Whether you’re a private proprietor or a head master in a government-aided school, there are lots of things you have to sacrifice in order to do your job to the best of your ability. In case you give in to these things, you might find yourself going down and taking your school along with you.
In this article, we’re going to look at the basic things that you have to permanently bury in order to become a good school administrator.
1. Comfort
Running a school means you’re responsible for all the people in the school, and you still have to make sure that every decision and action drives towards the development of the school. In this, you might not get enough of things like;
- Sleep
- Travel/ adventure
- Leisure time
It’s because of these things that people are happy in life – therefore, not having to get them will cut down on your levels of happiness, which qualifies them to be called sacrifices.
2. Other business ventures
If you’ve just started up your school, it might take somewhere between 5-10 years to make it successful, as in attracting a large number of students and performing extremely well in final exams.
To be honest, this goal is too huge and few schools manage to hit it in that amount of time. Therefore, you have to be singlehandedly focused on the school, ignoring all other business ventures temporarily.
3. Income
When your school starts becoming profitable, don’t get excited yet, because everything is just getting started. This is because there’s a huge percentage of your income that you’ll have to reinvest in the school for;
- Setting up new infrastructure
- Renovating the existing infrastructure
- Buying more equipment for students and teachers to use
In return, the revenue that the school earns will increase in time, and you’ll have enough to use for other business ventures and personal growth.
4. Pride
You own an entire school and oversee all activities there. It’d be totally understandable if you became a little proud because of that. However, we’re discussing the hard choices here that involve things like;
- Asking for help and/or advice from your teachers
- Supervising your students
- Teaching
- Being frugal with your money
Pride is counterproductive, and there are countless stories of people who lost whatever they had because of it. Therefore, it’s important you stay humble and see things as you should.
5. Social life
Since this is like more than a full-time job, your social life will have to reduce, and you’ll experience things like;
- Missing out on social events
- Being absent on all social platforms
- Only having friends around the workplace
If you look at this critically, the reduction of your social circle will make you less prone to counterproductive friends that will demand your time and finances to sustain.
6. Luxury
This goes hand in hand with sacrificing your income for the growth of the school. By this, I mean you have to cut down on your expenditures and survive on the bare minimum. Examples of things you have to miss out include;
- A very expensive car
- More than one car
- A fancy house
- Giving your family expensive treats
If you play your long-term game well, these will just be sacrificed over the short term and later on, you’ll enjoy them without having to worry about anything.
7. The need to be liked
Leadership is a whole different game, as compared to things like friendship, because here, you’ll have to piss some people off in the process of getting the job done.
It’s not like you have to a stone in people’s shoes, but if you’re supposed to choose between keeping everyone happy while the school suffers decline – or getting the job done despite some people’s hard feelings, you should choose the latter
8. Entertainment
Entertainment today, is in more supply than it was way back, and that implies that the temptation is even stronger now than it was in the past, mainly in form of;
- Watching TV films or series
- Attending concerts
- Watching sports
If you can’t dose your entertainment, you can start by cutting it out totally, so you can get used to a new life without entertainment.
9. Sexual desires
When you start up a school, you’ll have lots of employees of your opposite sex, unless you deliberately choose people of your gender. The same applies to students too if you’re running a mixed school.
If you don’t tone down or absolutely do away with your lust, you’ll encounter things like;
- Legal battles over sexual misconduct
- Bad reputation for you and your school
- Deterioration of academic performance of the school due to loss of focus.
10. Counterproductive habits
Right now or in the past, you might have had some bad habits that can possibly lead to the decline of your school. Some of those habits include;
- Gambling
- Laziness
- Drug addictions
The thing about these habits is, they’ll rob you of money, time and sanity required to keep your school moving forward – leading to the decline of the school.
Conclusion;
In some cases, you’ll get some of these things like comfort and popularity because not everyone will hate you. However, you just can’t make them your priorities because that will only jeopardize the school’s progress – and you won’t get them anyway.