Maintaining a team begins with appreciating who your team is. If you want everyone on your staff to feel valued, your actions must reflect that. For example, do you just meet with teachers to discuss personal goals, etc. or do you meet with everyone on staff. One of the most important tools in keeping team goals at the forefront is to know what the strengths are of every single staff person and then draw from those strengths. Often we think that we know what people are feeling and/or thinking. Until you take the time to get to know each and every person on staff, you do not see all the good they have to offer.

Maintaining a team means being a positive leader and keeping the staff all going in the same direction. One powerful book that summarizes beautifully what it means to be an effective leader is If You Don’t Feed the Teachers, They Eat the Students by N. Connors. In it she defines how being an effective leader helps keep the whole team going.

- the ability to care and be concerned for others
Here Connors describes how the leader of a school is instrumental in defining, developing and designing a climate of care. Every day actions and decisions make this evident. You can say you care all you wish, but the truth is that the caring shows through in such instances as: understanding when someone is going through a tough time, taking over a class when stress levels are high, talking with staff who are upset, helping staff keep students first in their hearts.