Starting a new chapter with your team

I recently returned as principal to a school I’d previously served as an AP. Enough years have passed so that even though there are a few familiar faces, the majority of our staff were new to me and I was completely new to them. At the start of this new chapter I wanted to really focus on our school culture, and on building up a rich sense of collaboration and shared purpose with my team. I’ve found that pulling on your personal story provides one of the strongest possible foundations for this work – whether you’re new to your building or looking to reset and refocus with your colleagues. Here’s how I’ve put that principle of authenticity into practice. 

Cultivate a sense of comfort 

No two leaders are alike. Though we share a commitment to our students, staff and school community, we are each an entirely different person from any of our predecessors in this role. It might be tempting to avoid making waves, or to try fitting in the mold of the principal immediately before you. But in my view, it’s important to be true to who you are as a leader and to deepen your sense of comfort with your differences. The comfort you establish within yourself not only enables you to move with authenticity, but it also provides a strong foundation to support your staff in navigating those differences and moving toward a sense of cohesion as a new team. 

Draw inspiration from your journey

A core question I ask myself is, “What do I want to bring to my next chapter based on all my experiences?” Over the years, the word influence has become ingrained in me from one of my mentors, Salome Thomas-EL. I led a book study on his work, “The Immortality of Influence,” and it continues to inspire my practice. In our field, we can never truly know the exact extent of our influence, but we can know that it is always active and always shaping the outcomes for our students and our communities. I made the choice to frame my leadership around influence as a core theme. 

Seek out staff stories

Influence isn’t just an arbitrary word: It captures an important essence of my leader journey, my priorities and commitments and my plans to make a positive contribution to our school community now and in the years to come. So my next step was identifying opportunities to share that story with my team, and invite them to share their stories with me and with one another. I made this a part of my initial listen and learn tour, as well as a dedicated leadership retreat with our administrative and instructional staff. Sharing our stories provides a powerful window into our motivations and makes it plain that we have a shared why. 

Create points of connection 

In addition to sharing those stories, I took my core theme and broke it down into multiple actions. Then I presented it to my team as an acronym. INFLUENCE: Inspire, Notice, Fuel, Listen, Understand, Engage, Nourish, Cultivate and Empower. Each letter now corresponds to a supporting action, and together they highlight a wide range of how the whole team influences students’ success. Presented like this, a core theme of my journey now shows authentic points of connection for each individual member of the team – and becomes a shared framework for our work moving forward.

 Acknowledge your theme in action 

It’s one thing to decide on your core guiding theme, and it’s another thing to make it a living, breathing part of your day-to-day as a team. One way I keep it top of mind and continue to build a sense of cohesion is through weekly staff acknowledgments. Every week I acknowledge four colleagues for one way they’ve put our theme into action. That might be facilitating a meeting with school families, leading a peer coaching experience or supporting a student in meeting a challenge. Each Friday, I write a note thanking them individually for that specific action and I place it on their desk with a themed T-shirt for them to find when they come in on Monday. 

For this specific kind of acknowledgment, it’s completely my colleagues’ decision if they want to share it with other members of the team. There’s no announcement or leaderboard, and the only kind of tracking involved is privately noting which team members I’ve acknowledged so far. I enjoy this method as a way to simply let staff know that I’m sincere in my investment in our theme and using it as a point of real connection to the work they do daily. 

Remember, your team sees you too

When I got to my desk one Monday, I noticed a card. It was from a colleague I’d acknowledged several weeks before, and it thanked me for the work I was doing on a really holistic level. The sign-off said, “Continue to influence.” 

I find that to be such an encouraging reminder: Our work as leaders to shape the culture on our teams and throughout our buildings can create the kind of environment where we can also be seen and supported in doing our best work. By showing up thoughtfully and sharing our priorities in connection with our personal journeys, we can in fact create a meaningful common ground to meet any challenges ahead.