Knowing Everything

I got into this discussion yesterday with a close friend of mine about administration. She's been in education for almost 30 years. I told her that I'm learning that it's not how much you know as an administrator, it's your ability to establish relationships with those you lead. She disagreed. She said that a really charming, engaging person would still make a terrible principal if he or she didn't know current instructional practices. For example, if the principal didn't have a clue about our writing program and was unwilling or unable to learn about it, she would be totally ineffective. On the one hand, that makes sense. How can a person lead others through a program if she didn't have a clue? My point is that you can teach anyone anything, but it's the personality of the administrator that would make him or her a good leader. My friend said she has know plenty of nice people but they were worthless as administrators because they were not well informed about best practices or current teaching and learning strategies.

I hope she is incorrect. I'll never know everything, but I am working on the ability to be good at helping teachers develop their skills. I know a lot of really smart people who would make terrible leaders because they can not develop trusting relationships with others.