Top 12 High School Principal Skills to Put on Your Resume
Crafting a compelling resume to secure a high school principal position takes a clear display of leadership, management, and educational savvy. Spotlight the skills that matter most. Show how you cultivate a thriving learning culture, steer operations with calm precision, and rally people around shared goals.
High School Principal Skills
- Leadership
- Communication
- Budgeting
- Conflict Resolution
- Strategic Planning
- Empathy
- Team Building
- Decision-Making
- Google Workspace
- Microsoft Office
- Student Engagement
- Staff Development
1. Leadership
Leadership, in the context of a high school principal, is the work of guiding, inspiring, and supporting staff and students toward meaningful outcomes while keeping the school safe, inclusive, and focused on learning.
Why It's Important
Leadership shapes vision into daily practice. It lifts expectations, steadies the ship in choppy waters, aligns resources with priorities, and energizes people to grow.
How to Improve Leadership Skills
Sharpening leadership is ongoing, practical, and deeply human.
Elevate communication: Share decisions and context. Listen first, then clarify. Candor with care builds trust.
Lead with empathy: Understand what students, families, and staff face. Make space for voice and belonging.
Decide with discipline: Use data, weigh tradeoffs, set timelines, and own the outcome. Iterate when new evidence appears.
Shape culture intentionally: Celebrate wins, codify norms, and model the behavior you want scaled.
Invest in growth: Seek feedback, pursue coaching, read widely, and learn from peer principals.
Do these consistently and the hallways feel different—calmer, more focused, more alive.
How to Display Leadership Skills on Your Resume
2. Communication
Communication is the exchange of information and intent—spoken, written, or nonverbal—so that people truly understand one another and know what to do next.
Why It's Important
It reduces confusion, resolves friction, strengthens community trust, and keeps learning on track. When messages are clear, people move together.
How to Improve Communication Skills
Practical, steady steps beat flair.
Make listening visible: Paraphrase, ask follow-ups, and close loops so stakeholders feel heard.
Be transparent: Explain the why behind decisions. Publish regular updates across channels people actually use.
Create feedback paths: Short surveys, listening sessions, and open office hours surface issues early.
Mind tone and access: Use plain language, translations when needed, and multiple formats (email, SMS, in-person).
Use the right tool for the message: Quick alerts via SMS platforms; detailed guidance via email or the school portal; sensitive topics in person.
Build staff capacity: Offer brief trainings on family communication, de-escalation, and newsletter best practices.
Engage the community: Partner with local groups and caregivers—co-ownership beats one-way updates.
How to Display Communication Skills on Your Resume
3. Budgeting
Budgeting is the disciplined planning and tracking of funds so programs, staffing, and operations are resourced responsibly and sustainably.
Why It's Important
It keeps classrooms supplied, supports student services, protects staffing, and ensures equity doesn’t get squeezed when dollars get tight.
How to Improve Budgeting Skills
Set clear priorities: Tie dollars to student outcomes, safety, and legal requirements. If everything is priority one, nothing is.
Engage stakeholders: Invite teachers, students, and families into the process. Transparency improves choices and trust.
Use evidence: Analyze enrollment, attendance, program impact, and cost-per-student before shifting funds.
Build in contingencies: Reserve for mid-year surprises. Plan scenarios for revenue dips.
Leverage technology: Track commitments, forecast, and monitor variance monthly. Small gaps become big problems if ignored.
Expand revenue: Pursue grants, partnerships, and targeted fundraising aligned to the school plan.
How to Display Budgeting Skills on Your Resume
4. Conflict Resolution
Conflict resolution means addressing disputes quickly and fairly—listening, clarifying, and guiding people to agreements that repair harm and restore working relationships.
Why It's Important
Unresolved conflict drains time, morale, and learning minutes. Skilled resolution stabilizes classrooms and makes school feel safe.
