The old adage “failing to plan is planning to fail” usually holds true for any strategic organizational leader. Not having a plan or failing to prepare is essentially the same as actively planning to be unsuccessful.
A well-conceived plan provides direction, helps identify potential challenges and increases the likelihood of success. A plan that mitigates operational tasks and affords more time for interpersonal relationship-building should be a centerpiece for any dynamic organizational leader, whether it’s teachers developing lesson plans or coaches creating game plans.
When I first entered the education field (from the private sector), I was lured to coaching and working with young people. Over the years, I found that I was pulled away from students to manage more mundane tasks and compliance issues.
Now, towards the end of my education career, I realized that I needed to get back to “coaching.” In a way, I have always been “coaching,” whether it was in business or education.
At the heart of coaching is building relationships with people. And the key to education is relationships.
Realizing transformational change
In any organizational leadership position, the key to success is engaging and inspiring staff, governance boards and constituent communities. This can only happen through visionary leadership and strategic thinking that is constantly communicated, organized, refined and adapted.
This in turn can bring about advancement and achievement that is rewarding and transformational. Failure to do this can result in an organization in flux and chaos with no real compass.
I have found that the more organized and streamlined I can make my operational tasks, the more I can be visible with people in the organization—and this in turn is what moves an organization forward.
Thus, the “coach” in me created a “game plan.” I call it “The CSA Game Plan,” but it could be “The CEO Game Plan,” or “The Teacher’s Game Plan.” In my CSA Game Plan, a chief school administrator or superintendent of schools has a strategy or leadership guide to success.
Any new school district superintendent, future central office administrator—such as principals and supervisors—or up-and-coming organizational leader can utilize such a plan for building relationships and communicating an organizational process for achievement and success with their various communities.
From students to parents to staff to administrators to board members to the general citizenry, all stakeholders have an impact that can help or hinder. Proper engagement and communication can lead to improvement and achievement realizing transformational change.
More time to build relationships
Let me share some leadership behaviors and processes that build the community consensus needed to promote high expectations that can drive a shared vision to success. They involve streamlining the time-consuming operational tasks so a leader can spen more time with the people in the organization.
The first thing I did when I became a head coach, principal and superintendent was to prepare and have readily available some simple charts/spreadsheets on basic information. I started this years ago in my business days where I would have a balance sheet, updated inventory turns, monthly sales and analysis.
This way I had the information at my fingertips for any meeting. In education, I started a similar practice and kept enrollment numbers, staffing, FTE-to-student ratios and budget information, all to be able to reference quickly and easily.
Once you have gathered this important information and updated it regularly for analysis, you can set many of your daily operational objectives accordingly. I have compartmentalized our objectives to make efficient use of time.
We review these objectives at board of education meetings once a month. The week prior we have our BOE committee meetings. I call board meeting days “game day.” And we as a central office administrative team prepare for that meeting just as we would anything else that’s very important.
I also prep with the board attorney, BOE president and BOE vice president. Our central office administrative team’s calendar works from our board of education meeting schedule.
We, as a central office administrative team set up daily objectives, weekly objectives, monthly objectives, seasonal objectives, yearly objectives and our strategic plan objectives,” both short-term and long-term. Everything corresponds to our board of education objectives or goals.
Taking these steps enables a leader to focus on goals and objectives that can help move the district forward and improve student performance, which is at the core of any chief school administrator’s time and effort.
But to accomplish this, the chief school administrator needs to foster buy-in with fidelity— and to do this successfully requires building collateral through interpersonal relationships. To help with this endeavor, leaders need to have an efficient and productive process to deal with those mundane transactional tasks necessary.
This, in turn, can leave more time to build relationships and hone the skills of being a transformational leader of an organization.
Beginning, progress, success
Whether a private-sector corporation, public school district, private school, public agency, governing body or athletic team, engaging and communicating a shared vision of success to all stakeholders is the key for any organization.
It is always about interpersonal relationships first and proven processes; it is always about honed leadership skills and strategic thinking to create processes to forge forward with the strength of their communities to create a solid organization built on shared core values.
With any leadership position, there is always a portion of the job that must deal with the transactional realities. But to truly become a transformational leader, your greatest success must come from how you connect with and empower people.
Henry Ford said, “Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress and working together is success.”
