What Makes A Good Principal / Headmaster?

A good Principal is someone who is successful in getting the teachers, staff, students and parents to honour them to achieve or exceed their School’s common goals. All good Principals possess the same or similar traits and behaviors, such as passion, authenticity and a grand vision, to name a few. Now, possessing these traits or behaviors doesn't guarantee success - but they do go a long way towards making success more inevitable.

Basically, most of leadership comes from living. In the rest of this article, I will focus on defining what a good Principal is and the type of leadership that is required in order for Schools to be successful and sustain themselves over time.1. Good Principals are primarily defined by what they do, not by the role they have been assigned. This is important because leadership is about role modeling and accomplishment, not position assignment. Common personality traits of good Principals are:- Trustworthy - Confident - Intuitive - Visionary - Risk tolerant - Flexible - Proactive - Empathetic - Able to develop good relationships- Can be charismatic - High in emotional intelligence2. A good Principal is respected for the consistency of their behaviours from day to day. They gain their staff trust by doing what they say they will do, when they say they will do it. Good Principals are:- Able to look at the School strategically in order to set its vision, mission, goals and objectives- Effective at communicating these aspects so that others can fully understand their value- Effective at communicating their values- A guide to their subordinates in setting their own goals - and hold them accountable- Able to influence and motivate their staff to higher levels of performance - Adept at changing these methods depending on the person, the task at hand and the way the staff and students responds to the PrincipalLastly, the quality of the relationship effective Principals have with their staff and students will help determine how much they are able to influence and motivate them. And how willing the staffs, students and parents are to perform up to the Principal's expectations. 3. Successful Principals earn the respect and trust of their staff, students and parents by:- Getting to know each individual and learn what motivates each of them- Always helping them to achieve their goals- Knowing how to use the appropriate reward and consequence systems, depending on each of them and the outcomes required- Using their School resources to influence the School culture and ultimately, their receptiveness 4. As the Principal earns respect, trust and is able to influence their staff, students and parents will naturally begin to buy into the Principal's vision. When all of them buy into the Principal's vision:- They work harder and longer to achieve their shared goals- They evidence an increased level of engagement and commitmentThese are the things that enable good Principals to become great leaders. Great leaders recognize that the key to their success rests with the quality of the commitment of their staff, students and parents.There are good Principals who have had leadership "thrust" upon them - and succeeded - and others whilst it was thought would be good - that ultimately fail. These Principals may or may not have some of the inborn leadership traits I have mentioned. However, their success is probably the result of a couple of things:1. They have offset their lack of inborn leadership traits by learning and practicing leadership behaviors2. The situation they are in will dictate whether or not they are successful - i.e. does the Principal employ the right resources at the right time, the right management support, the right staff, etc