WHEN THE PRINCIPAL LEAVES THE ROOM

Nobody tells you about the silence that sometimes comes with a promotion.

As a teacher, you hear almost everything. Somebody complains about the schedule. Someone asks who on earth designed the latest form. Another has strong feelings about the photocopier or that meeting that could have been an email. People tease you. They disagree with you. If your idea is terrible, somebody may actually tell you.

Then you become principal, dean, coordinator, or director.

Suddenly, people become more agreeable. “Okay lang, Sir.” “No problem, Ma’am.” “Whatever you decide.” Same people, same school, different conversations. You have moved up, and somehow some of the truth has gone underground.

Leadership does that. A teacher who once spoke freely may now rehearse what she wants to say before entering your office. A coordinator may give you the kinder version of bad news. Nobody has to be dishonest. People simply become more careful around authority. Edmondson’s (1999) work on psychological safety reminds us that people speak more honestly when they feel safe. Maybe a good question for any leader is, “What am I not seeing?” The harder part is being ready for the answer.

At the same time, people are watching you more closely. Miss one commitment and they understand. Make it a habit and they remember. A title gives ordinary behavior a longer shadow. Even your bad mood can reach three offices before lunch.

You also learn that not every problem deserves a memorandum. Schools produce small irritations every day. Somebody is seven minutes late. Someone sends a sharp message in the group chat. Two offices can lose half a morning over a missing extension cord. Some problems really need attention, especially when learning, safety, fairness, or dignity is involved. Others need a quiet conversation and perhaps a little humor. Not everything needs to become an issue.

Still, letting things slide can be costly. A teacher repeatedly embarrasses students. A parent waits for an answer that never comes. Two colleagues stop talking, and soon everyone has picked a side. Something questionable continues because “ganyan naman dati.” Beyond the official manuals is another rulebook everyone knows: what we allow around here.

Then there is fairness. Give one teacher a reasonable accommodation and somebody may call it special treatment. Give your best teacher the toughest class and she may wonder why being good means getting more problems. Say no to an old friend and lunch gets awkward. Pakikisama matters, but it should not decide who gets the favor or opportunity. Fairness is not pleasing everybody. It is being able to stand by a decision without whispering.

One more thing: do not send the angry message tonight. It may sound brilliant at 10:47 p.m. Save it. Sleep on it. Coffee has rescued many leaders from messages they would rather not explain the next morning.

Complaints deserve the same pause. Parents can be right. Students can misunderstand. Teachers can be wrong or wrongly accused. Listen to more than one side. A cropped screenshot can travel around the school long before the full story catches up.

And beware of “Ako na lang. Mas mabilis.” It starts with one letter, then a layout, a program, a tarpaulin, and a PowerPoint. Soon the principal is doing everything and wondering why nobody takes initiative. Grissom et al. (2021) offer a useful reminder: good leadership works largely through people. If everything has to pass through you, something is probably wrong.

That is why schools have to grow leaders before they need them. Let the younger teacher chair the committee. Let somebody else run the meeting. Give a promising coordinator room to decide. When the result is not exactly how you would have done it, resist taking the work back. Nobody receives a principal’s appointment in the morning and magically knows how to lead by lunchtime.

All this becomes more complicated when you remember how many schools are asking people to do the work of principals without actually having one. At the October 16 Senate budget hearing, DepEd reported that only about 22,000 of the country’s 45,928 public schools had principals. Roughly 23,000 had no formal principal item. Six thousand additional School Principal I positions were approved for 2026, around 2,000 had been filled, and 914 Teachers-in-Charge had been reclassified. There is progress, yes. But nearly half of our public schools still have no formal principal item.

Numbers can make that sound strangely tidy. Schools are not. Somewhere behind “23,000” is a TIC answering a worried parent before the first bell, settling a disagreement, checking reports, supporting teachers, talking to a child in trouble, and figuring out what to do when something goes wrong. The work is already there. The position is not.

EDCOM 2 found that 13,313 schools had neither a principal nor a head teacher position. Even 727 schools with more than 25 teachers had neither. Then comes the part that is harder to understand. DepEd asked for ₱10.5 billion to create and fund more than 14,000 Principal I positions for 2027. The proposed national budget gave the request no allocation. The ₱12.09 billion for Expanded Career Progression may help qualified head teachers and TICs move into reclassified positions. That is welcome. Whether it is enough is another question.

We ask a lot from principals. Improve instruction. Support teachers. Protect children. Answer parents. Manage resources. Build school culture. Stay calm when three problems arrive before 8 a.m. Those are fair expectations. Perhaps schools deserve one in return: if principals matter this much, they should actually have one.

And when they do, the little things matter. People notice whether the principal is late to a meeting about punctuality. They notice whose mistakes are forgiven and whose are written up. They notice whether the utility worker gets the same courtesy as the superintendent. They notice who gets credit and who gets heard. School culture grows from these ordinary moments, usually on Mondays when nobody thinks anything important is happening.

No school, of course, rises or falls because of one person. But leaders influence what gets noticed, rewarded, corrected, or quietly tolerated. A leader who listens makes honesty safer. One who can say, “I was wrong,” makes it easier for others to do the same. One who takes all the credit may eventually wonder why people stopped bringing ideas.

After enough years around schools, I have come to think leadership gets lighter when you accept that you cannot know everything, fix everything, or be everywhere. Maybe that was never the job. The deeper work is building a school that can function when you are not in the room and creating enough trust for somebody to look you in the eye and say, “Sir, I think we may be wrong about this.”

I would take one honest sentence like that over a roomful of “Yes, Sir.”

Schools do not need superheroes in the principal’s office. Superheroes would probably be exhausting officemates anyway. They need people steady enough to listen, brave enough to make an unpopular but fair call, humble enough to change their minds, and secure enough to let others become good at leading.

Perhaps that is the principal effect at its best. The school does not fall apart when the principal leaves the room. People know what matters. They trust one another enough to disagree. And when something difficult happens, they can ask, “What is the right thing to do here?” Then they know enough, care enough, and trust one another enough to act.

There is just one rather important thing before we expect that from every school.

It helps to have a principal.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.