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS IN IMPOVERISHED AREAS SHOULD BD A MAJOR PRIORITY. I was hoping that many of Success Academy Charter Schools' former leaders and teachers would enter the inner-city Public Schools and try to fix them. WHERE'S THE EQUITY? Dealing with th UFT, which minimally prioritizes children, and a Principals' Jnion