I was recently on a campus where I observed the following;

1. A chronic and wide-spread tardy problem.

2. Chronic and wide-spread unpreparedness for class. Simply showing up with assigned readings not being completed, notebooks forgotten, and nothing to write with or on.

3. Wide-spread personal use of cell-phones for entertainment purposes during lectures and instruction.

4. Blatant disrespect for authority by words, tone and actions.

Not surprisingly, the school is not meeting the performance standards expected by the district.

And with a large segment of the teaching staff exhibiting the above behaviors, why would we expect anything more from the students.

Now, if anyone believes I am picking on teachers I am not. When one person is not meeting professional standards that is a personnel issue. Coach the person up or coach the person out.

But when many people are not meeting professional standards that is a leadership issue. And what I observed is the perfect example of what leadership failure looks like at the campus level. In this case, the district recognized the failure of leadership and replaced the campus principal.

And here is the warning… In professional sports, when a team fails to perform at expected levels the first step is to replace the coach.

If that doesn’t work, the next step is to begin replacing players.

The same formula applies to schools.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn…

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