LEAD — The Weekly School Leadership Brief
Is Your Inbox Running Your School?
Leadership • Excellence • Action • Development
L — Leadership Insight
A principal can finish an extremely busy day and still have done very little real school leadership. Emails, parent concerns, transport, substitutions, meetings, events and reports all demand attention. But if they consume the whole day, something more important disappears: learning.
A school leader must deliberately stay connected to three things:
- Classrooms — What are students actually experiencing?
- People — What are teachers and students actually thinking?
- Systems — Why do the same problems keep returning?
Leadership begins when we move from “What happened today?” to “Why does this keep happening?”
E — Excellence Practice
The 15–15–15 Leadership Routine
Protect just 45 minutes every day.
15 Minutes — WALK
Visit two or three classrooms. Notice whether students are thinking, who is doing most of the talking, whether the task is challenging and what evidence of learning is visible.
15 Minutes — LISTEN
Have one meaningful conversation with a teacher, student, coordinator, parent or support staff member. Ask a real question. Then listen.
15 Minutes — BUILD
Work on one school-improvement priority that is not today’s emergency.
45 minutes a day becomes nearly four hours of deliberate leadership every week.
A — Action for the Week
The Recurring Problem Test
Choose one problem that keeps returning in your school. Complete this sentence:
“Every few weeks, we again have to deal with __________.”
Problem → Root Cause → Current Process → System Gap → New Process / SOP → Owner → Evidence That It Is Working
This is the transition from fire-fighting to institution-building.
D — Development Question
Which problem are we solving repeatedly that should already have been solved by a better system?
Give your leadership team two minutes to think before anyone answers.
60-Second Leadership Challenge
- Which classroom did I enter today?
- Which person did I genuinely listen to today?
- Which system did I improve today?
If the answer to all three is none, tomorrow’s diary needs changing.
Leadership Line
“Strong school leaders do not become better firefighters. They build schools that require fewer fires to be fought.”
— Dr Anup Sharma
Question Worth Sharing
What recurring problem in your school needs a system and not another reminder?
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LEAD — Learn. Reflect. Act. Improve.