Manitoba School Leadership Framework

Leadership Focus Areas

Leading a Vision for Contiuous Improvement Building Relationships Leading a Safe, Caring, and Inclusive School Community Leading Learning Leading the Organization

Leadership Focus Areas are the broad categories of skills, knowledge, and behaviours of leadership. Each area has an accompanying description to support its interpretation and leadership goal. These focus area descriptions are important as they keep the big picture in mind and limit the tendency to treat any one area as a checklist of activities.

There are five key Leadership Focus Areas that categorize effective school leadership skills, knowledge, and behaviours within the Framework. Leadership Focus Areas are not listed in any specific order. School leadership is a holistic and integrated practice, where the Focus Areas are woven together into a seamless practice of supportive and empowering leadership.

Each Leadership Focus Area is further broken down into Leadership Practices and Behaviours, which are located along the left-hand side of the Framework. Click on each Leadership Focus Area to see the Actions that accompany the Leadership Practices and Behaviours providing the fine detail of the Framework.

The Actions are presented along a continuum under the headings of “Developing Self”, “Nurturing Teams”, and “Leading Schools”. This model presents a holistic approach to practice, as leadership begins with self-awareness and self-understanding and the role of a school leader is realized through nurturing strong, collaborative relationships with students, staff, families, and the greater school community. This interrelated work ultimately shapes and leads schools. The continuum format does not point to simply starting on the left and moving to the right. The objective is to capture the initial placement of Actions, recognizing that every context and every leader is unique.