How to Keep Your Best People: Two Critical Interview Strategies Every School Leader Should Use
By Dr. Tom Miller | Leaders Building Leaders
From 2020 to 2023, schools around the world were hit hard by what became known as The Great Resignation. Talented educators and staff left the profession in droves, and principals everywhere were left scrambling to fill the gaps—not just in staff, but in morale, trust, and momentum.
While some turnover is inevitable, what’s avoidable is being the cause of it.
As a school leader, I’ve been fortunate to lead teams where staff retention hasn’t been a major issue. But I also know that avoiding retention problems isn’t about luck—it’s about intentional leadership.
If you want to keep your best people and build a culture that attracts high performers, here are two strategies I use regularly—and recommend to every school and organizational leader I coach.
âś… Strategy #1: Stay Interviews
"If you don't prepare on the front end, you’ll spend even more time repairing on the back end."
A stay interview is a proactive, one-on-one conversation w...
One Easy Morale Raising Strategies
I believe that not communicating is still communication.
Here is what I mean.
I was recently talking to a teacher who left her school mid-year. I asked if the pay was a factor? They shared that, “It’s was not about the money. It was just that no matter what I did, how long I had been there, I just never heard anything positive. If I make a mistake however, I heard about it immediately, but if I did my job the silence was overwhelming.”
Why is feeling appreciated so important in a work setting?
Because each of us wants to know that what we are doing matters.
Without a sense of being valued by supervisors and colleagues, workers start to feel like a machine or a commodity.
Steven Covey wrote, “Next to physical survival, the greatest need of a human being is psychological survival, to be understood, to be affirmed, to be validated, to be appreciated.”
Here are some signs your employees do not feel appreciated:
- Workers appear discouraged.
- Employees become negative about thei...
