The “Secret Sauce” of Successful School Leadership

In my previous high school there was a 500 yard straight-away from our back student parking lot to the front street. That was just too much temptation for teenage boys! After school each day, one or two would rev up their cars and barrel down the straightaway.

I spoke with the students about it at assembly. Didn’t matter. The same kids who followed the rules kept doing so. The ones who didn’t, didn’t.

So I placed speed limit signs down the stretch. They were ignored.

Then I posted teachers after school down the drive, who reported transgressors. That made a dent, but only if the teachers were out there. What about after practice at 5 or 6 pm? And the teachers hated playing traffic cop.

Then I put in speed bumps. Aha!

I think often about our back straightaway in my leadership of Catholic schools. As leaders, our job is to establish a strong culture. But how do we build momentum for the norms necessary to do that? Do we create detailed handbooks that address every possible transgression? Do we establish “gotcha” policies that try to regulate behavior through external force or threat?

Or do we create policies and practices that help promote self regulation?

There’s a temptation for seniors in high to soften their schedules and avoid challenging classes. Their parents often support them. So without much comment from me, I announced that next year, seniors talking two or more A.P. classes would be given an optional study period in their schedules to “assist them in meeting the challenging demands of their academic load.” No one else had that option in our school. The following year A.P. enrollment swelled. Not surprisingly, so did the # of AP Scholars.

I noticed our school was giving too many A’s. Grade inflation is a rampant problem across the nation, but it was becoming an issue for us, too. So I talked about it with faculty, reminding them that an “A” was for superior achievement, not effort, and told them we were giving too many. An average student who worked hard should be able to “effort” their way to a B, I said, but the standard for an A may not be attainable for some.

The needle barely moved in the next round of grades.

So I announced as a routine part of our post year planning, this year and in the foreseeable future, I would ask teachers to review grade distributions within their department, and to prep for this review, I would begin sending teachers the school’s grade distributions, listed by department and teacher, every time we ran report cards. Without any further carping from me, the # of A’s began trending lower and B’s trending higher.

Can we create practices and policies that encourage our students and faculty to “choose the good” on their own, without threat or excessive regulation? That’s the “secret sauce,” really, to leading a successful school—really, to leading any organization.

Speed bumps > external regulations.