How to Improve Conflict Resolution Skills
Listen first: Let each party tell their story. Surface interests, not just positions.
Name the issue: Define the core problem together. Clarity cools the temperature.
Teach skills: Train staff and student leaders in assertive communication and de-escalation.
Use mediation: Establish trained mediators and a consistent referral process.
Apply structured problem-solving: Brainstorm options, weigh impacts, choose, and document agreements.
Codify fair processes: Clear policies, consistent consequences, and restorative options prevent whiplash.
Embrace restorative practices: Repair harm, rebuild trust, and reintegrate students with dignity.
Reflect and improve: Review patterns each quarter and adjust supports where conflict clusters.
How to Display Conflict Resolution Skills on Your Resume
5. Strategic Planning
Strategic planning is the craft of setting a direction, choosing measurable targets, and mapping actions that move a school from today’s reality to tomorrow’s vision.
Why It's Important
It aligns people and resources, avoids initiative overload, and anchors improvement in data rather than hope.
How to Improve Strategic Planning Skills
Clarify vision: Describe what success looks like for students and staff in concrete terms.
Involve stakeholders: Co-create the plan with teachers, students, families, and partners to build buy-in.
Assess honestly: Use multiple data sources to understand strengths, gaps, and root causes.
Set SMART goals: Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound. No fuzzy targets.
Choose few, powerful strategies: Focus on high-yield practices and stop low-impact work.
Implement with rhythm: Calendars, owners, checkpoints. Meet, monitor, and adapt.
Evaluate and revise: Report progress, adjust tactics, and retire what doesn’t work.
How to Display Strategic Planning Skills on Your Resume
6. Empathy
Empathy is the ability to feel with others—catching the emotional temperature and responding with care that’s both kind and effective.
Why It's Important
Students learn best when they feel seen. Staff thrive when leaders understand their realities. Empathy fuels trust, inclusion, and better decisions.
How to Improve Empathy Skills
Practice active listening: Suspend judgment, reflect back, and ask curious questions.
Invite diverse perspectives: Student panels, family councils, and staff voice groups widen the lens.
Lead with dignity: Policies that presume positive intent and honor privacy signal care.
Use trauma-informed approaches: Predictable routines, choice, and regulation supports help everyone.
Model everyday kindness: Small gestures compound—check-ins, thank-yous, and timely support.
How to Display Empathy Skills on Your Resume
7. Team Building
Team building strengthens relationships and clarifies roles so groups solve problems faster and enjoy doing it together.
Why It's Important
Strong teams communicate openly, support one another, and move results. Culture lifts when collaboration is real, not performative.
How to Improve Team Building Skills
Open the channels: Norms for meetings, short stand-ups, and clear decision rights reduce friction.
Design for collaboration: Cross-disciplinary projects and common planning time create natural teamwork.
Run purposeful activities: Low-lift, regular team builders—focused on trust and problem-solving—beat one-off retreats.
Offer targeted PD: Facilitation, feedback, and conflict skills make teams sturdier.
Celebrate together: Shine light on team wins publicly and often.
Build inclusion: Ensure every voice is welcome and valued. Resources from organizations focused on equity, such as Learning for Justice, can inform practices.
How to Display Team Building Skills on Your Resume
8. Decision-Making
Decision-making is selecting a course of action among alternatives using values, evidence, and constraints as guides.
Why It's Important
Every choice echoes—staffing, safety, schedules, supports. Sound decisions protect learning time and build confidence in leadership.
How to Improve Decision-Making Skills
Collect the right data: Quantitative (attendance, assessments, budget) and qualitative (surveys, focus groups).
Consult wisely: Seek diverse viewpoints, especially those most affected by the decision.
Clarify criteria: Equity, impact, feasibility, cost—rank options against these.
Stress-test scenarios: Consider best case, likely case, worst case. Plan mitigations.
Decide and communicate: Be timely, explain the rationale, and outline next steps.
