Core Values: Quite Possibly the Most Underleveraged Lever of School Leadership
Empowered Enrollment Team
School leaders at every level want alignment. When people are clear about what’s expected of them, where the boundaries are, and what they’re aiming for, they spend more time creating value and less time hesitating, second-guessing, and politicking.
In pursuit of alignment, leaders try lots of things to encourage the behaviors they want to see: workshops, retreats, consulting, book studies, incentive programs, annual themes, slogans, motivational posters, personal development plans, trust falls … the list goes on and on. While there’s a place for the aforementioned approaches (okay, I have no use for trust falls), if you haven’t developed and integrated meaningful Core Values, these tactics are akin to taping fruit on tree branches.
An Underleveraged Lever
In my experience, most independent and faith-based school leaders are massively underleveraging Core Values. Yes, there are a precious few for whom Core Values are a part of everyday life. They did the heavy lifting years ago, and they’ve enjoyed the fruits of their labor.
But many school leaders are operating without Core Values. Or, only slightly better, they have Core Values, but rarely use them. This is often the case when leadership teams inherit Core Values developed by people who are no longer at the school. Perhaps the most tragic scenario I’ve seen is when schools throw together a word salad of Core Values to satisfy an accreditation requirement, with no intention of implementing them beyond the credential.
But, Andy, You’re a Marketing Guy
You might be wondering why I’m climbing up on the Core Values soapbox. It’s because word-of-mouth is the number one driver of interest in schools. And word-of-mouth, whether positive or negative, is informed by an enrolled family’s experience with your faculty and staff. Ergo, how your team carries out their duties has a direct impact on what people say about your school.
I think school leaders understand this, as I’ve heard them say, “Marketing is everyone’s job.” (Perhaps you’ve said that.) But I’ve rarely heard them elaborate on what they mean. While well-intentioned, this message could be confusing to a new third-grade teacher who will search her job profile in vain for any reference to marketing. She might be quietly terrified for months, wondering if she’s doing the “marketing thing” right.
I think what school leaders actually mean by “Marketing is everyone’s job” is that everyone is making an impression through how they carry out their responsibilities. That’s where Core Values come in. Word-of-mouth is strongest when faculty and staff excel in their roles, aligning with the community’s shared commitments. But if they aren’t clear on the school’s Core Values, how do faculty and staff know if they’re doing a good job?
Assume at Your Peril
Some leaders may shrug off Core Values, putting them into the category of “touchy-feely stuff” that takes up a bunch of time and never gets used. Their assumption is they’ve hired good people. Their teams are composed of well-intentioned adults who know how to get along and get their stuff done without making messes. Surely, these grownups know what goes and what doesn’t.
But grownups need boundaries and guidelines, too. In the absence of agreed-upon standards for “how we behave along the way,” there’s a lot left up to interpretation. If you don’t create clarity for them, they’ll make their own assumptions, defaulting to whatever worked from their last job, which may or may not be aligned with what you want to see at your school.
For Example
Let’s move from abstract to tangible. Let’s say you have a football coach who wins games, but he leans on teachers to give his players leniency on grades so they can stay on the team; you’ve got a Core Values issue. You have an IT Director who is a wizard with networks, security, and device management, but she’s territorial and prickly; you’ve got a Core Values issue. You have a principal with a bubbly personality and an impressive string of letters behind her name, but she’s terrible at following up on details. This isn’t a personality quirk; it’s a Core Values issue.
In each of these scenarios, imagine trying to hold someone accountable without Core Values. The conversation gets messy because you’re searching for language to explain what feels off. Your well-intentioned approach could be easily dismissed as a personality conflict or making a mountain out of a molehill or making up the rules as you go. When you’ve got clearly identified Core Values, there’s an objective standard. You are no longer debating opinions. You are measuring behavior against agreed-upon commitments, with each party standing on common ground.
Where Core Values Fit In
I think of Core Values as having an irreplaceable role in a school’s Trinity of Core Commitments:
- Mission: Why we exist. Your Mission is your core purpose. It’s why your school was founded in the first place, and it’s what your community would miss if you were to cease operations.
- Vision: Where we’re going. Your Vision is a version of the future that inspires your team to push forward. It should be ambitious, perhaps even a bit scary.
- Core Values: How we behave along the way. Your Core Values are the shared commitments stakeholders make regarding their actions, attitudes, and outlook.
Core Values set expectations regarding how you behave in pursuit of our school’s important mission and inspiring vision. They create clarity for your faculty and staff about what you celebrate and what you tolerate, which influences the flavor of your school’s culture.
Core Values: Door #1 or Door #2?
Before defining your Core Values, you first need to determine who they’re for. This is where Door #1 and Door #2 come in. You can walk through either door; just be committed to your choice.
- Door #1: Core Values for faculty and staff only
If you go through Door #1, your Core Values articulate the expectations you have for people employed by your school at every level, with no exceptions for the HoS, Principals, Admin Team, etc. Door #1 allows you to be specific and dialed in to the behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets you want to see from your team, and it’s reasonable to require a level of buy-in to Core Values if they expect to stay.
- Door #2: A single set of Core Values for faculty and staff, students, and parents
Schools are the only organizations I’ve seen that apply their Core Values to their customers (although we don’t think of families as “customers” in school world, there is still a transactional relationship). Think about it. What for-profit business projects their Core Values onto their customers? I may be wrong, but I haven’t seen one yet. But schools are in a different category. They’re a community (not a family). It can be beneficial to have a single set of expectations that define how people engage within your community. The alternative is a multitude of different lists and philosophies and agreements and commitments floating around, some of which are used and some that are merely window dressing. If you go through Door #2, you’re developing a single set of Core Values (4-6 in total) that are contextually applied across your three major stakeholder groups: 1) faculty and staff, 2) students, and 3) parents. Imagine how powerful it would be to have a common set of expectations across your community.
