Episode Details

Will Parker, a high school principal and author of Principal Matters, explains how to delegate without doing everything yourself or burning out your staff. He uses written lists, shared Google docs and key responsibility areas so everyone knows their job before the work starts, and so you can stop putting out fires all day.

Parker shares five steps for any new challenge, using his end-of-year list of about 35 summer actions, rebuilt from last year's email, as the example. He also tells the story of the night he wrote a letter of resignation as a young assistant principal, and what changed.

What you'll learn

• Write down your process while a situation is fresh, and search your own email or blog the next time it comes up.
• Make a list, prioritize it, then assign owners in a shared Google doc you can check daily.
• Redesign summer work hours so staff leave a little earlier, and insist everyone takes a real break.
• Write key responsibility areas for each role, including your own, and review them with the person every year.
• Give people clear instruction up front instead of correcting them midway, the way a teacher sets expectations for a class.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro and getting technology working in schools
• 3:54 What is in the book Principal Matters
• 7:03 Writing down your process after each situation
• 10:25 Five steps for any new challenge
• 14:13 Gmail, Google docs and a blog as memory
• 17:58 Why Will nearly left the profession
• 25:08 Staying the teacher, not the fire fighter
• 26:22 Key responsibility areas for every role

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Questions this episode answers

How do you delegate effectively as a principal?
Parker makes a list, prioritizes it, then meets with his team to decide who owns each item. They track it in a shared Google doc he checks daily. He says principals often either keep everything or delegate it all and leave staff feeling burned out.

What are key responsibility areas?
Parker writes a page of key responsibility areas, or KRAs, for each job, including secretaries, counselors, assistant principals and himself, and reviews them every year. He took the idea from Dave Ramsey's EntreLeadership, changing results to responsibility. It removes stress because everyone knows who is responsible for what.

How do you avoid principal burnout?
Parker nearly quit as a young assistant principal because he answered every email and went to every event. He found balance by working with collaborators, using processes instead of acting like Superman, and keeping his core values and family at the center of his priorities.

About Will Parker

High school principal and author of Principal Matters, who has been a school administrator since 2004.

Links and resources

• Principal Matters by Will Parker
• Will Parker, episode 24
• Rate on iTunes
• Rate on Stitcher
• Simple School Sites
• Jethro Jones on Twitter
• Transformative Principal on Twitter
• Communication Cards