The Principal’s Playbook on Instructional Leadership:

Prioritizing instructional leadership by the principal is critical to the school's success and increasing student achievement. The main thing in every school should be student learning and instructional leaders at all levels keep that as the focus.
Instructional leadership takes a commitment, in terms of time and focus, from the principal. Effective principals know how to ensure the managerial and operational facets of the school support the teaching and learning process and protect instructional time. Principals, as instructional leaders, should spend a minimum of 50% and target of 75% of their time devoted to improving student achievement through improving and supporting effective teaching and learning practices.
The role of the principal has changed immensely over the past two decades. Principals used to be considered as “building managers”, but the priority has shift to being the “instructional leader” of the school due to the increased accountability measures. The key role of school administrators should be instructional leadership in the current era of accountability. The review of literature shows that the job demands of school principals continue to grow and escalate. While most principals know there is a priority on instructional leadership, it is often overshadowed by school managerial demands. It is essential that school leaders learn to manage prioritizing instructional leadership as well as the managerial facets of the job.

The concept of instructional leadership, defined as attending to instructional matters, is characterized by leading for learning and a learning imperative. Many principals often take a managerial approach to instructional leadership, where they do some tasks that may contribute to increased student achievement; however many lack the urgency and skills sets to make instructional leadership the priority of their role in leading learning for the organization. True instructional leaders put learning in the forefront and emphasize the need to prioritize learning for all. This is critical, based on social learning theory, because the principal models the way for the rest of the school and his priorities tend to set the vision for all staff.
According to Robbins and Alvy (2003), the principal must manage challenges and relationships among different constituencies: teachers, central office personnel, as well as the school community. Setting priorities needs to be related to the overall school vision of the leader. Principals need to make distinctions about what is more important and what is less important to prioritize the things that matter most to improving student achievement. Oftentimes, it is difficult to prioritize or filter through all of the fragmented situations that arise daily in making the school run effectively. The role of the principal, as the instructional leader, is to make sure that the ship gets to the right destination, not just manage the ship to make sure it runs effectively. Every school principal operates within the same time constraints. The most effective principals, in terms of improving student academic achievement, are instructional leaders and place instructional leadership as their top priority.
Principals often find it difficult to remain focused on their fundamental purpose due to the nature of their job that requires attending to multiple issues and problems throughout the school day. Principals must be able to shift gears quickly and complete tasks in a compartmentalized way throughout the day, always keeping teaching and learning at the forefront. Muse (2011) says “The major difference in managers and leaders is that managers are concerned with directing and leaders are concerned with influencing”. The biggest priority for effective instructional leaders is always student learning!

An Instructional Leader is one who creates:
• A climate that puts learning first for students and adults
• Contagious enthusiasm and excitement about learning
• A climate free or very limited from distractions from learning
• Clear priorities
• High expectations for students and teachers (Hattie, Visible Learning, p. 83)

How do you know if you are an instructional leader?:
§ Do you say no to distracters and limit distractions?
§ Do you see evidence in your school and throughout that students and their learning are put first?
§ Is the focus in the thought process of decisions always guided by what is best for student learning?
§ Are your conversations constantly and consistently focused on how the topic can improve student learning?
§ Do you always guide discussions back to the primary focus on improving student achievement?
§ Do you stay current in research on best-practice instructional strategies and factors impacting learning?

Good instructional leadership requires effective management. Effective principals are also effective managers to protect and prioritize instructional time and their vision of teaching and learning at the forefront of the school’s purpose. Along with safety, student achievement is the top priority of instructional leaders. Instructional leaders understand that the management functions within the school must be streamlined to support the instructional component of schools and to ensure appropriate time is spend by administration on instruction. People within the school know how important instructional leadership is to a principal by simply looking at where he spends his time. Instructional leaders spend the greatest amount of their time working on aspects of the school that impact student learning in a significantly positive manner.

Principals that are instructional leaders:
§ Lead the way in providing ideas, resources, and data on curriculum and instruction
§ Are intellectual partners with staff, not just passive attendees at meetings
§ Center observations around evidence of student-centered best-practice instructional design, assessments and using data, curriculum analysis, and a constant focus on the evidence of what happens in classrooms with the impact on student learning
§ Have constant conversations about data and impacts on students learning
§ Are intellectually curious and are always up to date on educational research that could improve student learning
§ Are active participants in curriculum adoptions, instructional program adoptions, etc.

Instructional leaders understand which practices yield the highest gains in student achievement and work for fidelity of best practice instruction across the entire school. Effective instructional leadership designs and implements systems and processes that are always focused on student achievement.

“Leadership and management must coincide; leadership makes sure that the ship gets to the right place; management makes sure that the ship (crew and cargo) is well run” (Day, Harris, Hadfield, Tolley, & Beresford, 2000, pp. 38-39).