Quotes & Sayings About School Leadership

Old school mission statements defined what an organization did. Contemporary mission statements define why an organization does what it does. — Del Suggs

You see it in schools all over ... the concept that 'I'll be somewhat less than my best in order to make those around me feel more comfortable' is alive and well ... I'm very keen that they understand that if they make themselves a little less than they can be, it is a one-way street to mediocrity. — Fiona Wood

What nourishes us at home and in school is what inspires us. When we get awareness and learn about the great potential that we all human beings have, we are able to discover our leadership. — Vicente Fox

School boards can be a steppingstone to higher forms of political leadership. — Wendy Kopp

The Sun Tzu School (which wrote the Art of War) surely never imagined that their antiwar, pro-empire treatise would become known and accepted after the fall of the first empire as a text on military tactics. Likewise, they would have been surprised to see the Ping-fa military metaphor - an inspired teaching device - come to be seen as the message and not the medium. — David G. Jones

Schools cannot shut their gates and leave the outside world on the doorstep. — Andy Hargreaves

Schools that cannot tolerate interesting & enthusiastic eccentrics who work better alone than together are devoid of flexibility & spirit — Andy Hargreaves

There are many who occasionally attend church and who are trying experimentally to be Christians, yet are unable to identify well or define accurately the central truths of Christian teaching. The knowledge they have of the Christian tradition may have come chiefly through hymns. Their strong and sincere feelings are not matched with serious biblical or historical reflection on those feelings. Religious feelings are, indeed, crucial to the deeper learning of Christian truth, but they easily become superficial and narcissistic if the mind of Christ is not a mentor to natural religious impulse. The loss of center in Christian education is arguably due to a serious default of pastoral leadership; when the teaching elder does not teach, the effect is felt throughout the entire Christian congregation. — Thomas C. Oden

Schools often get the teachers they deserve! — Andy Hargreaves

In fact, second lieutenants were primary-school teachers. Sure, teachers with guns, but a platoon commander was, nonetheless, the guy who sorted out the working day for 30 men under his command, taught their lessons, helped them with their homework, sorted out their petty squabbles and put plasters on their knees when they fell over in the playground. — Patrick Hennessey

Since when has leadership been a criterion for sanity? Or vice versa. Hitler was a gifted leader, even Nixon. Exhibit leadership qualities as an adolescent, they pack you off to law school for an anus transplant. If it takes, you go into government. — Tom Robbins

One of my prized possessions is still the prefect's tie that I got in this school. I keep it with me. It was the first leadership position I ever had. — Julia Gillard

Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.
(Harvard Business School definition of leadership) — Sheryl Sandberg

School leadership has been identified as another critical element of student success, and subsequently enough resources and training should be provided to our school principals and administrators to allow them to create a strong ecosystem in our schools and support teachers and parents as well. — Shaheen Mistri

One of the best essays I've seen in recent years was by a young woman who wrote about how being chosen to choreograph a high school musical forced her to assume a leadership role she wasn't sure she was ready for - but of course she was. — Kate Klise

His [brother in law Jim Hampson] appointment to the Episcopal parish in Wenham, near Gordon College brought them in close touch with leading evangelical faculty members in their pews and church leadership, including Elizabeth Elliot and Addison Leitch. They were instrumental in drawing Jim and and Sarah into the cutting edge of evangelical intellectual leadership, with friendships with Tom Howard and J.I. Packer. My ongoing relationship with Jim Packer, FitzSimons Allison and many other brilliant Anglican evangelicals would not have happened without Jim Hampson. His early influence on me in my transition from modern to classic Christian teaching was immense. While I was trying to demythologize Scripture, he was taking its plain meaning seriously. His strong preaching led him to become one of the founding sponsors and supporters of Trinity School of Ministry in Abridge, Pennsylvania ... — Thomas C. Oden

It's been a struggling school for many, many years, and [that's] not surprising since it's serving some of the most disadvantaged kids in the city. It wasn't the only one by any means, but it was among those. It shows that things like good, steady, stable leadership makes a huge difference; focusing on the culture of the schools as a place where kids feel supported and want to be; supporting the teachers, so they want to stay and work hard. — Pedro Noguera

As the old-school approach of command-and-control leadership fades, companies in all industries will inevitably move in the same direction as these tech firms, and try to tap into the deeper passions of employees. — Adam Bryant

