Visionary Leadership Platform

Jacob Tucker

As a visionary leader, my role is to create a positive culture in which our values, norms

and assumptions are conducive to student learning and staff collaboration. Deal & Peterson

(2016) explains that “beliefs are powerful in school because they represent core

understandings about student capacity, teacher responsibility for learning, expert sources of

teacher knowledge, collaboration, and the link between teaching and learning” (pg. 66). In

other words, it’s our beliefs that will ultimately drive our values. With this in mind, as your new

administrator I would like to explain a few of my core beliefs that will guide future decisions

and help create a positive building culture.

First, I believe that our school should provide an engaging environment for students and

staff. An engaging environment encompasses both the classroom environment and the overall

school environment. In order to truly provide this, it must begin with the teachers. “Student

perceptions about their own school culture are dominated by teachers, as they spend the

majority of their time in classroom settings” (Daresh & Alexander, 2016, pg. 114). Because of

this, it is extremely important that our vision includes high levels of collaboration to promote

highly engaging lessons. Studies have shown that students who spend more time on academic

tasks and are more actively engaged learn more that their non-engaged peers. While students

are in the building, we want them to be engaged.

Secondly, I firmly believe that all students have the potential and are fully capable of

exceeding our expectations. Another way to describe this is academic optimism. The labeling

theory discusses this idea, in that when people are labeled into categories they tend to perform

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at the level of those labels. This idea has been seen in education as well. It has been

documented that teachers who instruct classrooms with a majority of low-income or minority

students tend to teach using passive instruction or repetitive teaching (Murphy, 2017). I firmly

believe this is due to a lower academic standard that has been placed on these students. If we

have high expectations for all students and are optimistic that all students can succeed, they

will.

Finally, safety trumps everything. In order for any student to succeed in school, they

must feel safe while they are here. This is not limited to physical safety, but must also include

emotional safety and identity safety. Murphy (2017) explains “that while most of the time we

see safety through the prisms of the institution and implementation, warm and protective

schools are primarily concerned about the well-being of students and maintain a focus on

prevention” (pg. 126). In my opinion the best way to accomplish this idea of multi-modal safety

is through relationships. Safety is usually felt because of a relationship. Children feel safe when

their parents are around, the same concept can be said for teachers and students.

Being a visionary leader requires a sound set of beliefs to guide values to create a

positive culture. Ultimately I believe that students can thrive in a setting in which they feel

completely safe, they are believed in, and they are engaged in.

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 References

Daresh, J. & Alexander, L. (2016). Beginning the principalship: A practical guide for new school leaders.

4th edition, Corwin Press. ISBN: 9781483380117.

Deal, T.E & Peterseon, K.D. (2016), Shaping school culture. 3rd edition, San Francisco, California. Josey

Bass. ISBN:9781119210191.

Murphy, J. (2017). Professional standards for educational leaders. Corwin Publishing Company.

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