How to Excel as a New School Leader: 5 Must Know Tips

Introduction

Accepting a new leadership position you’ve been aspiring to is an exhilarating experience. And once those feelings of pride and gratitude subside, the stress might start to creep in. The need to be effective in a position and the need to grant oneself grace and time to manage the learning curve can seem like opposing forces.

The need to be effective in a position and the need to grant oneself grace and time to manage the learning curve can seem like opposing forces.

As new leaders, how can we:

• learn the job while doing it?

• make decisions from day one without all of the institutional knowledge?

• build trust and rapport while establishing positional authority?

• honor and utilize our experience and knowledge that earned us the job but not constantly refer back to previous positions and schools?

• and in some cases, affect the change we’ve been hired to enact while respecting the people who work there and the work they’ve done in years past?

  
  

Learning from Leadership Transitions

It sounds impossible, right? Yet it’s been done- and successfully so- by many leaders before us. Just like our students, we can learn a lot by observing others and identifying the behavior of strong and weak models. To better understand the impact of leadership transitions, let's take a moment to reflect on our own experiences.

Reflection: Think back to when you worked at a school and hired a new leader (Division Head, Principal, Curriculum Director, etc.). Would you consider their transition successful or unsuccessful? Why?

We hear stories of leaders who say they are taking the first 100 days to listen and learn, and in the meantime, fires are popping up everywhere. Eventually, these leaders are labeled as ineffective before they even have a chance to have an impact.

However, the reality is that learning about the school and the people in it is fundamental to making informed decisions. Here are our five must know tips for helping new leaders succeed, whether they are new to their role in general or are moving to a new school.

Must Know Tip 1: Your first 100 Days Start Now!

Start researching! Who says you have to wait until your first contracted day to start learning about the school? Some schools will have comprehensive transition plans that begin months in advance, but that is not the norm. You can get started as soon as you have accepted the position.

Treat every document you've been given or can get your hands on as an artifact. Study the artifact- what can you learn from it? When I began researching my new school and job, I found videos of the 8th-grade graduation on YouTube. They had a large focus on core values awards and a distinct lack of academic awards; this taught me a lot about the school culture and what they prioritize in the learning experience.

You should be able to locate the job description, faculty handbook, the student handbook, their social media accounts and website, any student-facing policies, and more. What can you learn from each? For example, if the student handbook consistently refers to checking the syllabus for each teacher’s policies, you can conclude that teacher autonomy is crucial. 

Must Know Tip 2: Create a Transition Plan

To begin, you need to identify the answers to each of the following questions:

• What artifacts do you need access to? Examples: Faculty handbook, school calendar

• What information do you need? Example: What is the expectation for teacher evaluations?

• Who do you need to meet with (and would be willing to meet with you prior to your start)? Examples: Your closest team members, such as the vice principal and school counselor.

• What training might you need yourself? Examples: Transition to a new curriculum such as IB or teaching pedagogy like project-based learning.

Then plot out the action points against a timeline from now until your start date. You will likely be closing out your current role/school year, so don’t overwhelm yourself. Build in time and grace in the plan.

Build in time and grace in the plan.

One way to do this is in stages. For example:

• Stage 1- Current to June- Collect artifacts and conduct research

• Stage 2- June to July- Set up meetings with core team members

• Stage 3- July to August- Develop first 3 months to-do list

Here is a great template from The Principal’s Training Center to get you started.

Must Know Tip 3: Create an Entry Plan

At some point, your transition plan should morph into your entry plan. Once you’ve conducted all the research in stage 1, learned what is expected of you, and spoken to key members of your team, you should have an idea of some of the bigger picture pieces that will shape your new role. Most entry plans cover the first 100 days or the first three months.

The action items on the plan can fit into two categories:

1. Continued entry plan– who else do you need to meet with once the school year has started? What do you want to learn from them? Who do you need to introduce yourself to? What tone do you want to set in your first meeting with faculty?