Creating the culture of burnout is opposite to creating a culture of sustainable creativity. This is something that needs to be taught in business schools. This mentality needs to be introduced as a leadership and performance-enhancing tool. — Arianna Huffington

You show me a school with a principal behind the desk, and I'll show you a school without principal leadership. (Quoting Baruti Kafele) — William Sterrett

When I was growing up, we were taught in school that North Koreans, and especially the North Korean leadership, were all devils. — Park Chan-wook

When it comes to assessment, the traditional model of assessment is assessment for learning. What people like to talk about now is that the twenty-first-century model is assessment of learning. But if assessment is merely the way we are able to determine how much learning has occurred, then the ultimate goal is assessment as learning, where assessment occurs in real time and is the process by which people reflect on their own thinking and diagnose how they've changed. There are schools that do this. There's a remarkable school in New Hampshire that, for them, the thing that matters the most is that people who graduate from their school have seventeen specific habits of mind and work - everything from collaboration and leadership to curiosity and wonder. They've developed these really thoughtful behavioral rubrics that break down each of those habits by subskills. — Ken Robinson

One or two bad teachers is a problem with the teachers. A school with many bad teachers is a problem of leadership. — Andy Hargreaves

I don't subscribe to that school of thought that leadership can be altogether defined by gender. — Dalia Grybauskaite

In leadership we teach we teach;Don't send your ducks to eagle school because it wont help.Ducks finishes eagle school,sees his first rabbit, makes him a friend. — Jim Rohn

On school culture: It's hard to eat something you've had a relationship with. — Andy Hargreaves

Lately even the harshest critics of President Bush have been forced to admit maybe he's right about freedom's march around the globe. What if we are watching an example of presidential leadership that will be taught in American schools for generations to come? It's an idea gaining more currency. — Brian Williams

I am often asked if leaders are born or made. The answer, of course, is both. Some characteristics, like IQ and energy, seem to come with the package. On the other hand, you learn some leadership skills, like self-confidence, at your mother's knee, and at school, in academics and sports. And you learn others at work-trying something, getting it wrong and learning from it, or getting it right and gaining the self-confidence to do it again, only better. — Jack Welch

I believe that it is essential to our leadership in the world and to the development of true democracy in our country to have no discrimination in our country whatsoever. This is most important in the schools of our country. — Eleanor Roosevelt

As you get older - for example, in our band we have members of our orchestra, like Carlos Enriquez and Ali Jackson and Walter Blanning. I taught them when they were in high school, and now they teach me.I'll regularly call Ali and say, "Man, can you break this rhythm down for me?" Or Carlos was actually our music director in Cuba, and he's been instrumental in a lot of my education, and I started to develop a saying with them, because they tease me all the time - you get older, you have that familiar relationship - I say, "You have to follow your young leadership, too." — Wynton Marsalis

Really, people are not a school of fish. Finding the leaders of the future is a question of recognizing those people who give leadership in a crisis. — Grace Lee Boggs

It is not the time to put school districts up for auction. Now is the time to galvanize them into action. — Andy Hargreaves

I believe no amount of business school training or work experience can teach what is ultimately a matter of personal character. Businesses are not dishonest or greedy, people are. Thus, a business, successful or not, is merely a reflection of the character of its leadership. — S. Truett Cathy

The Church is Christ's witness to the world of a loving savior and His redemptive plan for man. — John Paul Warren

Everyday more educators are showing that they value students by involving them in meaningful ways in school. These teachers and administrators say that it is not about 'making students happy' or allowing students to run the school. Their experience shows that when educators partner with students to improve learning, teaching and leadership in schools, school change is positive and effective. — Adam Fletcher

Grades don't measure tenacity, courage, leadership, guts or whatever you want to call it. Teachers or any other persons in a position of authority should never tell anybody they will not succeed because they did not get all A's in school. — Thomas J. Stanley

It horrifies me that ethics is only an optional extra at Harvard Business School. — John Harvey-Jones

A successful school has to engage all the people, all the powers, and all the capacities within it. — Andy Hargreaves

Persistence is important in every endeavor. Whether it's finishing your homework, completing school, working late to finish a project, or "finishing the drill" in sports, winners persist to the point of sacrifice in order to achieve their goals. — Lee Ellis

You must not wait to be elected into office, before you begin to serve. Begin to serve every where you are; in the home, community, school, university, work, hospital, church, market, society, nation and among many other places. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Military school was great and especially great for leadership and then I spent two years in Vietnam. — Robert Kiyosaki

My mom was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School, in 1946. She had leadership roles in the law, in government and the corporate world. She was a great role model in that she felt anything was possible. — John W. Rogers Jr.

