Principals Are People Too

Despite what you might think, your principal is actually human and not a mindless or heartless robot. We do not go to bed every night thinking of ways that we can make lives miserable or how to destroy the will of people in our organization. The fact of the matter is that we are people with hopes, dreams, aspirations, and an insatiable urge to move our schools forward. Our problem, however, is that we don't show this side of ourselves enough. I know that I am guilty of this and I have made a concerted effort to show this side of me at school while still maintaining the title of "boss."

I do a lot of thinking late at night as I watch television and try to unwind after a long day. Frequently, I catch an old movie after my wife and kids go to bed and I try to find nuggets of truth and relevance in these movies. It just so happens that the other night, "Meet the Robinsons" was on and I began thinking of my life at school. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. What really stuck with me was that Louis, an orphan, desperately wanted to belong to a family. As he travels through the future, he encounters a wide variety of people who all have their various quirks and in the end, he finds exactly what he is looking for. Additionally, there is a quote by Walt Disney where he states, "Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” It is such a simple quote that I honestly feel is in the hearts of all principals.

You might be wondering why I am writing about this, but the simple truth is that I believe principals really want to have a work family that they enjoy spending time with. I know that I do. The problem is that in a lot of cases, the principal is left out because he/she is "the boss". The principal, like Louis, is always coming up with different ideas/inventions, but they are frowned upon by others because the idea/invention is viewed as something that might get added to the plate of responsibilities for others or because it won't work. Principals by nature are tinkerers and to ask them to stop doing this would stop their desire to move their schools forward.

I urge you to embrace your principal's desire to move your school forward. Understand that some ideas are going to flop and your principal will fail at times. They are human after all.