Monitor and adjust: Track outcomes and pivot when results lag.
How to Display Decision-Making Skills on Your Resume
9. Google Workspace
Google Workspace for Education is a cloud suite for communication, creation, and collaboration—Gmail, Docs, Drive, Classroom, Calendar, Meet, and more.
Why It's Important
It centralizes workflows, simplifies collaboration, and supports real-time learning while keeping documents organized and accessible.
How to Improve Google Workspace Skills
Centralize management: Use admin settings to structure organizational units, permissions, and groups cleanly.
Tidy your Drive: Shared Drives by team or function, clear naming conventions, and lifecycle rules prevent sprawl.
Supercharge Classroom: Standardize course templates, rubrics, and grading practices to reduce teacher load.
Streamline scheduling: Layered Calendars for events, testing, athletics, and PD keep everyone aligned.
Level-up staff skills: Short, focused trainings on Docs collaboration, Forms for workflows, and Meet norms pay off quickly.
Secure the environment: Enforce 2-step verification, data-loss prevention, and sensible sharing defaults.
How to Display Google Workspace Skills on Your Resume
10. Microsoft Office
Microsoft 365 Education offers Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, OneNote, and Forms—tools for content, collaboration, and communication.
Why It's Important
It drives productivity across classrooms and offices, from data tracking in Excel to live instruction and meetings in Teams.
How to Improve Microsoft Office Skills
Unify communication in Teams: Channels by department or grade-level, meetings with recordings, and shared files cut email noise.
Organize with OneNote: Staff notebooks for procedures, PLC notes, and observation cycles keep knowledge in one place.
Tap Microsoft 365 Education features: Leverage cloud storage, collaboration, and accessibility tools (Immersive Reader, dictation).
Grow expertise: Encourage micro-courses and badges via Microsoft Learn to deepen staff proficiency.
Use Forms for insight: Quick polls, exit tickets, and feedback loops inform decisions fast.
How to Display Microsoft Office Skills on Your Resume
11. Student Engagement
Student engagement is the energy students bring to learning—attention, curiosity, persistence, and ownership, inside and beyond the classroom.
Why It's Important
Engaged students learn more, stick with challenges, and show up. Attendance rises, behavior improves, and achievement follows.
How to Improve Student Engagement Skills
Personalize pathways: Choice in tasks, pacing supports, and interest-connected projects pull students in.
Use active learning: Discussions, labs, performances, and real-world problems beat passive note-taking.
Blend smart tech: Interactive tools for collaboration and feedback, with accessibility features baked in.
Build climate: Warm welcomes, consistent routines, and clear expectations create psychological safety.
Strengthen relationships: Advisory systems, mentoring, and frequent formative feedback anchor belonging.
Expand extracurriculars: Clubs, arts, and athletics widen doors for connection and leadership.
Partner with families: Two-way communication and family events reinforce engagement at home.
How to Display Student Engagement Skills on Your Resume
12. Staff Development
Staff development is the intentional growth of educator practice—coaching, collaboration, and learning that lifts teaching and, ultimately, student outcomes.
Why It's Important
Better teaching changes everything. Ongoing development keeps practice current, consistent, and effective.
How to Improve Staff Development Skills
Diagnose needs: Use observations, student data, and teacher voice to target the right skills.
Set measurable goals: Align PD to the school plan with clear success criteria.
Build PLCs: Teams that analyze student work, plan together, and reflect weekly grow faster.
Diversify learning: Workshops, peer observation, coaching cycles, and micro-credentials—different paths, same standards.
Leverage technology: Short on-demand modules and shared resource hubs keep learning continuous.
Mentor intentionally: Pair new or developing teachers with trained mentors and protected time.
Give actionable feedback: Bite-sized, frequent, and tied to one or two look-fors at a time.
Recognize growth: Celebrate progress publicly and connect advancement to demonstrated practice.
How to Display Staff Development Skills on Your Resume
