Reacting to Feedback

Being an administrator is a hard job but it is one of the greatest adventures that you could ever have. Each and every day we are blessed to show up at work not knowing what will happen. Between unscheduled meetings with parents, dealing with the insanity of fourteen year olds, and trying to be a good leader, each day has something new to offer, something to teach us. If we can take learn from every day we can always be improving in our roles as educational leaders and be better able to help our students.

 Each interaction can be a positive or a negative learning experience and it all depends on how we react to the situation. I have found that all feedback is good feedback, even when it is hard to hear. A good administrator will be able to handle positive feedback in the same way as negative feedback. Every day as a new principal you are working with adults (Teachers, parapros, other administrators, custodians, community members, parents, etc…) who will tell you how you are performing in your job. It is our job to recognize when and why this is happening and try to use that feedback to change our own practice. If we can continue to learn from each interaction we can continue to grow as educators and leaders.

One of the most important skills to learn is how to interact with parents. Upset parents can give you a huge amount of feedback extremely quickly and you must respond professionally to it at all times. Early this year my mentor administrator said to me that each parent only has the best interest of their child at heart. This statement was extremely eye opening. The advice was a piece of feedback that I needed but in the moment did not want to hear. I always had assumed that parents had the best interest of their child at heart and so I hated being reminded of it. Remembering this ended up being what I needed to improve how I dealt with “tough families.” I have never been a parent and so I don’t know what it is like sitting on the other side of the table, but once I started remembering this while conversing with the family it helped me to understand their point of view. I have now found that when I become frustrated in a situation if I remind myself that the parent loves their child and is trying to help I can find a connection. This connection will allow me work with a parent who I had previously thought was unreasonable. This skill is one that I have been able to take away from feedback which at the time was not pleasant but utterly necessary. It all just depends on how I react to the feedback when it is given. I do not believe any administrator who does not grow from feedback will be successful for a long period of time.

-Erik