This chapter first outlines the various purposes of presentations. Then, it describes a variety of different ways to structure presentations. Next, it examines what elements make presentations effective versus ineffective. Lastly, the chapter discusses how school leaders can be charismatic when presenting and how to solicit feedback from participants in an effort to improve.
Purpose of Presentations
As a school leader, you would always expect your teachers to have a clear purpose for every lesson. What exactly should students be able to know or do after that particular lesson? It is the same with presentations. Every presentation has to have a purpose. What should the audience be able to know or do after the presentation is over? In this section, I review the various reasons school leaders make presentations.
Information Sharing
School leaders prepare presentations to share information with their faculty and staff, students, parents, or business partners. Presentations that are designed to share information are powerful because they are your opportunities to communicate vital information that stakeholders need to know. Examples of vital information include the following.
• Strategic plan
• Safety plan
• School procedures and expectations
• Student handbook (expectations for students)
• State of the school address
Although the plans in the preceding list may appear in written form, there are many times when school leaders need to verbally present these plans to the staff in order to reinforce them. In these information-sharing sessions, the leader communicates the information that is written in the plans to ensure everyone understands it. It is in the school leader’s best interest to ensure the staff members understand this information, and communicating these plans verbally is important to meeting that goal.
Developing Professionally
Sometimes school leaders prepare presentations to deliver professional development to the faculty, staff, and even parents. These presentations are designed to communicate new knowledge and learning that will help the staff perform better and possibly help the parents support the school more effectively. Examples of topics for professional development presentations include the following.
• Instructional practices
• Grading practices
• How to support students (for parents)
• College preparation (for parents)
Convincing and Influencing
Presentations can convince faculty, staff, parents, or students to do something that involves change. These presentations can be difficult because, through this communication, school leaders are carrying out the ultimate leadership act, which is to influence a group of people to change something. This is not always an easy task—which makes the communication in this type of presentation even more tricky. Examples of reasons why you may need to present to convince or influence audience members include the following.
• New policies
• New master schedule
• Rollout of an initiative or program
• Budget
Motivating
Every now and then, you need to motivate your faculty or students. These presentations are necessary when you can feel that folks are beginning to lose their momentum or enthusiasm—or a big event is occurring that the faculty or students need to get energized for. The communication through these presentations needs to encourage or inspire the audience. Appropriate times for motivational presentations include the following.
• Right before state testing
• Beginning of the school year
• Beginning of a new semester or grading period
Celebrating and Team Building
There are times when school leaders need to celebrate great news, and the best way to deliver it is through a presentation. Or sometimes, the presentation may be to incorporate team-building activities to promote trust and fellowship among the faculty. This communication should always be positive and fun for your teachers and staff. Examples of appropriate occasions for this type of presentation include the following.
• Reaching a goal
• Accomplishment of a milestone
• Recognition of faculty or a team
Just as you would expect teachers to always know the purpose of their lessons each day, you must also know the purpose of any presentation you give. When you are clear on the purpose of your presentation, you can think about what strategies to incorporate to fulfill that purpose.
Structure of Effective Presentations
The first step after figuring out the purpose of the presentation is to create an outline or a structure for it. Creating a structure for your presentation helps organize your thoughts into a clear logical sequence—which then will help the audience follow your presentation better. Doing your presentation without organizing and structuring your content first is like a movie director hiring actors and actresses and filming the movie without having the script first (Atkinson, 2005). Structuring your presentation will also help you remember the presentation as you are communicating the message to your audience.
This section will outline a variety of structures you can use when preparing your presentations.
Chronological Structure
This structure is useful when you need to communicate information based on a time line. It is logical because the communication follows the order of the dates. For example, you can use this structure when sharing data from previous school years all the way up to the current school year. The purpose here is to help your stakeholders understand where you’ve been and where you currently are. In other words, you can illuminate what your school’s reality was and what it is now—and maybe even what you want your reality to look like in the future.
Sequential Structure
You can use this structure when you are communicating information about a certain process, expectation, or procedure that listeners will all need to do in a specific way. A time to use this structure might be when you share specific procedures for how teachers should administer discipline or execute testing schedules. There’s a first, then second, then third, then fourth kind of structure to these presentations. The benefit of this structure is that you can arrange the information in order of importance. For example, begin with the most important piece of information that your stakeholders need to hear—or work backward and end with the most important piece of information so your presentation leads up to that part. A leader beginning with the most important piece of information might share information that the staff has been waiting to hear—maybe the results of a survey (for example, the staff voted on implementing schedule A instead of schedule B). After that announcement, the rest of the presentation may be about what this means for the community and how the school will facilitate the change. On the other hand, an example of a presentation where the school leader ends with the most important piece of information could be when he or she is introducing the staff to a new initiative or idea. The buildup of the presentation could be the case for why, with data and examples, and then the school leader would end by communicating that initiative. The point here is that the information should always be communicated in an order that makes sense and is logical.
Advantages and Disadvantages Structure
Whether you are trying to inform or persuade your stakeholders through your presentation, this structure organizes your content into two categories: (1) the advantages of your message and (2) the disadvantages