Principle Centered Leadership

Principle Centered Leadership

As founder of the Institute for Principle-Centered Leadership, a nonprofit research group dedicated to improving the quality of community life, Covey has transformed the power of principles and natural laws that guide human and organisational effectiveness. With more than 200 members, his international firm, The Covey Leadership Center, empowers professionals and organisations to implement principle-centered leadership to increase productivity, sales, and communications.

As in management position, the principal is held responsible for crafting an environment in which student learning is optimised. To do that, the principal must tap into the dynamics of student behavior and learning, teacher motivation and beliefs, adult learning theory, community and school board expectations/ demands, and his or her own personal motivation and ambition (English, 2008). Principals develop a high tolerance for ambiguity, for within highly complex organisations such as schools, success or failure rarely results from one decision but rather from a series of small decisions that when taken together tip the organisation forward or backward. Different theories of leadership, such as the great man theory and transformational leadership versus transactional leadership, attempt to unravel the micro/macro politics of the principalship, but none have fully explained the complexities of the position or the individual who occupies it (English, 2007).

Today's school principals more than ever embody the jack-of-all-trades mentality that began the profession. Buffeted by the accountability culture, increasing state and federal demands, including No Child Left Behind and state budget cuts, principals are burdened by the demands of the job, frustrated by the lack of resources, and dismayed and angry that the crunching of numbers for student promotion/retention do not take into account the human condition. Moral leadership and democratic leadership are emerging as schools struggle with diversity, injustices, and inequities. For the practitioner, there are not enough hours in the day to ...