Chapter 6: Making Role and Relationship Explicit: Forming Principal and Vice-Principal Partnerships

Principals and vice-principals face an increasingly challenging and intensifying work environment where the prioritization of the coordination of their efforts for school success are essential. Regrettably, the research on this key leadership team is limited and there is little practical guidance for principals and vice-principals in navigating their relationship and roles within schools. This chapter reviews the demanding work environment of principals and vice-principals, assesses, and analyzes the extant literature on their relationship, and proposes specific practices and tools that may be used to further the effectiveness of their working relationship—both as a means of collectively doing their work in schools better and preparing vice-principals to become more effective principals. Both social cognitive theory and leader-member exchange (LMX) theory are examined as potential, complementary aids in understanding the nature of their relationship and providing practical resources in sharing and negotiating their leadership efforts within schools. Additionally, three tools, in the form of survey instruments, are offered. These instruments are based on these two theoretical models and offer principals and vice-principals initial and ongoing tools to evaluate the quality and nature of their working relationship. The chapter seeks to identify how these instruments can assist vice-principals and principals in overcoming and/or mitigating some of the more troubling features of their working relationship; most importantly, how infrequently specific leadership roles and actions are negotiated and how rarely relational aspects of this potentially powerful partnership are formerly and explicitly discussed.