Cultivating Greatness: A Checklist to Help Your School Hire, Support, and Retain Stellar Staff
September 17, 2024
Empowering Educators: Leading with Love
September 17, 2024
Dr. Bradley Herman
Teachers are one of the most essential components of the school community supporting not only student academic outcomes but social-emotional success of students as well. There is broad academic literature that informs the conversation saying teachers choose to enter the profession for three major reasons: the quest for personal fulfillment; the desire to work with young people to make a difference in their lives; and the opportunity to continue a meaningful engagement with the subject of their choice. Suggestions have been made of an overlap of “personal aspiration; spiritual endeavor; social mission; intellectual pursuit; the desire for connectedness; and a belief in the power of ideas and relationships manifested in education to alter the conditions of their own and others’ lives for the better” (Manuel and Hughes, p. 20).
Regardless of why teachers choose the profession, their job satisfaction is a crucial and necessary factor in their continued work and efficacy. When teachers are “burned out” or unhappy in their teaching positions, students suffer (Perie, 1997; Ostroff, 1992). Teacher satisfaction is strongly associated with teacher effectiveness which in turn affects student achievement (Goodlad, 1984; Wright, 1991; and Ostrofff, 1992). Among those elements that fuel teacher satisfaction is a sense of purpose and the ability to contribute not only in their classroom, but to the educational culture of the school.
For my doctoral studies at Yeshiva University, Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration, I studied principal leadership styles and how these styles could be used in different realms of a principal’s daily workload. I conducted research examining whether a principal leadership style that focuses on teacher buy-in and giving faculty additional instructional leadership responsibilities in the school is related to teacher satisfaction and teacher retention. I specifically researched Jewish day schools.
I worked with two distinct leadership styles: a principal as a transactional leader, vis a vis a principal as a transformational leader. For my research, and all subsequent analyses, I defined these terms as follows:
- Transactional leadership: a set of behaviors in which a leader (principal) uses a system of rewards and punishments to achieve certain outcomes for the school. The leadership is top-down. An example, addressed later in this piece, is transactional leadership in school procedures and protocols. The principal alone makes decisions regarding the school hours, the school payroll procedures, or the school response to a crisis situation. There is little or no teacher input, as decisions must be made quickly and democracy is a time-consuming process, or the decisions are sensitive, and staff cannot and should not know confidential information.
- Transformational leadership: a set of behaviors in which a leader (principal) uses his or her charisma and or personality to motivate staff. The goals are collective, the leadership can be described as bottom-up, and all stakeholders in the school community are included in the process. An example of transformational leadership, also addressed later, can be in professional development. The principal, in conjunction with the faculty, sets goals for the instructional direction of the school and the teacher training activities, and then lets “teacher leaders” conduct the training sessions and other activities such as peer observation.
At the outset of my research, it was not known whether the job satisfaction and retention findings for Jewish day school teachers were comparable to those of public-school teachers, as there was a dearth of research on this topic. The hypothesis of my study was that the greater the role principals allow teachers to play in the curricular decisions and instructional programming of the school, the more likely it is that the teacher will have greater job satisfaction, and therefore remain, not only in the school, but in the teaching profession overall. My research explored whether such a transformational leadership style, wherein teacher voice is solicited, utilized, and validated by the principal regularly, will have a positive correlation with teacher satisfaction and retention. Teacher input can manifest in myriad ways in which teachers are given voice in the instructional direction of the school such as curriculum leaders, staff developers, grade advisors, peer coaches, and the like.
The rationale for this hypothesis was that as the public face of the instructional program and the coordinator of all school operations, the principal sets the instructional climate, makes curricular and personnel decisions, and is responsible for the safety and security of the students in the building. A principal’s leadership portfolio can be overwhelming, and teachers could be an important resource for distributing leadership, engaging them in instructional decision making, peer observations, curriculum planning and development. and supporting administrative efforts. Such a collaborative approach may also serve the needs of teachers for professional growth.
The study was designed to examine a principal’s daily work life and determine which subsection of the principal’s daily responsibilities would be better perceived by his teaching staff as transactional or transformational. To do this, I examined five different aspects of the principal’s daily work routine: the principal’s role in setting school procedures and protocols, the principal’s role in classroom management, the principal’s role in lesson planning, the principal’s role in parent outreach, and the principal’s role in professional development. In each of these subsections, I queried as to whether a transactional style of principal leadership or a transformational style of principal leadership would be more conducive to teacher satisfaction, and thus greater teacher retention.
In order to conduct my research, I reached out to Jewish day school principals in the New York metropolitan area and asked them to encourage their teachers to participate. In total, 20 schools were contacted, and 12 of those schools agreed to participate in the survey, with 88 teachers participating. I wanted as much randomness as I could achieve, while at the same time getting teachers that were like-minded; that is to say, those committed to Jewish education by dint of their working in Jewish day schools. The survey responses went directly to a web portal. All responses were anonymous, and no administrator, school, or individual participant was named. However, the profile of the respondents was a diverse cross section of the population of teachers, including young and older, male and female, and Judaic and secular studies teachers.
In four of the five subsections, a positive correlation was discovered between the transformational leadership style of the principal and teacher job satisfaction. That is, the more transformational the principal, the more satisfied the teacher. The areas that benefited the most from the transformational leadership style were curriculum and lesson planning, classroom management, and building rapport with staff. The most pronounced correlation was in the subscale of professional development and a transformational leadership style, which will be discussed in some depth below. The data I collected shows teachers tend to be more satisfied with a transformational style of principal, one in which their input is sought, valued, and implemented.
