Making Your Mark: Advice for New & Tenured Assistant Principals

If you’re an assistant principal, you already know that your role is a unique one in your school—one that requires a constant balance between autonomy and collaboration.

You’re part of your school’s leadership team, but it’s also important that you’re acutely aware of the everyday challenges faced by teachers and students.

You don’t make all the leadership decisions, but you still share the responsibility for implementing them.

You’re encouraged to make your own ideas and make those a reality, but you also recognize that they need to fit within the larger vision and mission your principal has for your school. 

When we talk with assistant principals, it’s this duality they speak of—this sense of constantly moving between several “worlds” within their schools. Not only are assistant principals looking to build strong relationships with students, parents, teachers, and community members, they are also responsible for the larger umbrella of school leadership: instructional leadership, school culture, equity and inclusion work, and professional development. 

It can feel like you have your hands in everything, right? And yet, it’s having hands in so much that prepares you adequately for the next step in your leadership journey: the principalship. In the meantime, there are plenty of ways to make this role your own and to help you lead confidently. We’ve outlined a few below:

It can feel like you have your hands in everything, right? And yet, it’s having hands in so much that prepares you adequately for the next step in your leadership journey: the principalship.

Be clear about your professional goals

Quick question: Does your principal know that you’d actually like to be a principal? If so, do you have a timeline in mind—and is your principal aware of that timeline?

This might sound like a rhetorical question, but it’s a reminder that it’s important to be proactive when it comes to sharing your goals and professional journey with your principal. As this assistant principal says, “Sometimes the principal doesn’t know what your aspirations are, or what you want to learn—so just ask for opportunities.”

Remember when you were considering making the move up to the assistant principalship? You may have experienced “the shoulder tap”—the moment when another leader saw your potential and encouraged you to consider a leadership position. Just as they may have tapped you on the shoulder, it’s just as critical to tap your leader to seek advice, discuss your goals, and ask for their help and mentorship on your leadership journey, especially if the end goal is becoming a principal.  

Just as they may have tapped you on the shoulder, it’s just as critical to tap your leader to seek advice, discuss your goals, and ask for their help and mentorship.

Hone your observation skills

The strong relationships assistant principals build with their teachers, students, and parents —and the visibility that creates throughout the school—is a key reason they’re great at influencing and monitoring school climate. 

The strong relationships assistant principals build with their teachers, students, and parents —and the visibility that creates throughout the school—is a key reason they’re great at influencing and monitoring school climate. 

Ryan Donlan, former K-12 school and district leader and now a professor of educational leadership at Indiana State University’s Bayh College of Education, says it’s this kind of observation that gives assistant principals important context about the school ecosystem as a whole. With this information, they’re able to make sense of group dynamics and prevent conflict before it begins, with both students and adults. 

“Just like there is a tug between institutions and individuals and the roles expected of people, the same exists between groups and the individuals within them,” Donlan says. “Studying these connections and disconnects helps develop a nuanced ability to see your school with a wide angle lens.” Observing what your school community is doing—or not doing—can help you see the invisible behaviors that influence your school environment over time, positively and negatively. And simultaneously, it can strengthen your leadership development. 

Be visible—and make others feel seen too

There’s no shortage of work on an assistant principal’s plate, and yet, so many assistant principals we’ve worked with at New Leaders give the same advice: take the time to be visible, and give support to those who need it. 

Kristin Eng, New Leaders alum and principal of CICS-West Belden in Chicago, says displaying this type of visibility and care doesn’t have to take a lot of effort, either. When she was an assistant principal, she focused on knowing her teachers’ interests and favorite snacks. Many of her teachers like sparkling water, so she stocked her office fridge with LaCroix, and encouraged her teachers and staff to grab one if they needed a little boost. 

This assistant principal agrees and encourages her peers not to hole up in their offices. “Proximity breeds empathy,” she says. “So, physically get near your teachers—get to know them, talk to them, know if they have a sick child, if they need to leave a little bit early, so you can make that connection.”

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Focus on instructional leadership

School principals are the instructional leaders of their schools, but they can’t—and don’t—need to embark on this kind of leadership alone. Assistant principals make great instructional leadership “co-pilots” because of their ability to cultivate trust with teachers and staff—a trust that leads to better student outcomes. This is especially apparent when assistant principals are given the opportunity to lead instructional leadership teams (ILTs) and act as instructional coaches.

Assistant principals make great instructional leadership “co-pilots” because of their ability to cultivate trust with teachers and staff—a trust that leads to better student outcomes.

The key to instructional leadership success for assistant principals, Eng says, is to view yourself as a collaborator and a person teachers can go to with questions or insights. “I think that’s really important because teachers are the ones who are on the ground, and in order to move their practices…to make sure that our students are reaching a high level of mastery and standards, you want to make sure your relationship with teachers is strong.”

Leading ILTs gives assistant principals a chance to ground their work in a clear school vision, developing shared definitions of what good instruction and equity-focused mindsets look like. They’re able to hone their data literacy skills, using regular data cycles to prioritize focus areas, monitor, and course correct implementation to advance student learning. And, they’re able to recognize and embrace professional development opportunities—both for themselves and their teachers—that further fuel student achievement and overall school improvement.

Make peace with not making everyone happy

Being a leader means making decisions—but that doesn’t mean that everyone’s going to like the decisions you make. This can be especially challenging for new assistant principals, particularly if they’re coming to their leadership position after years of being a classroom teacher and teacher leader. It’s a strange feeling to be leading (and making decisions that affect!) people whose shoes you were in not too long ago, right?

This can feel very uncomfortable—and here’s where a mindset shift might be helpful. Think about your main goal as an assistant principal. Is it to make decisions that will please everyone, or make decisions that will push everyone to meet their potential and do what’s right for students? 

When this assistant principal started to receive pushback for some of the decisions he was making, he began to frame all of his decisions using these three criteria:

• Is the decision research-based?
• Is it centered in the school’s vision?
• Is it what’s best for students?

If he answered “no” to any one of these questions, he’d go back to the drawing board and find a new way forward. Whether you use these three questions or create your own, having a decision-making rubric can help increase your confidence and help you explain your reasoning for the decision to others. 

Most of all, be you

Remember, you didn’t become an assistant principal by chance. You’re in your role because the team that hired you knew you’d bring something to the table that was special—and so needed in their school.

So, while it might be tempting to imitate or embody the exceptional leaders you work alongside and adapt their style as your leadership style, it’s your authenticity that gives you the biggest advantage. After all, we build trust most when we’re honest about who we are—our strengths, our weaknesses, our lived experience, and what we still need to learn.

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