The School Leader as “Communicator-in-Chief”
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The School Leader as “Communicator-in-Chief”
This article is adapted from a wonderful article by Beth Fagan titled Five Golden Rules of Communication for Business Leaders. 1
As school leaders we have many responsibilities but none is more important than our role as “Communicator in Chief.” It is our responsibility to persuasively communicate our school’s mission and values. We communicate biblical truth and how it applies to people, programs, and policies. We communicate in groups and one-to-one with parents, staff, and students. We are the media and marketing voice for our school. And, we speak into conflict and controversy. Even our non-verbals speak volumes—the stickers on our vehicles, signs in our yards, what we write on social media, and how we respond to emails—all reflect upon our school. Whenever and wherever we speak, we represent our schools. We are never just Mr. or Mrs. private citizen. In his excellent book, Conviction to Lead , Albert Mohler writes:
To be a leader is to communicate constantly, skillfully, intentionally, and strategically. The effective leader communicates so pervasively that it seems second nature, and so intentionally that no strategic opportunity is ever surrendered. Many people try to contrast communication with action, as if the two are at odds. But communication is action, and the leader will spend more time communicating than in any other activity. 2
The Five Golden Rules of Communication
Beth Fagan, who has led communications and marketing for several large St. Louis area companies and who currently works as a media trainer and communications counselor, writes that “for some 40 years, I’ve studied – and helped shape – the communications of leaders, continually studying the ‘best,’ to learn what they have in common ... [Based on 40 years of experience], here are my five simple, time-tested thoughts about words and messages for leaders ...”
While the principles she shares are focused on business leaders, they apply to school leaders. I have taken her principles and adapted them to the Christian school leader’s unique venue.
1. Be customer-focused and mission-driven -- every time you open your mouth.
“The best leaders start every conversation, every speech, every interview, and every employee meeting, with an intense focus on their customers and their mission of advancing the interests of those customers.” “Consider Apple CEO Tim Cook,” urges Beth, “time and again, Cook and Apple tell us how important we are to the company. ‘Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love.’”
Make no mistake, parents are our customers. They are investing in an educational service. We must care deeply about those we serve and consistently communicate that we care. If we genuinely care, we will create an educational service that parents love. It is not enough to care, we must deliver. This does notmean that we compromise our mission, our values, or biblical truth to make employees or parents “happy.” Apple is rigorous in upholding its business model and values even when doing so requires that they say “no.” For example, Wall Street often clamors for short term profits whereas Apple insists on focusing on the long-term. Chick-fil-A does the same. Investors and Wall Street pressure Chick-fil-A to open on Sundays. They refuse. They are uncompromisingly purpose driven: “To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.” They do not compromise their purpose but they do deliver a superior product and service that their customers love. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, once said that the company “should be about more than just selling chicken. We should be a part of our customers’ lives and the communities in which we serve.”
Beth argues that this same focus applies to our employees. “Employees ‘follow the leader’. Leaders who talk to employees about profits instead of customers will find their employees devalue the importance of satisfied customers, often taking short-cuts that may save the company money or boost short-term sales, but eventually erode consumer good will.”
For Christian school employees the danger is not pursuing profit, it is focusing on our convenience. We are tempted to do what is easiest, what is in our best interest rather than what is best for a student or a parent. While we must sometimes say no, our bias should be yes whenever we can do so consistent with our mission, values, and biblical principles.
2. Use the right words. Ask customers.
“It’s essential to know the right words before you undertake a ... marketing campaign. Worse case happens when communication campaigns, because of word choice, actually deliver more harm than sales,” writes Beth. “Too often leaders make communications/message decisions, based on their world-- without validating these assumptions with the consumer.”
A significant communication problem I see in Christian schools is the use of what I’ll call “education speak.” When we use terminology like pedagogy, worldview, or phonemic and phonological awareness, we are not communicating in a language that is simple, clear, and persuasive, let alone understandable, for most of our parents. It is better to use words and phrases like teaching method, biblical perspective, and the ability to recognize individual sounds. The words we use must communicate how the children and parent will benefit. “Mrs. Jones’s teaching style will help your daughter better understand how to sound out the words so that she will be a better reader, which will help her learn more from her reading,” is far more meaningful to the average parent than “Mrs. Jones’s pedagogical method will increase your daughter’s phonemic and phonological awareness, which may help her move to the top quartile of the standardized assessment.” Our words matter. Keep them simple and focused on how the student and parent will benefit from a program or decision.
3. Know your brand promise and never break it.
We know intuitively that branding is important but our branding must be more than intuitive, it must be strategic. I am currently working on a draft of our school’s strategic plan. The strategic plan will be oriented around themes, one of which is related to the school’s branding; “We will become the desired private school brand for Christian families in Saint Louis.” This theme is strategic, aspirational, and focuses on meeting the desires and needs of parents. Doing so will require that we deliver an exceptional service to fulfill our brand promise.
Beth goes on to note that Gallup research demonstrates that “organizations that understand their ‘brand promise,’ and live that promise ... have a significantly higher ROI for their brands.” As schools we have what I call “EROI—Educational Return on Investment.” For me that means that our students and parents have experienced our brand promise. When they do, our investment in spiritual development, staff, programs, and facilities will produce spiritual and academic fruit resulting in our customers—our parents—spreading the word about our school’s positive impact on their children and their family.
4. Mess up ... Fess up ... Dress up.
One of my favorite movies is Home Alone. In Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, Kevin admits that we all sometimes “get into mischief.” In our case, we are more likely—I hope—to make mistakes than mischief! “Companies all make mistakes – they are run by humans,” writes Beth, “those who win the consumer’s respect will ‘fess up’ when they’ve made a mistake, and tell consumers about the steps they are taking to ‘dress up,’ i.e., prevent such ‘mess ups’ in the future.”
I recently had a situation where a student had not been responsible in fulfilling his or her responsibilities as a student leader in one of our programs. The program and others were negatively impacted and the parent involved was not appropriate in dealing with the situation. But, the school had also messed up by not following established protocol for addressing the situation early and in partnering with the parent to address the student’s behavior. While we had every right to remove the student from the situation, we chose instead to deal primarily with our failure and to give the student an opportunity to correct the behavior. Time will tell if this works but the point is that we did mess up—so did the student and the parent—but we first needed to remove the “log from our eye before dealing with the rather large splitter in their eyes.” We messed up and we “dressed up” by fixing our mistakes before address theirs.
5. Always tell the truth.
Finally, Beth writes, “Think of the public careers ruined by lies: Brian Williams, Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, Barry Bonds, Anthony Weiner and John Edwards, just to name a few. Take a minute to Google ‘careers ruined by lies’ to find many, many more. Just tell the truth; in the end it’s much safer.” More importantly, it is right. We are called to “speak the truth in love.” I recently had my senior leadership team read “Radical Candor.” While it is not a Christian book, its message is consistent with the principle of speaking the truth in love. In fact, I’d say that the book is radically (pun intended!) changing the conversations we have with students, parents, and colleagues. No more beating around the bush. No more minimizing or avoiding. We are much more direct and honest in dealing with failure—especially among employees. This is biblical when motivated by love for all concerned. In this context love is not a feeling—it is a determination to do good and right by others—the employee and all of the students and parents that we serve.
The most important role we play is as “Communicator in Chief.” In that role, our communication should:
Be parent-focused and mission-driven.
Use the right words.
Reflect our brand promise.
Fess up and dress up when we make mistakes.
Always be truthful.
Our words matter—a lot. Make them count!
Mohler, A. (2012). The Conviction to Lead. Baker Books. ↩︎