The role of the principal has never been harder, and the stakes of their decisions have never been higher than they are today. Leadership quality matters, especially now. But how can district teams vet strategic thinking and interpersonal leadership skills during the principal hiring process? How can they increase their chances of knowing if a new hire has the potential to take schools from the pandemic to success?
Instead of relying on candidates’ narrative accounts of prior experience, district leaders must incorporate skills-based demonstrations that paint a more objective picture of candidates’ qualifications. This toolkit outlines how to supplement the traditional principal interview process with a real-time case interview and role play exercise and provides example interview sequences to emulate.