The TLC of Performance Management

Let’s start thinking more intentionally about the performance of individuals in our schools - not in an HR-policy way, but genuinely, as people with layers, potential, and blind spots. Start with this: every person in your school either expands or limits the collective impact of the school. The job of the head of school is to notice which direction they’re leaning and help them lean better.

1. Start with Clarity (Even When It’s Awkward)

Performance issues often hide behind foggy expectations. Before you rush to ‘fix’ someone, ask: have they actually been told what success looks like? Set clear decision rights: who decides what, and to what end. A teacher with autonomy over their curriculum but confusion about assessment targets isn’t empowered; they’re stranded. So when you sense someone slipping, start with clarity. It’s more powerful (and much kinder) than a personal challenge.

2. Delegate Outcomes, Not Tasks

You don’t lead a school by divvying up chores; you lead one by distributing purpose. “Can you update the timetable?” is a task. “Can you reduce friction for teachers next term?” is an outcome. The former gets done. The latter sparks ownership. When you delegate outcomes as a Head of School or Principal, you build capability. Plus, you’ll have far fewer 10 p.m. emails asking, “Is this what you meant?”

3. Build the Next Layer Before You Burn Out the Current One

Every school has a few heroes who pick up dropped balls, volunteer for the nightmare projects, and quietly prop the place up. Celebrate them, absolutely. Then protect them from burnout, from over dependence, from you. Build your next layer of leadership before you scorch your current stars. Call it succession, capacity building, or simple foresight - whatever the jargon, it’s the only sustainable path.

4. Make Collaboration a Performance Expectation

‘Shared goals’ often sounds like a slogan but they belong in job descriptions, evaluations and promotions. If collaboration is optional, the culture fragments. When you make shared goals and team performance part of how people are evaluated, accountability suddenly becomes collective. It’s remarkable how performance improves when everyone knows their success depends on both what they do and how they do it together, and it’s an easy fix. 

5. Audit Systems Before You Lecture People

Sometimes the issue isn’t motivation, it’s friction. Before you assume a team’s underperforming, audit the systems they have to work with. Do your processes enable people to work smarter, or are you asking for excellence from inside a clunky machine? If great people are tripping over outdated systems, you don’t have a performance problem, you have a leadership one. 

6. Hire Intentionally, Onboard With Purpose

Hiring is defining the next wave of culture at your school. Hire intentionally, and then use onboarding to tell people why their work matters and where it has an impact. We can still all remember the story of the janitor at NASA who when asked what he does at work said “I put people on the moon”. Most employees decide within weeks whether they’re in a place that values them, where they will have autonomy and can make an impact. So show them, loudly and early. That’s why they work.

7. Normalize Reflection (and Recovery)

Giving individuals, departments and teams room to pause, rewind, and reset isn’t soft or a luxury, it’s performance management.

8. Document and Communicate

The golden rule of operational sanity: document and communicate. The quickest way to erode trust is to have unspoken expectations. Write things down, share decisions openly, loop back. It’s unglamorous, but it’s the backbone of professional trust. Lather, rinse, repeat. Anyone heard saying “but we already told them that once in the all staff email last November” can be quietly re-educated. Busy workplaces necessitate repeated communications. 

And That Lax Colleague?

There is no need to stage an intervention or have a terribly formal chat, just ‘kill them with kindness’ but make it known something has shifted slightly. Reintroduce clarity, create space for accountability, and invite them back into the team’s energy. Most people respond when they sense a renewed seriousness especially if it’s grounded in respect rather than reprimand.

In the End

Intentionality isn’t bureaucratic, it’s humane. It’s the art of noticing people, not just managing them. A high-performing school is built on leaders who stay curious about what makes each individual person succeed and the fix is being ready to support them all!