Schools with strong teams of educators can improve instruction in ways that a principal working on her own cannot. Leading effective teams is not easy, however, and principals need particular skills to do it well. A principal coach can play a critical role in helping school leaders build capacity to do this work.
Power in Numbers: Coaching principals to build teams that transform schools serves as a guide for anyone who coaches principals, laying out what principals need to know and be able to do to lead teams effectively, and how coaches can effectively support principals in building their capacity to lead teams. Coaches need to know how to ask questions that build principals’ self-awareness, model team development skills, and fortify a principal’s own coaching practice.
Power in Numbers includes stories, insights and lessons learned from the work The Leadership Academy’s coaches have done in schools and districts across the country. It also provides tools that readers can use to strengthen their own practice. These resources include:
- A tool for diagnosing a school’s teaming culture
- A retreat planning guide to design out-of-school sessions for teams to collaborate and action plan
- A sample agenda for an inquiry team meeting that offers principals guidance for leading the teams in discussions on student data
- A user guide on how principal coaches can use the publication to generate discussion about teaming with their principals