I ask particularly that those of you who are now in school will prepare yourselves to bear the burden of leadership over the next 40 years here in the United States, and make sure that the United States - which I believe almost alone has maintained watch and ward for freedom - that the United States meet its responsibility. That is a wonderful challenge for us as a people. — John F. Kennedy

The atmosphere at my school was very competitive. Young girls were competing with each other every day for status, for leadership, for the affection of the teachers. I hated it. — Zhang Ziyi

Students are often the last to know about change that is occurring in their own school system. — Andy Hargreaves

We ought to care for those closest to us in terms of relatedness. After our immediate family, we ought to pursue our calling diligently as employees and provide just incentives (perhaps through profit-sharing) and reasonable care for our workers as employers. We should seek the wisdom of teachers and elders in society and look to them for leadership, while rejecting their folly when it is discerned. We must put our children and their education, both at home and in school, before our own entertainment, pleasure, and success. We ought not to tolerate insolence or haughtiness in them; nor ought we to punish them too severely, but should lead them as good teachers, by example and patient instruction. — Michael S. Horton

When creativity is the goal, schools must have their own platforms to network and innovate. — Andy Hargreaves

I was 21 and had spent the last few years in Stanford University Engineering School at California. Many people advised me to take up a nice, cushy job rather than face the challenges of running a hydrogenated oil business. Looking back, I am glad I decided to take charge instead. Essentially leadership begins from within. It is a small voice that tells you where to go when you feel lost. If you believe in that voice, you believe in yourself. — Azim Premji

Jason (Elam, a Christian) is the kid in high school who gets along equally well with the jocks, the brains, the geeks, and the slackers, and influences their behavior. — Stefan Fatsis

I definitely wasn't cool in high school. I really wasn't. I did belong to many of the clubs and was in leadership on yearbook and did the musical theater route, so I had friends in all areas. But I certainly did not know what to wear, did not know how to do my hair, all those things. — Dianna Agron

The limitations of federal laws are able to create real progress at the local level. Ultimately, to effect not just incremental progress but progress that is transformational for students, we need committed leadership - people who believe deeply that their students can achieve at the highest levels and who know how to create the conditions at the classroom, school and system level to give them the opportunities they deserve. — Wendy Kopp

If the UN and other international multilateral institutions are sending troops and weaponry, now they must begin to fund training and leadership development at the same levels. The new war must start with the quality of beliefs and dreams that are planted into the hearts and minds of school children at a personal level and permeate the driving philosophies of entire societies and communities. — Archibald Marwizi

To focus on technique is like cramming your way through school. You sometimes get by, perhaps even get good grades, but if you don't pay the price day in and day out, you'll never achieve true mastery of the subjects you study or develop an educated mind. — Stephen Covey

Your outlook affects your outcome — John Paul Warren

In 2007, Stanford Business School Advisory committee asserted that self awareness was the most important attribute a leader should develop. The challenge for the modern entrepreneur is to take that path. — Kevin Kelly DO The Pursuit Of Xceptional Execution

Indira was surrounded by people who had given up hope, who blamed their own misery on the influence of Christianity and western cultures, and yet, literally in the midst of squalor, her family had created a place of real beauty. It really makes you stop and think. Uncle Google should be spitting out eight hundred million things American schools have done right. The fact things are so screwed up makes no sense. If you believe Uncle Google, then we've done the exact opposite from Indira's family - in the land of hope and plenty we've created a place that's ugly. We have so much. Can things really be so bad? Maybe we can't fix our schools because as individuals we've never truly been broken. Or maybe Chinese lanterns make everyone wax philosophical. — Tucker Elliot

An individual school can handle a resident idiot from time to time, but an entire school system is only as good as its weakest leader. — Tucker Elliot

