The #1 Quality Teachers Need in a Principal: Backbone
In this video, Dr. Justin Baeder discusses why teachers value courage and consistency in their principal above all other leadership traits.
Key Takeaways
- Backbone means holding boundaries - Teachers need a principal who will say no to unreasonable demands and stand firm on discipline
- Courage matters more than charisma - A principal who backs up teachers on difficult decisions earns lasting trust
- Without backbone, nothing else works - Vision, warmth, and instructional knowledge are worthless if the principal won't hold the line when it counts
Transcript
What kind of person does it take to become a school leader?
I hear from a lot of teachers on this app that the number one quality they're looking for is backbone.
It's not innovative ideas.
It's not necessarily even excellence in the classroom.
It's the courage and the willingness to follow through, to hold boundaries with people, to tell people things they don't want to hear, and to have teachers' backs.
That's what I hear more than anything else.
that they want in a school leader.
And I think that's naturally something that we should be selecting for.
That's naturally something that people should know going into this line of work.
If you're going to become a school administrator, if you're gonna be a principal as I was, then you're going to have to be tough with people sometimes.
They're going to give you a hard time.
They're going to pressure you to bow to the pressure that they're putting on you.
They're going to make demands.
And one of the main things you have to do as a school leader is hold that boundary and say no and not give people what they want when they are applying some sort of pressure.
And especially when it comes to following through on discipline.
I don't know what's happened in the last couple of years with this, but it seems like it was just universally understood until pretty recently that one of the principal's main jobs or any administrator, your main job is to make sure that teaching and learning can take place without disruption.
And if there is a discipline problem, if there is a behavior that is interfering with learning, that you're on top of that, and you are dealing with that situation, you're dealing with that parent, and it's not all on the teacher as an individual to prevent all problems and respond to all problems.
There are some things that just need to be handled outside of the classroom.
And if you try to make teachers handle them inside the classroom, first of all, they can't always do that.
Second of all, when would they do that?
And why are we so resistant now all of a sudden to having admin support for teachers?
Teachers need support.
There is nothing wrong with a teacher who says, I need support with this student.
I need support with this family.
I'm getting this sort of response, or I'm not getting any response, or this is the behavior that I'm seeing in class.
There is nothing wrong with needing support.
It is completely natural to need support working with students and families.
And I think that's one of our chief responsibilities as school leaders.
And the idea that I'm seeing in some circles that that means the teacher is weak, or that means the teacher is not good if they need some sort of support, I think that's just flat wrong.
I think it is just inherent to the nature of school that you're going to have families and students that you need support with.
And especially if we have a lot of new people coming into the profession, we need to be especially mindful of the support that they need.
And I think this goes at the principal level too.
If you have a lot of new principals coming into the profession as an assistant superintendent or superintendent or central office administrator who supervises principals, you've got to recognize that they are going to need support too.
And one of the things that they need support in is standing firm, having a backbone and following through.
Let me know what you think.