Administrative Leadership
The one exception to this correlation was that teachers, whether novice or experienced, want a principal who can tackle administrative tasks independently. When engaging in the procedures and protocols work in their schools, the principal is better perceived as transactional. Since transactional leadership can create challenges in teacher satisfaction, a model of transactional leadership that avoids this is desirable.
According to the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (2009), a fundamental principle of leadership flows from the Biblical narrative of Moses. A leader must empower his team. The leader must give them absolute confidence that they can succeed. The leader is responsible for the mood and morale of those under his charge. Rabbi Sacks, zt”l, calls this servant leadership and finds its origin in the Torah. The highest accolade given to Moses is that he was “the servant of the Lord” – עבד ה’ (דברים לד, ה). Moses is given this title 18 times throughout Tanach. This concept of empowering leaders who can then inspire their staff is discussed at length by Robert Greenleaf (2002), who describes a leader using “servant leadership” characteristics. Greenleaf defines servant leadership as leadership that focuses on serving the employee, the customer, and the community. Servant leaders aspire to serve first, and then make a conscious choice to lead.
One classic example is when Moses heeds the advice of his father-in-law Yitro and deputizes judicial decision making to councils of wise men. Yitro understood that Moses was overwhelmed by the demands on his time and realized that burnout would ensue if the leader did not enlist others to help him. Not only was this practical in a workload sense, but it also gave the elders a sense of buy-in to the mission that the Jews had embarked upon in the desert.
While principals frequently must engage in difficult conversations with teachers regarding subpar performance, leading with head and heart and acting as servant leaders in complementing their transactional functions can garner the respect of their teaching staff. While letting a teacher go is not an easy decision for any principal to make, a principal, acting in his transactional role, must make these decisions, as well as programming decisions, budget decisions, purchasing decisions, and he should do so using servant leadership qualities. These will help him be most effective and not lose sight of the school’s long-term health goal. Effective leadership means that when you need to make a tough–minded decision, you are acutely aware of how it will affect the people involved.
Instructional Leadership
A principal’s role as the instructional leader of the school is better served, according to my data set, by transformational leadership. Giving teaching staff agency will enhance morale and satisfaction and may serve to increase retention. Two theoretical applications for transformational supervision infused with servant leadership characteristics are pedagogical supervision and professional development.
The research questions and subscales posed did not specifically address the rubric of classroom observations, but they did address the perceptions of principal leadership regarding professional development. There is overlap with these two areas, as effective professional development strengthens and improves classroom practice and teaching techniques. The suggestions offered below in the domain of professional development are culled from recent literature, the data collected in this survey, and conjecture.
Professional development and teacher training are vital components to the health of a school in that they help teachers hone their crafts and build collegiality among the faculty. When all or most of the teaching staff agree on the path to move the instructional program forward, they demonstrate to the school community that there is uniformity and common interest in helping the students succeed. The quality of teachers and teaching will affect recruiting, teacher training, classroom performance, and eventually instructional outcomes. These criteria have long lasting effects on the reputation and continued quality of the school, which is why this is one of the most important items a principal is tasked with.
According to Sullivan, et. al. (2002), top down, didactic professional development initiatives have not been as effective as originally hoped. A study conducted in the New York City Department of Education (1993), found their staying power has been temporary, at best. This lack of effectiveness was highlighted by the reaction of former schools Chancellor Joseph Fernandez who implemented a system of shared decision making regarding professional development, in concert with the teachers’ union. When the principal is the “guide on the side” regarding professional development initiatives, it builds morale and gives teachers ownership of their careers and creativity.
Data collected from this survey suggests that more experienced teachers value autonomy when undergoing training and honing their pedagogical skills. Newer teachers may be overwhelmed by the demands of the job and more concerned with keeping order in the classroom and managing in a new environment. This newer teacher will not want the added burden of being responsible for his own professional development. He or she may just want directions as to the best way to teach but may be fearful of receiving it from the principal. One method to obviate this can be to allow more senior teachers to mentor new teachers and have more experienced and talented classroom teachers become teacher leaders.
The principal can offer different staff development options for the younger teachers, and other options for the more experienced teachers. To follow, another path can be that the principal, in collaboration with his faculty, establishes grade teams or professional development teams among staff that cut a swath across age and experience. This will afford the newer teachers the opportunity to feel as though they have a sense of ownership over their professional growth and are partners in the enhancement of their careers.
Teachers should be encouraged to develop a professional development plan which runs through the school year. An effective strategy toward this end is for both administrators and teachers, during a faculty meeting or other school-wide event, to decide on an area or theme they wish to pursue. This could be done at the inaugural faculty meeting in September or at a specially organized conference held in the summer before returning to school in September.
Professional development should be ongoing and sustained to maximize effectiveness. Once some teachers become more expert in these innovative approaches, they can then serve as turn-key personnel to work with other faculty. This will empower teachers throughout the school and give teachers ownership of their classroom practice and the instructional direction of the school. Here again, we can see the concept of transformational leadership augmented by servant leadership.
The research presented in my study pointed to the conclusion that an effective form of supervision presents itself by way of collaborative, ongoing, non-judgmental, and developmental processes that encourage instructional dialogue and reflection about teaching practices. This should be cultivated regularly and celebrated when successful. Supervision of this type, regardless of the moniker, may lead to enhanced teacher satisfaction, which may in turn, have a positive effect on student achievement and outcomes.
Dr. Bradley Herman retired from the NYC public school system in June 2023 and is now employed as a principal of a yeshiva in the NYC metropolitan area. This piece was adapted from his doctoral dissertation that he defended this summer.