How to Be an Effective Principal (Elementary)

Wondering how to be a good principal? You’re in the right place.

As the leader of the school, the principal has an important impact on the moral tone of the school, as well as teacher and student success.

It wasn’t until I became a teacher that I realized how important a good principal is, and how much further a principal’s role extends beyond just enforcing school rules.

The answers for what makes a good principal may differ depending on if it’s coming from a teacher, student or parent – and that is why it’s important to consider all viewpoints when outlining how to be an effective school leader.

You set the tone for the school, and everyone looks to you. I respect the challenging job being a principal must be, and commend anyone who reads this article to put the time and thought into being effective in the role.

As a former teacher, a parent of school-age children, and someone who is deeply passionate about education – I’m going to provide you with:

• unbiased tips on how to be the kind of principal that your staff will look up to and respect
• how to manage a school staff that truly works together for the better of workplace morale and service to the students and community

These tips below will ensure stability in your school, and keep everyone happy – students and their families, as well as your staff.

How to Be an Effective Principal

Here are some tips that will lead to you being respected and looked up to as a leader, more positive staff morale, which contributes to better work performance and a positive school culture

1. Foster a climate of belonging among staff

School staff work best when each person feels that:

• they belong
• they are heard
• their thoughts, opinions and contributions are welcomed and matter

Your staff meetings, your office and any communication between you and staff members should always be a safe place for everyone to share their opinions.

Not simply the more knowledgeable, veteran, more experienced staff members; but the newer teachers as well. As Brené Brown wrote in Dare to Lead, teams work best when the honest perspectives of everyone are respected and valued.

2. Celebrate work-life balance, not perfectionism

Workers in general (not just teachers) are more productive when they take breaks from work. Not when they lack boundaries with their work.

Teachers are highly prone to perfectionism, and even competition. Among your staff, you should not reward perfectionism or those who stay late, or work weekends.

To run a school where the staff is not burned out and can more creatively problem solve, you should encourage, celebrate and model rest, recharge and breaks from work.

3. Believe truly in your staff’s abilities

Being a leader isn’t easy. In addition to trusting your staff to be competent and educated professionals, it’s also important to believe in their abilities and potential to be great teachers.

Science shows that when leaders believe in us, we perform better. When leaders have high expectations, (without pressuring or showing doubt) workers tend to do a more effective job.

This is explained in psychologist Adam Grant’s book Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things.

The underlying message here is to try not to micromanage. Being micromanaged stifles confidence and in the long run, impedes people from being able to find their own teaching style.

4. Be present around the school

The best principals aren’t in their office most of the time – they show their presence in the school when they have the chance.

There are two main benefits being present around the school:

• Students and teachers can see that you’re ‘there’
• You get a better idea of what’s happening around the school.

It’s a good idea to walk around when you have some spare time, and visit classrooms. (Give a smile to teachers when you enter the classroom so that they know you’re not there to watch them!)

Introduce yourself to kids if it’s the first visit, and watch some of the learning happening in action.

I also highly recommend trying to be in the hallways during transitions, like recess, and lunch breaks, when there are lots of kids in the halls.

Pro Tip: Giving a (short) intro speech at assemblies and school events sets a good tone; it fosters that sense of community in the school and shows that you are integral to the school community

5. Be approachable to your staff, and encourage them to communicate openly with you

Principals are more effective when they are supportive and helpful, rather than authoritarian. Let your staff know that your door is always open, and mean it.

As a principal, you are the lead authority and decision-maker of the school. However, schools thrive best when:

• staff members communicate
• they share opinions with each other (across different hierarchies -principals, teachers, assistants, and other staff members and even volunteers)
• staff can work together for a common goal.

Teachers know that you are the authority and they want to impress you. However, they want to be able to bring their concerns to you, so that solutions can be found to problems that come up.

If a teacher is struggling with a problem, they want to be able to seek guidance rather than contain the problem for you of fear of looking incompetent.

When staff bring a problem to you, it’s important to show that this is not going to make you question their abilities or classroom management style – you’re here to help and want to find a solution together.

