"We don’t rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems." — James Clear Success as a school leader isn’t just about knowing what to do. It’s about having the capacity to do it, especially when it’s hard. School leaders are a critical leverage point in student success. In fact, after the classroom teacher, principals have the largest school-based impact on student outcomes. We know a lot about what effective leaders do: classroom observations, feedback, d

“You have to know yourself before you can lead yourself, and you have to lead yourself before you can lead others.” — Jim Kouzes Leadership development doesn’t begin with strategy or systems. It begins with self-awareness . When I coach leaders, I always look at their practices - how they use time, how they make decisions, how they lead change. But I also look at something less visible: Do they reflect on themselves? Why? Because effective leadership isn’t just about doing th

“Knowledge of effective leadership practices is not the same thing as knowledge of the capacities required for enactment.” — Viviane Robinson We don’t need another list of what great school leaders do . Leaders are inundated with “best practices” and theoretical frameworks. We need a better understanding of what makes it possible for them to do it. School leadership isn’t failing from a lack of information - it’s failing from a lack of capacity. We know what strong leaders sh

“Systems produce exactly the results they’re designed to produce.” - W. Edwards Deming “If we want different outcomes, we need different systems.” — Peter Senge We design tiered interventions for students because we know they learn at different rates and in different ways. But when it comes to teachers, we often revert to one-size-fits-all support: everyone gets the same PD day, the same meeting, the same follow-up, regardless of their needs or expertise. We would never teach

“Teachers need much more than a workshop to improve instruction. They need time to learn, time to plan collaboratively, to receive coaching, and to reflect.” - Michael Fullan We’ve all experienced it: Professional development that looks like this: everyone gathered in the cafeteria or library, facing forward, while an “expert” clicks through a slide deck and occasionally asks the group generic open-ended questions. The topic might be new curriculum, behavior strategies, or an

“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” — Tony Blair.  "When it comes to student performance on reading and math tests, teachers are estimated to have two to three times the effect of any other school factor, including services, facilities, and even leadership." — Isaac M. Opper, Understanding  Teachers’  Impact  on  Student  Achievement   (RAND Corporation, 2019) It’s not new or flashy, but it’s true: The greatest influence on stud

"The greatest challenge of leadership isn't securing followership—it's cultivating distributed capacity for leadership while maintaining strategic coherence." Everyone Has a Plan—But Few Have a Strategy for Execution Nearly every school and district has a strategic plan—improvement frameworks, equity initiatives, continuous improvement cycles, and instructional priorities. However, most educational leaders lack a systematic approach to executing those plans with precision. Pr

"We can't hold schools accountable for what we're unwilling to model as district leaders." A Shift in Perspective We would never accept a one-size-fits-all approach to student learning. Every educator knows that students come to us with different strengths, needs, backgrounds, and readiness levels. We've built entire frameworks around meeting students where they are—Response to Intervention, Multi-Tiered Systems of Support, differentiated instruction, personalized learning pa

"The greatest challenge of leadership is not getting people to follow you. It's getting them to lead with you." The Problem With Most...

"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."  — John F. Kennedy Why Most School Improvement Plans Never Reach Their...

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world” - Mahatma Gandhi We All Want Better Schools—But Where Should Change Begin? Most of...

“Almost all successful leaders draw on the same repertoire of basic leadership practices. The difference is in how they apply...

"The greatest challenge of leadership is not getting people to follow you. It's getting them to lead with you." A new principal walks...

"Almost all successful leaders draw on the same repertoire of basic leadership practices." — Leithwood, Harris, & Hopkins (2019) When it...

“Clarity around the goal changes everything. What we notice, how we act, and what we build” In our last blog, we unpacked the “WHAT” that...

“The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.”  — Hans Hofmann Improving schools is often...

“Leadership is second only to classroom instruction among all school-related factors that contribute to what students learn at school.” —...

“In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”  — Dwight D. Eisenhower In the...

“The future depends on what you do today." — Mahatma Gandhi Change fails when we start the process too late in the season. Many leaders...

“ No significant learning [or change] occurs without a significant relationship. ” — Dr. James Comer We often think successful change...