Principal Coaching

WHAT IS COACHING?
A coach has generally been thought of in athletic training, but in recent years, the coaching model has been used effectively in business and industry. Coaching is emerging as a new discipline that individuals are using to their advantage to clarify and reach their goals more directly and efficiently....

Coaching is intended to make effective principals even more effective as they deal with faculty in a variety of situations. Through coaching, individuals explore solutions to problems that face them. An effective solution is found and ways to implement that solution are searched. The solution and means of implementing the solution are found within the person being coached. It is hoped that principals will use this skill in helping faculty members enhance their effectiveness and positively address their challenges in their school settings....


WHAT ARE THE OUTCOMES OF THE COACHING PRINCIPALS PROGRAM?

Principals who are more aware of their teachers’ needs and able to discuss solutions to their problems.
Principals who can better deal with faculty members in a caring and supportive way.
Principals who will be able to foster even more positive relationships with their faculty, thereby retaining those faculty members for further service in the teaching ministry.
Principals who are able to find solutions to their own questions and to set reasonable goals for themselves.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SOMEONE AGREES TO BE COACHED?

The principal will be given several names of coaches to interview telephonically. When the principal finds a coach who is agreeable to him/her, a contract is made for the coaching process. Participants will be coached by telephone for 18 thirty-minute sessions over the course of 6 months. The coach and the principal agree on a suitable time for the coaching sessions. At the end of the coaching process, we hope that the principal will use his/her new skills to enhance the relationships with his faculty members and to set professional goals for him/herself.

Excerpted from Commission on Ministerial Growth and Support of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.

This particular coaching model is focused on principal-faculty relationships but a general model would include work with students, parents, other administrators, and management of budgets and the school facility. Also, besides the coaching by telephone there is coaching through email, video coaching over the Internet, and face to face coaching.