Having trouble with communication with a teacher? Read my post on how to handle difficult teachers as a principal.

6. Listen to parents, but support teachers

Communication with parents is a huge part of a teacher or principal’s role.

Handling feedback from parents, good and bad, and listening to their concerns is something that you’ll find yourself doing weekly; if not, almost daily.

An effective principal uses the same philosophy with parents as with their staff.

Parents can share their concerns, but you have the final say and need to do what’s best for the student, and the learning environment as a whole.

Here are a few rules of thumb when it comes to principal and parent communication:

✅ First-time complaints surrounding a teacher or their practice should always go through the teacher first.
✅ Always have your teacher’s back
✅ Put boundaries in place if necessary

7. Show students and their families that your staff is a team

The key thing that I’ve realized is so important for the morale in a school is that the staff is united.

As the front-liners in education, teachers are naturally the first people that students or families will show dissatisfaction with, if there’s something not going their way.

It’s not uncommon for parents and students to come straight to you to vent complaints or have decisions by their teacher overturned.

The concerns of students and parents are valid. As the leader though, you’ll need to decide on a case-by-case basis:

• which complaints have merit
• require any intervention from you
• are worth spending any time on at all.

This is the very important thing to remember: Parents (and students) need to see you and the teachers as a team who respect each other.

If you only remember one thing from this article, then let it be that.

If students and parents don’t see that you respect your teachers as professionals, then this can diminish their own trust and confidence in the teacher.

In extreme cases, if the parents see the teacher has no support, it can lead to parent-to-teacher bullying – them asserting power over the teacher to get their way.

Pro Tip: Of course, parent involvement in the school can be highly beneficial. This is about setting boundaries and encouraging the respect of teachers

8. Ask teachers their opinions

When it comes to making decisions for the school, it’s so important to inquire with teachers and other school staff to see what solutions they may have, or what their opinions are for some of the solutions you’re considering.

Never devalue the feedback or opinions of your front-lining when it comes to making the final call.

The final say is yours, but the teachers, janitors and education assistants are a source for different angles to look at a situation and may have creative ways to solve a problem because of what they see from their day-to-day roles.

Pro Tip: One idea is to have a suggestion box outside your office or the staff room where teachers can leave ideas, thoughts or concerns. Of course, you always have the final say – but your staff will be happy knowing that they are able to contribute to the decision-making process.

9. Master the fine balance of friendly, but still the leader

As a principal, you don’t want to be so stuck on your ‘boss’ status that you don’t listen to your staff or make the school a safe place for them to share their thoughts.

But you also don’t want to be like Michael Scott from The Office, trying too hard to be liked by the staff.

Instead, it’s a fine balance between the two – you need your staff to respect and value your work as a principal and feel comfortable sharing concerns with you; while still knowing that you have professional boundaries and treat everyone equally.

10. Enforce student behavioural expectations

Managing student behaviour has become one of the biggest challenges that schools face today, and it has reported to have gotten worse since the pandemic.

Dealing with challenging student behaviour is not the most rewarding part of working in a school, but its vital for the student and for the learning environment.

There’s almost nothing that hurts the moral tone of the school more than when a student violates a boundary and learns that nothing happens.

Not only does the student learn that there are no consequences, but their friends see it too which further promotes behaviour problems in the school system.

Show the students that you respect the teachers and expect them to as well. Have a clear rules for how you will handle repeated offences, and make sure there is documentation as well.

11. Know what initiatives are most relative your school

In recent years, school staff meetings have an agenda that isn’t typically decided by the leader of the school as it used to be, but by higher ups in the school board or district.

You’re required to follow these initiatives. However, part of being a really effective principal is knowing the unique makeup of your school. You know your staff and your students, and you probably know if there are certain areas that would benefit from further attention.

Always touch on the components that you’re required to, but remember that running a school is not one size fits all. Your school is unique, and so are its own unique sets of needs and solutions.

Make your focus for the meeting integral to the specific needs of your school. This will promote progress and improvement at the school level, and keeps the staff happy too.

