The Long Game
It would be great if everything in our schools and classrooms were exactly as our policies and procedures outline. Why wouldn’t it? We are so clear about what we want to see and it’s all so simple, Right?
Alas, inevitably things go awry. In addition to our work being complicated, we are limited to that work being done by human beings. And humans are notoriously imperfect. (We love them anyway.)
As an school administrator, every time you walk into a classroom, review a lesson plan, or check an IEP, you are going to find something that can be better. Something that can be improved. Early on you may feel like every error you see is something you have to point out to staff. Sometimes you definitely need to. When there are issues that will have a greater impact on the organization, you need to address it.
However, many of the errors you see have less impact on the overall work we do. The errors all need to be addressed, but how you address them may not be the plan that immediately comes to mind.
As school leaders, we are in the long game. We don’t just want this error fixed. We want the next error not to happen. We want staff to work with confidence. We want them to like coming to work. How we talk about performance has a huge impact on all of these things.
Because of this, it is far more effective to give positive feedback about a behavior you see that will make the erroneous behavior irrelevant, than it is to point out every mistake that occurs. You get more of what you pay attention to. So make sure you pay attention to the right things.