Great School Leaders Communicate Effectively (Leadership Matters Part 5)

I once received an urgent email from a teacher that stated she wanted to meet with me during her planning period. When I arrived, I was blindsided.

This teacher was very upset. She said that there was no way that she could prepare her students to be successful if they kept being called out of class unexpectedly during second period.

“I’m dealing with an impossible task,” she said. “Something is going to have to change if I’m expected to grow these students.”

I was humbled. I thought back over the last several weeks, and saw where we’d had a school evacuation drill, an assembly, and an at-school “field trip” where all students looked at Christmas classroom door decorations.

Each of these events was important for different aspects of the school–maintaining safety, providing information, enhancing culture–but they all took time away from instruction. And, to my dismay, I realized that they were all communicated after teachers had already submitted their weekly lesson plans.

Every school faces situations for which it’s hard to prepare. One of the most important takeaways from my teacher training was to always be flexible. Students get sick; the school’s start time is delayed due to weather conditions; parents show up unannounced and demand a conference right now.

Top-performing schools deal with unavoidable circumstances, too, but they have far fewer avoidable surprises. If a teacher has to adapt a lesson on the day she is supposed to teach it due to an assembly, a schedule change for testing, or a duty assignment, it’s the leader’s fault.

Everyone suffers when plans are not communicated well.

• Educators are planners, and they get frustrated when they are taken by surprise by things that they should have known about beforehand.

• Students can become unruly when they are taken out of their normal routine.

• Parents don’t show up for events if they aren’t promoted well.

• Students fail when they don’t know about the upcoming test.

Whatever your role at the school, you can become a better leader by prioritizing effective communication with staff, teams, students, and families. Work diligently to communicate clearly, eliminate confusion, and ensure that everyone is in the know.

Here are four tips to make your communication more effective.

Plan a timeline for communication.

Planning out communication is challenging, especially for new leaders. In the classroom, if you wanted to change the date of a test the day before it was scheduled, all you had to do was announce it to the class.

For school leaders, though, if you change the date of an assembly the day before it’s scheduled, expect a fair amount of chaos to ensue.

As you plan initiatives and events, consider how much lead time staff, students, and families will need for everything to work out. Give plenty of time for people to prepare and to work out their schedules.

The higher your role in the organization, the more important it is to communicate early. If you need action to be taken, consider all of the other duties and responsibilities that people have when you communicate deadlines.

Alan Lumpkin, my current superintendent, sent out dates for principal PLCs, school board and community advisory board visits, and student council sessions for the whole school year at the beginning of the year. Doing so allowed every principal to make plans around his or her schedule, which in turn was better for teachers and students at each campus in the district.

Don’t go overboard.

When I was a classroom teacher, one of my pet peeves was to receive an email from an administrator during class with the expectation that it would be read and acted upon within the next few hours. I have had some administrators who would send out multiple emails like this per day!

It can also be frustrating to have a barrage of information come out all at once, say, right before or right after a PLC meeting, only to have radio silence for weeks afterwards.

Consider how often you communicate. I believe that there is no such thing as overcommunication about a specific event, but I do think that you can communicate too often about too many topics that your messages get lost in the cracks.

In my experience, it’s best to compile important information that’s pertinent to all staff in one place.

Imagine getting six mass emails a day from a leader, each about a different topic with some that aren’t even for you. Would you open each email promptly? The intended recipient may not even open it–it may just get lost in the noise of all the other communication that goes out during the day.

I like to send out a weekly staff email and include all of the important information for the upcoming week all in one place. I send that email on Fridays after our school’s admin team meeting, and before I hit send, I check the school calendar and follow up with my fellow administrators to make sure I haven’t left off anything important.

Determine official and unofficial communication channels.

Think about the channels you use to communicate. You likely use in-person meetings, conversations, emails, texts, third-party apps like Remind, newsletters, and social media posts to communicate. You also likely use each channel differently for different stakeholders.

But with all these different options for communication, your message can get lost in the noise.

How often are people unsure about what they’re supposed to do? Are teachers late to your meetings because they didn’t check their email?

For official communication, choose a channel and be consistent. People will develop the habit of checking one particular communication channel over time, and you will be more confident that your message is heard.

For me, emailing teachers and providing morning announcements for students works best for large-scale communication. I may also send out texts, Remind messages, and Facebook posts to reinforce what I’ve already communicated, but I try to make sure that the email is sent or the announcement is made first.

Align Your Communication with Your School’s Goals

Everything that’s done at your school should be in alignment with what the school is aiming for, and people need to be reminded of that constantly.

In the classroom, teachers can preempt the lazy student’s “why do we have to learn this?” by communicating the school’s goals often. School leaders can help teachers by talking about school goals regularly.

You essentially follow Simon Sinek’s advice to “start with why,” and everything else falls into place more easily.

My school has three major school goals and five core values that I try to discuss every day. On the morning announcements, I spell out how what we’re doing that day is aligned to a school goal or core value.

You may feel like a broken record, but in my experience, if you want your school to reach its goals, then people need that constant reminder about why we’re doing what we’re doing.

What about you? What are some ways you can improve communication in your leadership?

Let me know in the comments below!