12. Promote a growth mindset among staff

Teachers have been learning and developing ways to foster growth mindset in the classroom for years, but many of them have trouble applying this ideology to their own work.

When something goes wrong, if they’re being challenged or experience some sort of failure or setback, encourage a growth mindset to improve their work.

13. Model work-life balance

Teacher mental health and self-care have become important buzzwords in education over the past few years.

Principals are usually mandated to remind school staff to “put themselves, and their families first.” However, you need to do more than just say this – you need to mean it, and it helps if you model it too.

As a school leader, you will benefit from having a work-life balance and your staff will benefit from seeing that a work-life balance is expected.

14. Support staff morale

The unique thing about school work environments is that although we work as a team, we spend more time with kids than with each other.

This means there are limited opportunities for teachers and other staff members to make connections and build community amongst each other.

Do what you can to support school morale, whether its coming up with ideas to direct to the staff social team, or facilitate them on your own. Read my boast on ways to boost teacher morale.

The Key to Being a Good Principal

The key to being a good principal is to let go of the ‘tough on teachers, easy on students‘ mentality.

This might not be something that principals realize they’re doing or intend to do, but from my experience, it often comes across this way to the staff.

The expectations of teachers seem to get higher every year, while the expectations of students get lower.

Make sure that your teachers aren’t more intimidated by you than the students are. Teachers should feel supported with classroom management in a system that is far from perfect.

The school staff should feel like a team where everyone can communicate and problem-solve together.

Qualities of a Good Principal

If we created a success criteria for a good principal, this is what it would look like.

Good principals:

• ✅ Are trusted by their staff. The teachers and staff feel that they can bring concerns to them, and know that it is safe to do so
  
• ✅ Do not believe that the opinions and thoughts of some people are more important than others. They value, and seek everyone’s contributions and make it a safe climate to do so
  
• ✅ Know what’s happening around the school, because they are present around the school – in classrooms, on the yard, in lunchrooms, and at school events and assemblies
  
• ✅ Encourage, and model work-life balance; NOT perfectionism
  
• ✅ View their staff as professionals and trust their decision-making capabilities in the teaching profession. (Aside from extreme situations where they have a reason not to trust a staff member), they almost always do.
  
• ✅ Students and parents see them as the authority of the school, not their friends.
  

Consequences of Poor School Leadership

There are many pros and cons to teaching, but the cons become much harder to deal with under ineffective school leadership. Here’s what happens to schools when they don’t have a good principal

1. A high rate of staff turnover

Schools that don’t have good leadership tend to struggle more to retain teachers.

This could be from teachers taking leaves, trying to transfer to other schools, or leaving the profession altogether.

High staff turnover isn’t great for the students, either – especially if the teachers leave mid-year, and they have to adapt to a new face.

2. Student behaviour gets worse

When there isn’t an authority figure in the schools, student behaviour can worsen. For some students, knowing that there is no one ‘above’ their teacher who will hold them accountable can make it hard for them to have any reason to behave in class.

Issues like misuse of cell phones, bullying, fights, and disrespectful treatment of teachers doesn’t go away when students see that they’ll never be held accountable.

3. It may lead to less productivity

Most teachers take pride in their jobs and how they impact students. They are not going to do less work, or poorer work just because they don’t like their boss.

However, feelings of under-appreciation can harbour resentment, lower morale among the staff, and make people less willing to go ‘above and beyond.’

3. It contributes to teacher burnout

Teacher burnout isn’t solely due to poor school leadership. But believe me when I say that a good school leader can make a tremendous difference in the life and career of a teacher.

When teachers burn out, they take more time off, and sometimes end up on prolonged sick leaves. This has consequences for their own mental health and families, but for the students too.

Final Thoughts on Being a Good Principal

So, what makes an effective principal? Being a principal is a challenging job as there are a variety of people that you need to work with and a neverending list of responsibilities.

There are so many important variables when it comes to how to be a good principal. As the leader of a school, you’re providing a service to students and their parents, and an important role for teachers and other school staff.

As a former teacher, I know the positive impact that effective leadership can have on the school and feel so strongly about it. Good principals can be life-changing for everyone involved.