Core Values in Everyday Life
As school leaders begin to grasp the power of Core Values, they start asking questions about how to make them stick. Here are five ways to leverage your Core Values in everyday school life:
- Hiring
Your Trinity of Commitments (Mission, Vision, and Core Values) are critical components of your hiring process. Do prospective team members know what they’re signing up for? Do they believe in what your school is about? Are they excited about the prospect of advancing a mission that matters? Are they inspired by a compelling vision? Does a prospective team member align with your Core Values, or will those Values feel forced once the real work begins?
- Environmental Branding
You can’t just publish Core Values in your handbooks and on your website and call it good. You need to display your Core Values on the walls of your school, along with your Mission and Vision. And do it with style — big, bold, and branded. But it’s not enough to post them. You have to drive them down into every corner of the organization. That’s where Core Values Callouts come in.
- Core Values Callouts
Words, words, words. Your Core Values run the risk of being yet another list of words handed down from on high. If you expect your teams to take your Core Values seriously, they need to see what they look like in action. That’s where Core Values Callouts come in. Identify your team’s meeting rhythms; in most cases, your primary recurring meetings will be your divisional meetings and staff team meetings. Once per month, your team leaders should set aside 10 minutes or so in their recurring huddles to ask their teams one question: “Over the last 30 days, where have you seen your peers living out our school’s Core Values in extraordinary ways?” And then … they wait. It won’t take long for someone to raise a hand and give a shout-out to one of their peers. And it shouldn’t be a random accolade. A proper Core Values Callout:
- Calls out a specific person
- Names a specific Core Value
- Gives a brief (30-60 seconds) account of how that person lived out a Core Value.
That’s it. And it’s magical. People at every level in the organization begin to see that Core Values are an important part of your culture, and they associate specific behaviors and outlooks with specific Core Values. At Tassel, this is my favorite part of our All-hands Monthly Huddle. And once per month is enough. Do Core Values Callouts every week, and it will become old hat.
ReviewsAlignment Conversations
I’m not a big fan of reviews. Typically, they’re scheduled once a year, but they don’t really accomplish the intended purpose. The manager has to think back over a team member’s performance for an entire year, and the team member can be on his or her best behavior leading up to the conversation. It’s a clunky, cumbersome meeting that attempts to cover too much. Rather, I’m a fan of regular conversation at shorter intervals, say, 3-4 times per year. With higher frequency, you have more immediacy around key topics and issues. It’s less of a “big, scary review” and more of a check-in.
A key part of these Alignment Conversations is … you guessed it … Core Values. Prior to the meeting, the team member rates themselves on how they think they’re living out the school’s Core Values (plus, plus/minus, or minus), and their manager rates them, as well. This is the first part of the Alignment Conversation. The manager discusses with the team member areas in which they are excelling in living out the Core Values and areas where there is room for focus and growth. This approach reinforces the importance of the Core Values and fosters candid conversations on both sides. Of course, there is more to these conversations than just reviewing Core Values, but it’s an important starting point.
- Firing
Because sometimes, it just doesn’t work out. Someone says the right things in the interview, but their behavior over time tells a different story. Or maybe their attitude or actions aren’t aligned with the school’s standards. If you hire through the lens of Core Values, you fire through them, too. And, while the faculty or staff person will be shocked, they shouldn’t be surprised. Why? Because their manager has had conversations with them regarding how they’re living out their Core Values. They’ve had opportunities to turn things around, but they just haven’t gotten there. It stinks, but parting ways with wrong-fit faculty and staff is an essential part of developing a healthy culture.
Getting There from Here
So, what’s the work that’s ahead of you? Are your school’s Core Values well defined, or are they a bit mushy? Are you integrating them into the rhythms of school life, or are they just for decoration? Or does your school not have Core Values at all? If you’re developing your Core Values for the first time, or revising Core Values that are wide of the target, here are a few thought-starters:
- Don’t confuse your Core Values with your Philosophy of Education. How do you know if you’ve done this? Your Core Values won’t be scoreable. You’ll try to apply them to team members’ behavior, attitudes, and contributions, but they just don’t work.
- Avoid choosing Core Values that are obvious. Don’t waste a Core Value on something that should be a minimum requirement of people in your organization.
- Think about people in your organization who embody your school’s culture. What attributes do they have that you wish you could clone? You’ve got a head start on your Core Values by articulating what makes these people so special. Then round out the list with specific behaviors, attitudes, and mindsets that you want to see.
- Don’t make the list too long. You need 4-6 Core Values. Too few, and you’ll run the risk of being too vague. Too many, and they won’t be memorable.
- Don’t think of Core Values as a project or initiative. This isn’t about checking a box. You’re never done integrating and living out your Core Values.
- Live them. Leaders don’t get a hall pass on Core Values.
If you’ve been challenged by these concepts, I encourage you to bring your Leadership Team into the conversation. Share this post, and add “Discuss Core Values” to the agenda at your next meeting. And, no, you don’t have to be the Head of School to start the discussion.
Don’t miss out on the tremendous alignment Core Values can bring to your team members at every level. Lever up, and lead on.
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