This document outlines the key points from a professional development session on principal leadership for school improvement. The session is divided into three parts with learning outcomes listed at the beginning of each part. The first part focuses on the challenges of 21st century leadership and identifying leadership actions to support student achievement. The second part discusses Viviane Robinson's research on the impact of leadership on student outcomes and the five dimensions of student-centered leadership. The third part focuses on instructional leadership, the barriers and enablers to demonstrating instructional leadership, and tools leaders can use for instructional leadership.

1. Principal Leadership for
School Improvement
Leading in the 21st Century

2. Session 1
Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
 Identify the challenges facing education leaders in the 21st
century;
 Increase and enrich their understanding of the role of the 21st
century school and district leader; and
 Identify and apply key leadership actions to support student
achievement and school improvement.

3. Leading into the 21st Century
“ Leadership is second only to effective teaching among all
school –related factors that impact student learning”
Wallace Foundation

4. The Best Educational Leaders
Think about the skills of a highly effective leader in the 21st
century.
Complete the Extended Nametag template.

5. Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for
the 21st Century (OECD 2012)

6. ISL Image of School Leader

7. Conversation with Michael
Fullan and Ken Leithwood
Increased Accountability
Whole System Responsibility
Collaborative Culture
Differentiated Professional Learning
Management and Leadership
Developing Other Leaders

8. Internal & External
Accountability

9. Prescriptive and Autonomous
Prescriptive Autonomous

10. Innovation
“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
Steve Jobs

11. Whole System Responsibility

12. Collaborative Competition

13. Professional Development

14. Developing Other Leaders

15. Management and Leadership
“ The tasks typically associated with both concepts make
potentially important contributions to the achievement of
organizational goals. So one defining attribute of effective
leaders is their ability to carry out even the most routine and
seemingly trivial tasks in such a way as to nudge their
organizations toward their purposes”
Management and Leadership

16. Influence
“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is
about one life influencing another.”
John C. Maxwell

17. Session 2
Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
 Become familiar with Vivane Robinson’s research on the Impact
of Leadership on Student Outcomes;;
 Increase and enrich their understanding of the five leadership
dimensions identified by Robinson;
 Increase their understanding of the three leadership capabilities;
 Identify and apply key leadership actions to support the five
dimensions.

18. Leaders Impacting Students
Introduction by Viviane Robinson

19. Student Centred Leadership
Viviane Robinson defines Student Centred Leadership as
Leadership that makes a difference to the equity and
excellence of student outcomes and is measured by
the impact on the students rather than the impact on
the adults.

20. Five Dimensions

21. Five Dimensions of Student-Centred Leadership
Derived from Quantitative Studies Linking Leadership with
Student Outcomes
0.27
0.84
0.42
0.31
0.42
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
5. Ensuring an Orderly and
Supportive Environment
4. Promoting and Participating in
Teacher Learning and
Development
3. Planning, Coordinating and
Evaluating Teaching and the
Curriculum
2. Resourcing Strategically
1. Establishing Goals and
Expectations
Effect Size
Viviane Robinson 2008

22. I Wonder …
Looking at the research data on the five dimensions, are
there any surprises?
Are there any dimensions that you thought would be there
but are not included?

23. Dimension 1 – Establishing
Goals and Expectations
• Thinking about goal setting, what do you believe is
the one most important consideration when setting
goals.

24. Goals and Expectations
SMART Communication
Value & Vision Consensus
Knowledge Skills

25. Dimension 2 – Strategic
Resourcing
“Strategic resourcing is not an ad hoc
process, but rather, a process guided
by clear goals and purposes.”
Robinson, Hohepa and Lloyd
(2009)

26. Resources
What are some examples of resources
available to school and district leaders?

27. Strategic Resourcing
Goal Focused
What is resourced
and not resourced?

28. Dimension 3 – Ensure
Quality Teaching
“Teachers who know a lot about teaching and
learning and who work in environments that
allow them to know students well are the
critical elements of successful learning. “
Linda Darling - Hammond

29. Dimension 3 – Ensure Quality
Teaching

30. Culture of
Inquiry
Instructional
Time
Curriculum
Alignment
Instructional
Coherence
Collective
Efficacy
Leadership
participation
in collegial
discussions
Using Data
Classroom
Observations
Specific
Feedback

31. Dimension 4 – Teacher
Learning & Development

32. Dimension 4 – Teacher
Learning & Development

33. Leadership Actions
Promoting –
Learning as
Leader
Participating
– Learning as
Learner

34. Dimension 5 – Orderly &
Supportive Environment

35. Learning Capabilities

36. Effective Problem Solvers
Solution
Focuses
Link problem
to school
goals
Clearly
communicate
own version
with reasons
Open to
alternate
perspectives
Understands
tensions and
anticipates
obstacles
Stays
positive
Collaborativ
e

37. Creating and Mobilizing
Knowledge

38. Relational Trust
“Effective educational leadership is not about getting the
relationships right and then tackling the difficult work
challenges. It is about doing both simultaneously so that the
relationships are strengthened through doing the hard,
collective work of improving teaching and learning.”
Open to Learning Conversations will be explored further
in the Instructional Leadership session.

