In Search of Excellence: The Six Characteristics of School Leaders of High-NPS Schools

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good

When parents recommend a day school to their friends, they are grading its leaders. We surveyed over 3,000 Jewish day school parents across 20 Jewish day schools in the Benchmarking for Good network. The schools with the highest Net Promoter Scores do not stand out for General Studies, safety or class size. They stand out for how their leaders treat people.

At high-NPS schools, parents are 19 points more likely to be very satisfied that the school treats student feedback with respect. They are 16 points more likely to be very satisfied with proactive communication about their child. Only 3% of them wrote a critical comment about leadership, against 9% at the lowest-NPS schools.

In 1982, Tom Peters and Robert Waterman's In Search of Excellence found that the best-run companies stayed close to the customer. The best-led day schools stay close to their families.

How we found the high-NPS schools

We split the 20 schools into thirds by NPS and compared the top seven with the bottom seven. The top seven scored 63 to 77, the bottom seven 16 to 50.

Where high-NPS schools pull ahead

On every leadership and culture rating, high-NPS schools lead by 12 to 19 points, and each gap is significant at the school level. Academic and program ratings show gaps of 6 to 9 points, with no significant link to NPS.

What parents say about their leaders

Parents at high-NPS schools complain about leadership a third as often. 3.1% of them wrote a critical comment about leadership, against 9.3% at lower-NPS schools (chi-square p < .001). Among comments about leadership, high-NPS schools drew 28 positive and 41 negative, while lower-NPS schools drew 27 positive and 136 negative (p < .001).

The complaints that dominate at lower-NPS schools are rare at high-NPS schools:

Critical comments, per 100 parents	High-NPS schools	Lower-NPS schools
Direction and competence of leaders	1.2	3.9
Oversight of teachers	1.1	3.8
Handling of discipline and bullying	0.4	2.7
Communication with parents	1.2	2.4
Not listening to parents	0.7	2.2

When parents at high-NPS schools praise their leaders, they describe being heard, having access, and a sense of purpose:

• "The give and take between parents and administration is wonderful. Parents are heard and respected."

• "My daughter has no issue voicing her concerns to the principal."

• "Well run. The administration knows who the client is."

• "The head of school brings inspiration to the students and parents and is an excellent role model."

• "There is a strong growth mindset in the administration and a constant goal to make things even better."

• "The principal sincerely believes in and supports the mission of the school."

At lower-NPS schools, the same subjects come up as failures:

• "After four meetings with the administration … there was no solution."

• "The administration thinks they know better than us about nearly every situation."

• "Toxic peer interactions and administrative unresponsiveness to our concerns."

• "The head of school is an empty chair."

High-NPS schools are not immune to complaints. Some of their parents still report poor communication or an unresponsive division head. The difference is how often it happens.

Portrait of an excellent school leader

The ratings and the comments point to six habits that set the leaders of high-NPS schools apart.

1. They treat feedback as information, not as an attack. "Treats feedback from students with respect" shows the widest leadership gap between the groups, 19 points. It is also the strongest single predictor of parents' confidence in school leadership.

2. They communicate first. Parents at high-NPS schools hear about their child before they have to ask. Proactive communication shows a 16-point gap, and responsiveness to parents' messages a 12-point gap.

3. They set the moral tone. "Focuses on teaching good values and building character" correlates with school NPS at ρ = .92, the strongest link of any item in the survey. "Provides effective role models" follows at ρ = .81.

4. They are known to the students. The relationship between the administration and the students shows a 15-point gap. In one parent's words: "My daughter has no issue voicing her concerns to the principal."

5. They build classrooms where children want to learn. "Administrators create an environment that helps my child learn" shows a 14-point gap. Parents base that rating mostly on what their child experiences: engaging lessons, enjoying school, and teaching that fits the child.

6. They hold teachers to account. Critical comments about weak teachers and unmet learning plans run at 1.1 per 100 parents at high-NPS schools, against 3.8 at lower-NPS schools.

Just as telling is what does not separate the groups once you compare schools. Satisfaction with General Studies, class size, campus safety, extracurriculars and sports show no significant link to school NPS. Parents at lower-NPS schools are actually happier with their school's location.

What this means for heads of school and boards

Parent loyalty depends on habits a leader can practice and a board can measure.

• Measure how you listen. Track how quickly parents get a reply. Close the loop on every concern raised, and tell families what changed because of their feedback.

• Communicate before you are asked. Tell parents about their child before a problem forces the conversation.

• Look division by division. About half of parents' mixed comments contrast a strong division with a weak one. A school-wide score can hide a struggling middle school behind a well-loved early childhood program.

• Evaluate heads on relationships, not only on budget and enrollment. Boards can add measures like respect for feedback and proactive communication to the head's annual review.

• Run transitions in the open. Some of the sharpest criticism of a new head came from parents who saw the search as "neither open nor transparent."

How Benchmarking for Good Can Help Your School’s Leaders

Our research grants which provide deep research insights from parents, students, and teachers enable a school leader to gain a factbased view of their leadership strengths and weaknesses and thereby enable them to learn to progress toward excellence. Contact harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org to discuss your school’s opportunities to benefit from our expertise.