When I became a principal, one of my primary goals was to provide teachers the kind of feedback and support I craved but didn’t experience as a teacher. I believe a principal’s top priority has to be doing everything possible to optimize teaching and learning, just as a teacher’s job is to do everything possible to maximize student learning. The most powerful tool to improve teaching and learning is the observation process — that is, when it is done with a focus on growing the individual capacity of each teacher instead of making evaluative, graded judgements. Studies show that such summative judgments decrease teachers’ creativity, innovation, and risk-taking (O’Leary, 2017). If you ask teachers about their experiences with the observation process, you are likely to