III. Potential Candidates: Senior Teachers

Part of the disadvantage in selecting former principals from other schools is the fact that these individuals were not professionally developed under the SUIS design and therefore have little experience in mandatory procedures such as creating effective learning programs with the local Shanghai departments. A leader unaccustomed to unusual tasks will usually have difficulty meeting objectives during the first couple of years on the job (Earley and Weindling 75). However, a senior teacher at SUIS, particularly one who has accumulated an outstanding record of achievement, has years of first-hand experience and knowledge of the company’s procedures in detail. Is it worthwhile to peg these star teachers for a possible leadership position in the future?

As previously mentioned, most principals begin their careers in education as teachers ('The High Wire Job' 6), so it is important to acknowledge the ambitious and confident senior teachers who will eventually want more out of their careers (Borba 53). The drive to suddenly want to transition from teacher to leader often comes after years of successful results in the classroom followed by a desire to bring such results to scale within a school (Ripley 3). If companies such as SUIS want to increase their chances of finding strong leaders, then it would be wise of them to not overlook the leader candidates from among their own teaching staff; however, the company must find means of detecting teachers with large aspirations before a leadership position becomes vacant as it would require time and resources to develop the required skills.

One of the criteria established so far in this practicum is that school leaders must be skilled instructional leaders. The first important indicator that a teacher may one day aspire to become a great leader is if he or she excels in teaching and raising student achievement in the classroom (Borba 53). Such teachers can easily be detected through reputation, but it would require regularly and thoroughly conducted evaluations to ensure that the quality is earnest.

Ideally, the purpose of teacher evaluations is to “bring about improvement by focusing on specified goals and objectives” (Sorenson 34). In the case of seeking potential leader candidates among the teaching staff, evaluations would have to be revised so that they could allow the company to identify those teachers who would one day make exceptional leaders as well. This would likely involve a secondary set of measures including involvement from the human resources department. SUIS already utilizes a separate department for evaluations and assessments, which allows for more objective evaluations as school leaders often are not impartial enough to accurately assess the quality of their own teachers (Kimball and Milanowski 39).

Teachers identified as potential leader candidates due to their skills in the classroom, should be given additional duties that would develop and assess their organizational management abilities. Recalling the SUIS staff organization structure and the principal’s job description, school leaders are required to spread out certain tasks among their staff as a means to “phase out support” and “make collaboration [with teachers] more effective” (Hansen 34). Exceptional teachers identified through years of evaluation should be assigned certain responsibilities that would allow them to develop managerial skills such as training new teachers, conducting assessments, and taking part in strategic management projects including areas that involve financial matters. Phillip Hallinger and Kamontip Snidvongs write that "Project management provides a more systematic method of identifying and developing the leadership skills of people who are not in formal leadership roles. It is clear that schools must develop the leadership capacities of more than just the school head and deputies." (23). It would be the responsibility of SUIS to ensure that such outlets are available when required because the level of performance in such areas is likely to determine whether or not a senior teacher is capable of one day leading a school.

However, under the obvious advantages in selecting senior teachers for potential leader positions are some equally obvious disadvantages as well. For every senior teacher promoted to a school leader position, a teaching vacancy is left open, and depending on how much preparation was done in advance, time and resources will be needed to find a new teacher. Schools also must be cautious when two or more senior teachers are eligible for a leader position. One teacher being promoted over others may result in a loss of stability because the new leader is not considered “legitimate” in the eyes of other teachers (Gold 209). Lastly, should a senior teacher who aspires to be a school leader suddenly not get the position or wait too long for the position to become available, he or she is likely to seek the position elsewhere at another school thereby depriving the company of both a charismatic teacher and an eligible leader candidate.