39. The Leadership Team
The scope of the work is too great, and the expertise
required too broad, to reasonably expect a single leader to
demonstrate high or even moderate levels of competence in
all five dimensions”
Viviane Robinson

40. Reflection
Thinking about the five dimensions of student centred
leadership, identify the dimension that is the strongest for
your school .
Identify the dimension that is the area of need for your
school. As a leader what is one leader action that you can
initiate in the next three months to strength this dimension ?

41. Session 3
Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
 Increase and enrich their understanding including the
barriers and enablers of instructional leadership;
 Increase the participants’ repertoire of leadership actions
associated with instructional leadership; and
 Become more familiar with strategies that will assist in
making time for instructional leadership.

42. Focus
The focus on results; the focus on student
achievement; the focus on students’ learning at
high levels, can only happen if teaching and
learning become the central focus of the school
and the central focus of the principal.
Blankstein, Bulach, Lunenburg& Potter

43. Instructional Leadership
Instructional Leadership is like a ….
o piano
o set of drums
o violin
o trombone
.
.

44. Instructional Leadership Today

45. Research says…
• Goals
• Strategic
Resourcing
• Quality
Teaching
• Teacher
Learning
• Safe and
Supportive
Climate
• Vision
• Climate
• Cultivate
Leaders
• Improve
Instruction
• Manage
People, Data
and
Processes
• Set Direction
• Build
Relationships
• Develop the
Organization
• Improve
Instructional
Program
• Secure
Accountability

46. The Instructional Leader is a ..

47. The Instructional Leader
Leads Learning
Is a System Player
Is a Change Agent

48. Leading Learning

49. System Player

50. Change Agent
Lyle Kirtman: Leadership and Teams: The Missing Piece
of the Education Reform Puzzle ( 2013)

51. Barriers to Instructional
Leadership
In the chat box, record one of the barriers to
demonstrating optimal instructional leadership
in your current role as a leader?

52. Barriers

53. Tools for Instructional
Leadership Tomorrow
1. Set Priorities
2. Urgent and Important
3. Delegate
4. Persistence x Passion x Practice x Patience
5. Courageous / Open to Learning Conversations

54. Instructional Leadership is
Priority #1
“The key is not to prioritize what is on your schedule,
but to schedule your priorities” Covey
Big Rock- Instructional Leadership
Clear expectations
Plan
Recordkeeping
Routinize and establish protocols

55. Urgent and Important
“What is important is seldom urgent and what is
urgent is seldom important. “
Eisenhower
“Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent
and not enough time on what is important.”
Steven R Covey

56. Urgent and Important
Important activities have an outcome that leads to the achievement of
your school improvement goals whereas urgent activities demand
immediate attention (unforeseen or left to the last minute) and are
often associated with the achievement of goals less aligned to the
school improvement goals.
High
Importance
Important Critical
Low
Importance
Distractions Interruptions
Low Urgency High Urgency

57. Delegating
“ Delegation is an ethical responsibility leaders owe to
themselves, their followers and their organization …
delegating is about prompting others to get involved by
capitalizing on a group’s broad talents and
experiences.”
Lovely 2006

58. Delegating

59. Passion x Persistence x
Practice x Patience

60. Courageous- Open to
Learning Conversations
“”””” “Courageous conversations are about being
true to oneself, doing what is right for students
and shaping an environment that supports
learning.” AbramsAbrams

61. Courageous Conversations

62. Alignment

63. Final Thoughts
Instructional leadership is learning-focused, learning for both
students and adults which is measured by improvement in
instruction and in the quality of student learning.
Instructional leadership must reside with a team of leaders of
which the principal serves as the “leader of leaders.”
A culture of public practice and reflective practice is essential for
effective instructional leadership and the improvement of
instructional practice.
Centre for Educational Leadership, University of Washington, College of Education

64. Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
 Enrich their understanding of different types of leadership;
 Enhance their understanding of the Ontario Leadership Framework
as one example of research based leadership practices;
 Develop their understanding of the personal leadership resources
that enable effective leaders to enact the practices;
 Apply the leadership domains to real life scenarios; and
 Self assess, acknowledge leadership strengths, identify areas for
growth and identify next steps in their leadership development.