2. Key tasks by month– what monthly tasks are you responsible for that you need to make sure get done (i.e. planning the pre-service professional development, parent communication about the start of school, Back to School Night)

A great resource to help you with your entry plan is this one written by Justin Baeder.

Must Know Tip 4: Listen, learn, and act

We hear horror stories of new Heads of School who immediately come onto the job and “clean up house” or “drain the swamp.” These stories tell us two things:

• People’s biggest fear is a new leader who will immediately judge them or undervalue them

• No one likes a leader who comes to change everything from day one

We don’t want to be the leader who just “listens” for the first 100 days and is perceived as ineffective, but we also don’t want to change so many things that our faculty members are offended or overwhelmed.

We don’t want to be the leader who just “listens” for the first 100 days and is perceived as ineffective, but we also don’t want to change so many things that our faculty members are offended or overwhelmed.

Here are a few ways we can manage that balance:

1. Identify low-hanging fruit versus big-ticket items:

   1. Make a list of low-hanging fruit: What small changes can you institute early on to show that you do not have decision paralysis but you are always willing to listen & learn? Examples: Reducing the number of recess duties per week, starting faculty meetings with an inclusion activity, building collaborative team time into division meetings

   2. Make a list of big-ticket changes that need to happen or you think should happen. What would be a smart timeline for these changes? How long can some of these wait? EX: rehauling the professional evaluation system, instituting a cell phone ban

   3. For some of those big-ticket items, you will want to consider a longer-term plan to introduce the item, garner buy-in, train people, etc. We detail how to do this in our blog “Creating Sustainable PD: A Roadmap for Leaders”

2. Build trust and rapport

   1. Be intentional about booking connection time into your day to meet with others. Ask people to have lunch with you, set up goal-setting meetings with faculty, or bring coffee to a colleague who always arrives early to school. Justin Baeder calls this “team before tasks.”

   2. Do not make snap judgments or positive endorsements without the full information. It is okay to say, “I need to learn more about this before we move forward.”

      
      

Must Know Tip 5: Find your people

As someone who has transitioned into a new school several times, I have found that the most important thing I have done is find the people I can rely on and trust.

For you, these could be the people who are structurally a part of your team or just the people you feel you can trust to give you an unbiased summary of the institutional knowledge you need to move forward.

I usually look for the following qualities in people before I bring them onto “my” team:

• Confidentiality: Start by entrusting them with something small to see how they handle confidentiality. People who talk freely and openly about others are not likely to keep your secrets either. The most important characteristic for the people on your team is that they can maintain confidentiality.

• Consistency/ Reliability: Look for those who show up, volunteer to help even when there isn’t an incentive, and can be depended on to get the work done.

• Caring: People who check in on you, offer you support, and want to help you with a smooth transition are people who care about the school. Believe it or not, it does not occur to everyone that a leader might need help/ a caring hand!

• Learner-centered: I always look for those who center students in their conversations & their decision-making because I know they act in the school's best interest.

Concluding Thoughts

Transitioning to a new leadership role in a school can be both exciting and challenging. As a leader, your approach during the first few months will set the tone for your tenure. By prioritizing active listening, building relationships, and fostering a culture of trust, you can establish a strong foundation.

Be patient with the process, open to feedback, and intentional in your actions. Remember that leadership in education isn’t just about making decisions—it’s about empowering others, creating a shared vision, and inspiring growth in students, staff, and the school community as a whole.

Leadership in education isn’t just about making decisions—it’s about empowering others, creating a shared vision, and inspiring growth.

Ultimately, the most important thing is to go into the job knowing that there will be a learning curve but feeling confident in your preparation and skills to manage it all. Above all else, ensure you have support systems in place and people you can go to with questions. Take one day at a time.

As Dr. Guy White writes, “May your daily efforts allow you to, more and more, be the servant in the world you are destined to become. The world needs you. Finish today’s good work so that you can go and do even better work tomorrow.”

You earned the job; now you just have to do it!