Expand Leadership Capacity

There are many ways to nurture leadership skills among your staff. It involves creating a school with a variety of leadership roles, opportunities for inquiry and reflection, and a chance to learn and develop new skills.

You can develop leadership by asking someone to work closely with others as part of a committee or leadership team. You might invite a teacher to shadow a school leader for a day and then talk with them about their observations. Or you might challenge them to work with others to solve a "real-life" problem in your school.

The following ideas are adapted from a NASSP publication, Practical Suggestions for Developing Leadership Capacity in Others (http://www.principals.org/Content/topic/56566).

Expand their skills and knowledge base

• Invite them to work on a project outside their area of expertise;
• Ask them to screen and interview potential employees
• Encourage them to attend district level meetings with you.

Provide opportunities to observe and reflect

• Encourage them to maintain a journal and reflect on the "good," "bad," or "flawed" leaders they know and observe;
• Talk with them about how and why you handled a situation as you did.

Support their participation in professional development

• Ask them to serve as a mentor of a new teacher;
• Encourage them to join and be involved with a professional organization;
• Ask them to present information to the staff after attending a conference or other professional development activity.

Expanding leadership capacity is an important role for principals. It recognizes the contributions that employees, other than administrators, can make to improving your school. I'd enjoy hearing from you about the ways you build leadership capacity in your school.