Her experience with PLCs began in her first year of teaching, when she attended a PLC workshop and heard Rick DuFour. Since then, she has been implementing those tenets. When she became a school administrator, she led her school to Model PLC status—the first school to receive this designation in the state of Georgia. Her school’s success as a PLC is featured on AllThingsPLC.info as “Sample Professional Learning Community Manual.”
She has published articles with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and presented several workshops at both the state and national levels. She is a lifelong learner, with her latest certificate from Harvard University in Leading School Systems at the National Level. She earned her doctorate degree from Argosy University in Georgia, her master’s degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland, her teaching certificate from Medaille College in Buffalo, and her undergraduate degree from the University of Toronto.
Introduction
The art of communication is the language of leadership.
—James Humes
As a school leader, your job depends heavily on effective communication skills. Everything that leaders do requires communication skills—whether it’s navigating a crisis, giving out directions, resolving conflict, or solving problems. Unfortunately, many leaders do not spend enough time strengthening this skill. Think about the workshops or conferences you attend; chances are they weren’t on improving your communication skills. Yet all the workshops and conferences you have attended require strong communication skills in order for you to implement any of your new learning from those events.
I remember when I attended my first Professional Learning Community at Work® institute and learned about all kinds of things: prioritizing standards, grading and assessment, creating interventions, building a guiding coalition—and so on. My biggest challenge was figuring out how I was going to take all that new knowledge and learning and communicate it to my teachers. One mistake in my communication, and I wouldn’t convey this important knowledge effectively. I personally have seen great ideas fail because of ineffective communication. I remember rolling out a writing across the curriculum initiative in which all teachers, regardless of what they taught, would incorporate writing into their day-to-day lessons. But when I observed the teachers, I didn’t see that happening. It was easy to get upset with the teachers for not doing what I asked; however, when I self-reflected, I realized my communication about this initiative was incredibly weak. I didn’t do a good job explaining, I tried to do too much via email instead of face to face, I didn’t communicate examples of what I was looking for—all in all, what I wanted to see happen didn’t happen because of my inability to communicate effectively. The good news is that these mistakes are easy to avoid.
Anchal Luthra and Richa Dahiya (2015) stress that without excellent communication skills, a leader simply cannot be effective. The success of your school can rise or fall based on your communication skills. Why are leadership and communication so connected? Leadership guru John C. Maxwell (1993) asserts, “When the leader lacks confidence, the followers lack commitment” (p. 6). This is undoubtedly true, and the only way to convey confidence is through effective communication skills. Through effective communication, you can show your teachers and staff members the way and influence them to commit to and excel in the essential work they do every day.
The answer, in short, is that without communicating, leaders cannot influence their followers. Leadership and communication are deeply connected, and successful leadership depends on successful communication. This book explores that connection, and how you can develop it to, in turn, connect with others and be an effective leader in your school.
The Importance of Communication
You communicate in multiple ways every single day. You communicate verbally through presentations, meetings, and conversations; you communicate through writing; and you communicate nonverbally through your body language. From the moment you walk into your school to the moment you leave, you are communicating. Deborah J. Barrett (2014) states, “A leader must be able to communicate effectively. When asked to define leadership, theorists and practitioners alike frequently use the words ‘influence,’ ‘inspire,’ and ‘transform,’ all of which depend on communication, verbal and nonverbal” (p. 2).
Not only do you communicate every day, you communicate with a lot of people. How many people in the school community do you lead? Or, how many people do you communicate with? The answer to both questions is the same. With just the teachers, staff members, students, and one parent per student, for a school or school district of about five hundred students, it could be well over one thousand people. And this number does not include visitors or a second parent. So, with that many people that you lead and, therefore, communicate with, it makes sense to ensure that your communication skills are effective, whether that’s by building new skills, adapting the communication skills you used in your teaching days, or brushing up on skills you’ve already established.
Gary Burnison (2012) asserts that communication is about connection. Through effective communication, you build relationships, which leads to trust. You build relationships with your staff, teachers, parents, and students one at a time through your communication skills. When you call parents to tell them something positive about their child—you are building trust. When you give parents reassurance after something bad happens in your building—you are building trust. When you help teachers through a difficult parent meeting—you are building trust. When you support teachers through a tough time—you are building trust. Again—in every situation when you communicate with your stakeholders, you are building relationships and trust, further developing those vital connections.
Communication is how you get your message out to people. Whether the message is positive or negative, good or bad, practical or impractical—you have a responsibility to ensure you convey that message in the manner you intend. More importantly, you must ensure that you serve the purpose of that communication. In essence, your school’s success depends on how effectively you can connect and communicate. Your job involves setting the vision for your school; identifying the strengths and areas for improvement for your school; establishing goals for your school; hiring and retaining top talent for your school; creating a safe and welcoming environment for your school; managing the day-to-day operations of your school; and the list of responsibilities goes on and on. The reality is that you will struggle to fulfill these responsibilities effectively if you are unable to communicate effectively.
As important as it is to ensure you communicate effectively because the day-to-day functions of the work depend on you conveying the message you intend, it is also important to do more. Burnison (2012) states, “For a leader, communication is connection and inspiration—not just transmission of information” (p. 151). Not only is communication essential for conveying information, it is also critical for inspiring and motivating your stakeholders.
Part of your job as a school leader is to inspire and motivate your teachers and others so that they feel supported and encouraged in their unique visions; however, it is also to fulfill your mission and to achieve your goals. As a leader, it is your job to ensure teachers are motivated and inspired to make a positive impact on every student they teach. You, ultimately, are responsible for continuing to articulate and implement the mission and goals, which in turn guide this positive impact. When you communicate, whether it’s in a meeting or through the one-on-one conversations you have with your teachers and staff, you should be consistently inspiring them and motivating them so they can be the best they can be for your students. School leaders always have a responsibility to do this for the betterment of their students. Whether it’s monitoring expectations or introducing a new policy to improve the school—we can’t coerce our staff into doing things. We have to inspire and motivate them through clear and consistent communication.
Take a moment to think about the latest request you made of your staff. Did you ask that teachers collaborate weekly? Or that they review data from their student assessments? Was it that teachers needed to provide effective interventions when students didn’t master the standards? Or that they provide enrichment for