Nicki Jo Svoboda

EDAD 639
Article Review
October 21, 2018

Part 1

Skillful communication amongst principals is one of the elements explored by Dawn E.

Tyler in Communication behaviors of principals at high performing Title I elementary schools in
Virginia: School leaders, communication, and transformative efforts. This article was published
in Creighton Journal of Interdisciplinary Leadership in volume 2 of the November 2016 edition.
Tyler’s study looked at communication strategies at high-performing, high-poverty schools. She
further looked at the importance of communication when creating a vision and working towards
it as a group (2016, p. 3). Tyler focused on distinguished and highly distinguished schools in
Virginia for this study. This means a school has demonstrated growth within a two-year period
and exceeded state expectations on standardized test scores (2016, p. 3).

Part II – My Review

Any principal will say that their job requires many hours to fulfill their duties. A good
principal, however, will recognize that a majority of their job is dealing with interpersonal
communication and their skills in oral communication must be exceptional in order to
accomplish this job. Now, factor in that there is a huge disparity in parent income levels today,
and many schools deal with poverty as an added issue in their school, the job becomes
increasingly challenging. It is estimated that nearly 20% of school age children live in poverty
today (Tyler, 2016, p. 3), and various districts and schools deal with an even higher percentage.
Tyler (2016) interviewed eight principals and noted consistencies and themes amongst
their interviews when it came to how they communicated with their staff. Each of them agreed
that any decision made had to be based on a student-centered focus (Tyler, 2016, p. 8). Among
the other attributes of effective communication, they include trust, transparency, effective
listening and body awareness, visibility of the principal, and what types of meetings are taking
place within the school (Tyler, 2016, p. 8-11). All of these characteristics are embodied in a
transformational leadership approach, which focuses on “purpose of work, serving as a role
model, and collaboration” (Tyler, 2016, p, 11).
Communication can be in several different forms and this also plays into effectiveness.
Out of the eight principals Tyler interviewed, only one of them uses regular staff meetings in
their school (2016, p. 11). Others found it more effective to be present at smaller grade-level
meetings that take place within the school. All of them found recognizing employee recognition
important and some of them even use social media as a method to inform the larger community
of successes (Tyler, 2016, p. 12). It was also interesting to note that most of the principals
concluded that effective communication was absent from their licensure programs even though it
is obviously such an important piece of the job (Tyler, 2016, p. 14).
What I found most interesting about these points was that they are all things my new
principal embraces, and all things my previous principal was not. It was almost shocking how
much my principal did these things in his previous school, and looking at his track record, it is no
wonder they have been successful. Transparency was one problem we had with the last principal
and one thing the current principal is very big on. Tyler states how big trust is with your staff and
how it is essential a principal has the ability to be transparent (2016, p. 8). I also found it
interesting that these principals stated most of their licensure programs did not have effective
communication elements, even though this is such a huge part of the job. I am taking
Organizational Leadership currently, and honestly, that is probably one of the more helpful
communication classes I have taken in this program and it is not a required class. So, while I was
surprised to hear that, thinking it through, it actually should not have been so surprising.
I want to be a good principal one day. I hope that is the goal of all of my classmates.
Thus, these key points about effective communication are extremely important moving forward.
One of the things Tyler brought up was that effective communication can not take place in an
email (2016, p. 10). I believe that so many times people get wrapped up in everything else the
job entails, that sometimes they find comfort in an email and not speaking face-to-face with a
person. While convenient in the short-term, it is not effective and can often times lead to more
miscommunication in the end.
I agree with basically all of the elements of this article. I chose this article because my
school is a high-poverty, Title I school, but we also are high-performing. We are a K-12, so that
adds interesting elements to it as well. I especially agree with Tyler pointing out that some people
learn what to be avoided under a leader that demonstrates poor communication skills (2016, p. 9)
and that definitely was our school under the last principal. I also wonder how poor leadership,
but effective teaching play into a high-performing school. We had terrible leadership, but were
given incredible autonomy. For those responsible it was a good thing. It did allow other leaders
to quietly step out and our school was high-performing in spite of leadership. I wonder how long
something like that lasts, however.
This article has reinforced my beliefs in the value of a strong leader with effective
communication skills. They are essential in the school and larger community when it comes to
building relationships and making sure a vision is followed. I also see why a principal’s job must
be done outside of their office and why having excellent supporting administrators is also very
important. I plan to use this information to further my internship with my mentors. They both
embody these qualities, and I think part of furthering how to use these skills is to watch. I want
to watch how they interact with various peoples, situations, and issues. I want to better
understand how they come to decisions and see what communication skills they use.

part iii – conclusion.

As usual, my questions and conclusions always relate to time. How do you fit everything
into a day and still have time to accomplish anything else? Effective communication has so many
elements, many of which deal with talking to people in person, being present for meetings,
walkthrough observations, and transparency. All of the things are not easy to do if you are in
your office. Like I said previously, watching how to accomplish these things will be part of my
next steps. I want to see how people I find well-versed in these areas are able to accomplish these
goals.
I did find Tyler’s conclusion about a factor in turn around schools and performance is
how much time can be dedicated to building relationships with a staff when giving a building
principal an assignment (2016, p. 9). I think this is important keep in mind because of all the
responsibilities of a principal. In any situation one walks into utilizing these skills is important.
Tyler (2016) recognizes that also adding the high-performance piece will make effective
communication with staff even more important.

Tyler, D. (2016). Communication behaviors of principals at high performing Title I elementary

schools in Virginia: Schools leaders, communication, and transformative efforts.
Creighton Journal of Interdisciplinary Leadership, 2 (2), 2-16.