I think principals are like everybody else - the good, the bad and the ugly. I am sorry you got ugly. A good leader can sure make a difference. Due to budget cuts mine is trying to lead 2 schools/programs, is totally stressed and isn't doing anything well. She didn't used to be that way and it is hard to see the changes. We used to be friends...so sad.
My principal is amazing. The staff is treated like friends/family. She truly cares about each of us and our professional and personal lives. She also really loves our students. During staff meetings, she has teared up when talking about how much we do for all of them. I know that she would go out of her way to help any teacher or student in whatever way she could. She is always quick with a smile, advice, or just a kind word. Wouldn't have made it through the first few weeks of school if I hadn't known I had such a great support system behind me!
Good principals should be teachers first so they know both sides of the game and can anticipate teachers' needs. Having strong management and personal skills also helps, of course. It's interesting to note how people use power. Some principals like to control everything while others decentralize and let teachers have more freedom.
My principal's a kind person, but in terms of leadership seems to lack good decision making. The teachers usually talk behind his back and make no effort to hide their displeasure. His siding with parents and undermining teacher authority is one reason for it.
He puts priorities on secondary concerns like aesthetics and makes strange purchases, such as buying new flat screen monitors when the school needed better computers and buying microwaves for classrooms so the teachers could heat up their students' lunches. No joke.
I just got back from an impromptu talk with my principal. He had no problem with my dropping in unannounced and was happy to go over my most recent observation notes in detail. We also talked about what I could do to improve differentiation and hooks in my classroom, and he was happy to see I had already made improvements since his observation (remember, in my school my "classroom" is a web page). On top of all of this, my assistant principal came in and gave me recommendations on which hockey games I should try to see this season because he knew I was a Blue Jackets fan!
Sorry, had to brag a bit. I may get frustrated with my school sometimes, but for the main part I cannot fathom going back to a traditional setting, mainly because of how great my principal is.
My principal is a first year principal and he talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk. He is open to us going to him with problems or issues but he using our secretary as a confidante, so nothing is really private b/c someone will hear about it sooner rather than later... He also doesn't want to give his opinion on anything or even tell us what he wants us to do. He would rather us do it, then he will tell us what we did wrong and then make us fix it -- for example, he used to audit IPPs for my school district, so rather than tell us his expectations (I requested that the staff have a meeting so he can go through an old IPP with us), he told us that we were all professionals and to write them like we have in the past but then he made a few teachers redo them b/c he didn't like them.
I am on my third year in this school district and have had awful luck with principals at my school. The last one played favorites and was constantly threatening us with the union and after accusing us of things that she heard, she will refuse to apologize when she was proven wrong b/c "she was just acting on what she heard"... Needless to say, she ran our school into the ground in 1 year and she was moved to a new school...
