Running Head: LEADERSHIP ROLES

Leadership Roles

Vickie Coleman

Concordia University
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Leadership Roles

Our Principal stated during the interview with her that it has been mandated that
principals in our District will be a principal as a leader before anything else! Therefore Ms.
Royal my principal, sees herself as a principal as leader. As I was discussing the questions with
her, I could tell at that moment she had a million things to do but was gracious enough to take
time out to talk to me. I first let her know which type of leadership role I felt she played first and
then she quickly answered back. Her answers were then very real for me and I could see how I
made a mistake in my order of leadership. I told her that I thought she was a learner first, then a
leader, and last a manager. She stated that being a manager is always important but it is a part
of what I would expect our new Vice Principal, Mr. Wilson to take on (personal interview,
October 12, 2016). Mr. Wilson is brand new to our school and comes from a high school
therefore he does not have all of the knowledge as yet on how to manage an elementary school.
Therefore, prioritizing and delegating is a must! Although she would like to delegate some of
the managing tasks to our Assistant Principal, Mr. Wilson, she recognizes that she is not good at
the delegating. She feels she has high levels of standards and accountability and finds it
difficult to trust and delegate R. B. Royal (personal interview, October 12, 2016). Ms. Royal
has made a goal for herself this year and that is to let go and delegate R. B. Royal (personal
interview, October 12, 2016). During this time of transition with Mr. Wilson, she will be
working with him to delegate more of the tasks to him. During our candid conversation about
inducting and coaching a new assistant principal, Ms. Royal shared that is difficult to coach and
facilitate instead of simply direct. She said that many administrators are good, even great as
managers, but not as leaders.

Ms. Royal stated that there are clearly not enough hours in the day to complete all of the
tasks that she needs to complete each. Unfortunately, this means that she must make and answer
calls from home (usually about grades, behavior consequences, and/or lack of teacher
communication) and teacher-teacher conflicts, observations and walkthroughs, campus and
district management matters, human resources, student discipline, and finally communications
and sometimes she does this up until 9 and 10 oclock at night. We talked about how each day is
very different and how no day will ever run the same. On the day of the interview she stated that
majority of her time is spent talking to parents who usually call her first before they call the
teachers to discuss issues about their child. A third of the work day is spent in curriculum
development: planning with teachers and curriculum specialists and Improvement of Instruction:
visiting classrooms, assisting teachers, and staff development). The rest of the work day is spent
on student activities: attending meetings, supervising restrooms, arrival and dismissal, and after
school activities. There is a positive into all of this, and that is, this year our discipline is down
tremendously and we accounted that for the mobility we are having in our neighborhood.

Ms. Royal stated that she really loves learning but being the leader of the school is of
utmost importance. She expressed that being a learner comes during the off times such as
summer breaks, spring break, winter breaks, and any other time she has available outside of the
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regular school days. We talked about the importance of being a learner and how she felt that
everybody is a learner, the students, teachers, administration, and custodians. During our
Monday Matters meetings she shares the latest research based books she has found that may
enable us to become better at our craft. She encourages the staff to purchase them and shares
important key points that she found that would encourage us to change especially since our
school is a Title I school with kids of all socio economic backgrounds.

I asked her how she felt about the school culture and how does she foster a healthy school
culture. Her comments were very endearing as she discussed the importance of students learning
and safety of all of the Elolf family. When talking about the school culture she mentioned
having the calendar all planned out for the year so that our students and families have a sense of
community at our school. Being able to provide different school events for both students and
parents outside of what PTO offers is crucial to building the school culture in a positive manner.

As Ms. Royal works to build a campus culture of learners, she understands that she can
only do what she can and plans to do all she can to make our school culture the best it can be.
She says that to make a change, she has to consider the staff and balancing what our culture
and/or society accepts and how we can work in a school R. B. Royal (personal interview,
October 12, 2016). Unfortunately, last year we had a few problems that caused our school to
divide. During this time, some of the campus was for her and others felt like they could stand
alone and wanted to move on to other endeavors. This year, Ms. Royal is working to rebuild the
campus culture in a positive way. She is working on ways to delegate more towards teams,
grade level leaders, and her other support staff to help encourage others to participate more. The
idea is for the school to see that we are all in it together R. B. Royal (personal interview,
October 12, 2016).
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References

R. B. Royal (personal interview, October 12, 2016)