Great Teachers Make Great Leaders

The more experience I get with running a company, the more I'm convinced that teaching is one of the best ways for people to develop leadership skills. All of ScriptEd's staff members have spent time teaching.  Daily, I see them apply the skills they've learned managing a classroom to the work they do at ScriptEd.  I also see ScriptEd's volunteers develop these skills over the course of the school year. Here are some of the ways that teaching makes for strong leaders:

1. Good Teachers are Good Communicators.  It's incredibly important to be very clear and direct in your communication when you are leading a classroom. Good teachers also understand that things need to be explained in several ways to ensure that everyone understands what's happening and what the expectations are.
   
   As ScriptEd continues to grow, we are learning how important it is to communicate very clearly with each other and with all of our stakeholders. In order to run things efficiently and effectively, we need to make sure we're all on the same page.
2. Good Teachers Have a Plan.  All good teachers plan their lessons and have an idea of what they want to achieve -- or what key understandings they want their students to have by the end of a class, unit or year. Having a plan keeps you focused on what's most important.  Similarly, at ScriptEd I see our staff focused on measurable outcomes. They have goals that they want to achieve, and they're experiences in the classroom help make them very good at planning the ways they'll achieve goals.
3. Good Teachers Know How to Adapt on the Fly.  While good teachers spend a lot of time planning, the reality is that things almost never go according to plan. Teachers always need to think creatively and improvise to ensure that students are learning.  The same is true of almost any project at work, and especially at ScriptEd.  We have way too many balls in the air to do everything perfectly.  It's important that our staff knows how to improvise, roll with the punches, think outside the box for solutions, and make the best of any situation without losing their cool.  Teachers do this all the time.
4. Good Teachers Know How to Manage Many Things at Once.  Think about all the things that teachers have to manage: lesson planning, grading, behavior management, contacting parents, making copies, buying supplies, professional development, field trip planning, after school club planning, figuring out to differentiate instruction -- the list goes on and on.  AND -- they have to do all of this on top of actually teaching. I've never felt so overwhelmed by any job than I did when I was teaching (and this INCLUDES starting-up a company - seriously, teaching is harder).  Teachers learn how to manage many different things at the same time. They learn how to delegate, share resources, and work efficiently to make sure everything gets done. These are incredibly important leadership skills.
5. Good Teachers Know How to Differentiate Their Management Styles.  Personalities are a very real thing, and no two people can be managed the same way. When you're teaching, you're usually managing 30 personalities at the same time while trying to maintain order in a classroom.  You learn that some students need to be given special assignments to keep them on task,  that some students respond really well to praise, and that some just need to be left alone. You learn how to pair groups of students together to maximize learning.  Good leaders know how to differentiate their management styles to get the best work out of people.

While ScriptEd will not always be an "all-teacher" staff, whenever we hire a former teacher I feel very confident that we're gaining a team member who will continue to help us thrive.