Imagine being a leader whose school has a stellar reputation within your community, a place where skilled teachers want to work and that families tell all their friends about. If you’re not there yet, know that you can get there in due time. We all have the potential to be wildly successful in our schools and a leader of true significance who impacts the lives of each team member and family that enrolls. It all starts with your daily habits.
The Compounding Effects of Your Daily Habits
It’s important to remember that your success is a direct result of your everyday routine. This is true for both your work life and personal life! Think about things like getting in shape, parenting, even taking care of your home. You can’t really change things in your life until you change your daily habits and routines.
When you focus on creating a system of behaviors for yourself and your team (rather than achieving some goals and outcomes), you change how you think. When you change how you think, you change who you are, and the things you do each day to reach your goals become easier. The same is true with the daily operations of your school, how you lead your team, and the culture you create and build.
With daily habits and a systematic plan in place, you can improve your school, productivity, and the job satisfaction of your staff so you can effectively decrease staff turnover. While that sounds crazy and lofty, we’ve learned that small adjustments over time make big impacts.
Putting New Habits in Place
What’s your vision for your school? Think about your school at its absolute best. What does that look like? With a strong vision that is well-thought out and planned, implementation is easy.
You can start to make changes when you’ve:
- Already created an overall plan considering all of your school’s needs
- And have thought through how you can most effectively create and develop new habits
Then, these small changes in your routine are what drive your outcome. The best way to make the changes is to model it, launch it, institutionalize it, and then maintain it. By introducing changes in an “I do, we do, you do” manner, you can help your team embrace this new process so it becomes a team effort.
It won’t be smooth sailing overnight, so be sure that you work together to smooth out the rough edges. The more you as a leader strive to be truly approachable, the more compliance and support you’ll have from your staff.
Are You Leading Your Team?
It’s really important to be careful of thinking that you have “arrived.” Anyone can be a boss, but it’s much different to be a leader. People follow leaders because they want to, not because they have to. Leaders have earned the trust, cooperation, and loyalty of their teams. They possess the humility and vulnerability to submit to learning and identifying areas of opportunity in their lives. They also aim to develop their teams, and help their teams grow personally and professionally. There is a marked difference between the two, and a good leader can transform a school inside out.
Consistency Can Change Everything
When you’re trying to make changes to achieve your vision, it’s okay to do it in baby steps. Simple daily routines will help you achieve your grand outcomes and dreams. In order to grow, you must be consistent in your methods, whatever they may be! While we don’t recommend that you aim for perfection from the start, we know that your commitment to a routine will produce excellence over time.
At Impact Early Education, we know your work is never done. That’s why we provide valuable professional development courses for preschool teachers, directors, and owners in a way that works for you. To learn more, explore our courses or contact us today!