65. Leadership is ..
Leithwood describes leadership as the
exercise of influence on organizational
members and diverse stakeholders toward the
identification and achievement of the
organization’s vision and goals.

66. Ontario Leadership
Framework

67. Leadership Practices
Leadership practices are bundles of activities
exercised by a person which reflect the
circumstances in which he/ she finds
themselves whereas competencies are
underlying characteristics of an individual that
are related to performance in a job.

68. Direct and Indirect Approaches
to Leadership Practices
Elementary and Secondary Schools
Organizational Size
Culture
Middle Managers
Curriculum Complexity

69. Contingent Leadership
Contingent leadership is taking the practices
and applying them to a leader’s specific
situation- considering the setting and people .

70. Scenario 1
You have been asked to lead your team in developing
a plan for implementing new curriculum.
How would you apply the idea of “contingent
leadership” to this task?

71. Shared Leadership

72. Domains of Practice

73. Enacting the Practices

74. A leader is one who knows the way,
goes the way, and shows the way.
—John Maxwell

75. Self Assessment
Think about your current role as a teacher leader, school
leader or district leader and using the leadership practices
associated with Setting Direction- rank yourself using the
following:
My actions reflect the four practices:
4 Always
3 Most of the time
2 Sometimes
1 Seldom
in my interactions with those I lead.

76. The key to successful leadership today
is influence, not authority.
Kenneth Blanchard

77. Self Assessment
Think about your current role as a teacher leader, school
leader or district leader and using the leadership practices
associated with Building Relationships & Developing People
- rank yourself using the following:
My actions reflect all five practices:
4 Always
3 Most of the time
2 Sometimes
1 Seldom
in my interactions with those I lead.

78. Leaders think and talk about the
solutions. Followers think and talk about
the problems.
Brian Tracy

79. Self Assessment
Think about your current role as a teacher leader, school
leader or district leader and using the leadership practices
associated with Developing the Organization- rank yourself
using the following:
My actions reflect all five practices:
4 Always
3 Most of the time
2 Sometimes
1 Seldom
in my interactions with those I lead.

80. Effective leadership is putting
first things first.
S. Covey

81. Self Assessment
Think about your current role as a teacher leader, school leader or
district leader and using the leadership practices associated with
Improving the Instructional Program- rank yourself using the
following:
My actions reflect all five practices:
4 Always
3 Most of the time
2 Sometimes
1 Seldom
in my interactions with those I lead.
in my interactions with those I lead.

82. Effective leadership is not about making
speeches or being liked; leadership is
defined by results not attributes.
Peter Drucker

83. Self Assessment
Think about your current role as a teacher leader, school
leader or district leader and using the leadership practices
associated with Securing Accountability- rank yourself using
the following:
My actions reflect all five practices:
4 Always
3 Most of the time
2 Sometimes
1 Seldom
in my interactions with those I lead.
in my interactions with those I lead.

84. Scenario 2
• As a school leader of a committee, you are aware that
two of your team members do not agree on the next
steps.
• Look at the leadership practices in the Leadership Framework
and pick out several that you think are the most critical to
solving this problem effectively.

85. Domains of Practice

86. Personal Leadership
Resources

87. Cognitive Resources

88. Social Resources
Perceiving
Emotions
Managing
Emotions
Acting in
Emotionally
Appropriate
Ways

89. Psychological Resources
Challenging Times

90. District Level Resources
Proactivity
• Ability to stimulate and manage change on a
large scale under complex circumstances
• Show initiative and perseverance in bringing
about change

91. Self Assessment
Think about your current role as a teacher leader, school
leader or district leader and using the dispositions
associated with each (Cognitive, Social, Psychological) of
the Personal Leadership Resources:
My actions reflect all five practices:
4 Always
3 Most of the time
2 Sometimes
1 Seldom
in my interactions with those I lead.
in my interactions with those I lead.

92. Final Thoughts
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to
me, never say “I.” And that’s not because they have
trained themselves not to say “I.” They don’t think
“I.” They think “we”; they think “team.” They
understand their job to be to make the team
function. They accept responsibility and don’t
sidestep it, but “we” gets the credit…. This is what
creates trust, what enables you to get the task
done. Peter Drucker

93. Stoplight Reflection