In Business School they taught us about cash flow, not about corporate politics; about return on equity, not about egos and pride. Oh, there were optional courses on 'Organizational Behavior' and 'Managerial Skills,' but these were a little too bloodless to convey what I learned on the job. — Mary Cunningham Agee

When people think the issue can be solved, it becomes a moral imperative to be part of the solution. We can do a lot more within our school districts to recruit aggressively, select people according to high standards, invest in their training and development, and foster and reward their leadership. Once we invest more in attracting, developing and retaining teachers, potential recruits will begin to see it as a profession worth considering. — Wendy Kopp

When I was in high school I asked myself at one point: "Why do I care if my high school's team wins the football game? I don't know anybody on the team, they have nothing to do with me ... why am I here and applaud? It does not make any sense." But the point is, it does make sense: It's a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority and group cohesion behind leadership elements. In fact it's training in irrational jingoism. That's also a feature of competitive sports. — Noam Chomsky

As important as it is for all members of a leadership team to commit to being vulnerable, that is not going to happen if the leader of the team, whether that person is the CEO, department head, pastor, or school principal, does not go first. If the team leader is reluctant to acknowledge his or her mistakes or fails to admit to a weakness that is evident to everyone else, there is little hope that other members of the team are going to take that step themselves. In fact, it probably wouldn't be advisable for them to do so because there is a good chance that their vulnerability would be neither encouraged nor rewarded. — Patrick Lencioni

I have the right temperament. I have the right leadership. I've built an incredible company. I went to a great school. I came out - I built an incredible company. I wrote the number one selling business book of all time: 'Trump: The Art of the Deal.' — Donald Trump

Glenn Hammond Curtiss was a bicycle enthusiast before he started building motorcycles. Although he only attended grammar school to the 8th grade, his interests motivated him to move on to greater things. In 1904, as a self-taught engineer, he began to manufacture engines for airships. During this time, Curtiss became known for having won a number of international air races and for making the first long-distance flight in the United States. On September 30, 1907, Curtiss was invited to join a non-profit pioneering research program named the "Aerial Experimental Association," founded under the leadership of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, to develop flying machines. The organization was established having a fixed time period, which ended in March of 1909. During this time, the members produced several different aircraft in a cooperative, rather than a competitive, spirit. — Hank Bracker

The young people I teach now know they are being sold down the river before we even start studying the trends and numbers. That's the toughest part of being a high school economics teacher ... being a witness when our children realize that the greatest deficit of all is a deficit of leadership. — Kurt Bills

In a very real way, ownership is the essence of leadership. When you are 'ridiculously in charge,' then you own whatever happens in a company, school, et cetera. — Henry Cloud

More troubling is that when faced with an array of complex options," the article says, "consumers tend to throw reason out the window and pick a product based on what's easiest to evaluate, not what's most important, says Sheena Iyengar, director of the Global Leadership Matrix Program at the Columbia (University) Business School. 'We stick to the familiar or go by price because we don't want to deal with so many choices and scrutinize label claims or nutrition information,' she says. — Michael Ruhlman

Many high school students are under so much competitive pressure. They are sometimes taught that if they don't have a 4.0 GPA, score in the 99th percentile on admissions tests, and demonstrate leadership in sports and participate in clubs, they won't get into college anywhere. Even highly credentialed professionals get caught up in this. — Elizabeth Thornton

Helping teacher leaders come to understand their gifts is the first step in developing a specialty. Some leaders are great coaches and should focus on instructional leadership in a district or network where that is valued and supported. Great conceptual thinkers are good in startup mode but the daily grind of leading a school doesn't suit them. Other leaders thrive on the turnaround challenge. The dynamic blended future of education will allow more role specialization. — Tom Vander Ark

The school made it very clear that women were entitled to positions of authority. That sense of entitlement allowed us to feel that we have a natural place in leadership in the world. That gave me a mental and emotional confidence. — Linda Vester

I went to all-girls' schools my whole life, so every model of leadership that I saw was a young girl or a woman, and so there was never any hesitation that women could lead. I know what I believe. — Nancy Pelosi

All over the world there are students, teachers and parents that face serious challenges every day. They need help with real problems that have life-altering consequences - and a group of intelligent professionals brought together to advise and educate stakeholders in need of help ought to be able to do so without behaving like a middle school drama queen. — Tucker Elliot