The 10 Essential Skills of a Good School Principal

The role of a principal

Before discussing what skills are needed to become a good principal, let’s first discuss what the role of a principal is.

The definition of a school principal, according to OECD, is: the link between teachers, students and their parents or guardians, the education system and the wider community.

As a principal, you essentially have to oversee all aspects of school life, including but not limited to:

• Class scheduling
• Management and creation of the curriculum
• Evaluating teacher performance
• Managing the school budget
• Disciplining students

What skills are required to be a successful principal?

1- Leadership skills

As a principal, you are in charge of a large team of staff, as well as a huge number of students and you are the mediator between students, teachers, and their parents. Therefore, as principal you must be a strong leader so that students, staff, and parents respect you and listen to what you say.

It can be useful for you to have previous experience in various other teaching leadership roles, such as head of a department or organizer of a co-curricular activity (many principal postings will require you to have this previous experience anyway). This gives you the opportunity to develop your leadership skills by managing a smaller team before taking on the role of principal where you are in charge of everyone in the school.

2- An ability to adapt and innovate

One of the skills that all educators, not just principals, should have is the ability to adapt and innovate. We live in a world where technology is constantly evolving and there are constantly new teaching techniques emerging. As a principal, you have to lead by example and must not be afraid of change but rather make changes to the curriculum and teaching style as these new trends and techniques emerge.

3- IT skills

Furthermore, in order to remain innovative and keep the curriculum and teaching styles relevant, you must feel confident with the latest technology. As with everything you do as a principal, you must lead by example because if you don’t try to use this new technology, you cannot expect your teachers to.

4- Communication skills

As a principal, you come into contact with many different people: parents, students, and staff members. You therefore need to make sure that you communicate any necessary information to them, and in an appropriate way- the way that you would address a student would be different from how you would communicate with a parent or staff member.

The most important thing is that you keep all parties informed about what is going on at the school. To communicate with parents, for example, you could send out a weekly newsletter, outlining events happening at the school and student achievements for the week. If you are especially interested in building a strong parent-teacher collaboration, check out our course and dig deeper on this topic.

To communicate with staff you could send out a weekly bulletin with any relevant information they may need to know about students.

5- An ability to delegate

There is a common misconception that a good leader is someone who is able to do everything themselves. Whereas, in fact, the best leaders (and therefore the best school principals) know when they should delegate a certain task to someone else. There might be some tasks which other staff members would be better equipped to complete, or sometimes you may simply have far too much work to complete yourself and need help from other members of staff to get everything done. This is where being able to delegate specific tasks to other members of staff comes in very handy!

Are you interested in helping your teaching staff become their best version? Check out our course on coaching and mentoring your educators and learn to lead them towards excellence.

6- Be decisive

Another essential quality for you as a school principal is being decisive. Being decisive gives the impression to both staff and students that you know what you are doing and you are confident in your abilities. This, in turn, increases their confidence in your ability to lead the school. In addition, usually, if you act decisively and therefore quickly, it means that the issue which you are trying to address is also solved more quickly.

7- Problem-solving skills

Problem-solving skills are arguably one of the most important skills for a principal to have, since on a daily basis, you are presented with a range of problems from funding issues to students’ home issues. If anyone (staff or students) has any kind of problem then you are the person that they will go to in order to help them solve it.

If you wish to develop your problem-solving skills, among other fundamental competencies, check out our course on 21st Century Teaching Skills and learn about innovative approaches and techniques to be applied in your school.

8- An ability to prioritize

Following on from the previous point, while you hear about many different issues even on the same day, they are not all equally as important. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that you are able to prioritize the most important issues so that they can be dealt with as swiftly as possible.

9- Be sensitive and empathetic

Throughout a school, there will be students, parents, and staff from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds and situations at home. As a principal, you have to be able to empathize with people even though you may not have experienced what they are experiencing. You need to be able to listen actively and give advice and solutions to help them. Being kind and empathetic also makes you come across as far more approachable. You want staff and students to feel like they are able to come to you with any issue.

10- Be visible

It is extremely important that you are seen in the corridors and that you directly interact with students, staff, and parents. This once again makes you seem far more approachable to both staff and students. It is also extremely valuable for you, as it gives you the opportunity to get to know the community that you serve and allows you to better understand them and their needs.

Conclusion

In order to become a good leader, and therefore a good principal, you should not only ensure that you have good communication and IT skills. But that most importantly, you are approachable. Staff and students should feel that they can come to you about any issue and that you will react efficiently and appropriately.

If you have any other skills which you think would be useful for a principal, share them with us in the comments!

Do you want to learn about how to be a successful principal or school leader? Check out our course ‘Leadership and Management in Schools‘ to find out more!