What are the most effective strategies for acing your first 90 days as an Educational Leader?

In your first 90 days as an educational leader: Understand the Culture: Immerse yourself in the school's culture, values, and dynamics. Build Relationships: Establish strong connections with staff, students, and parents. Active Listening: Listen to concerns and suggestions from various stakeholders. Set Clear Goals: Identify and communicate your objectives for the role. Seek Feedback: Regularly seek feedback to gauge your impact and adjust strategies. Visible Leadership: Be present and engaged in school activities. Professional Development: Stay committed to learning and adapting to new challenges. These strategies set a solid foundation for effective and impactful leadership.

Assessing the situation and pre-planning is essential. When going into a new position it’s important we don’t ’upset the system’ but plan changes over a period of time ? For example if the self-evaluation process ?? needs adaptation then this may be your first task to help others reflect and evaluate effectively. Indirectly this will help the school improvement planning process ? The worst mistake ? you could make is to go in and try to change every little thing. Prioritising the changes is necessary so you can build on all your little wins ????

Observe, listen, reflect; build trust. You need to have a solid understanding of the culture, what's working and what isn't before making any big changes. How do staff treat each other? How do they treat students? What does classroom management look like across the board? Where are the pain points? Speak to each faculty and staff member and find out what would make their job easier. Do what you can to make what they say happen within the confines of the position.

The overarching theme for any changes should be, "what is in the best interest for students and their learning?" Discussions can be first by department and then discussed as a whole during all school meetings. All members of the school need to feel their thoughts and opinions are acknowledged, respected, and taken into consideration. Incremental changes are best and roll outs should take place gradually over a period of time, not an announcement over a weekend or before a holiday that things will be changing 100% the next Monday everyone is at work.

Being able to navigate the waters ??♂? is extremely important. This includes analysing ?? how people work, characteristics of your team ??, politics in the workplace and understanding what is expected of you ???? Sometimes we make the mistake of not having a specific leadership style or style of work. This can confuse your team and take them longer to adjust to your working methods. Another area to think of is holding others accountable. How do you do this? Are you being too strict? Are you being too lenient? Are roles and responsibilities clear? Hope this helps ????

I think it also depends on the situation you are coming into - some schools will be running well and in this case you sit back, assess, listen and reflect. In some schools, there are things that need to happen quickly to ensure the safe and moderately effective running of the school. Context is key, and the ability to gain a quick handle on the situation is a vital skill for any incoming leader.