The Foundations of Effective Leadership

"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, data use, building culture, and more. These practices are visible, measurable, and increasingly well-documented.

But here’s the problem: knowing what to do is not the same as being able to do it. Despite years of investment in leadership development, we’ve had limited success improving principal performance at scale. And one reason is this: Most leadership support focuses on what leaders should do - not on why they struggle to do it in the first place.

In my coaching, I often meet school leaders who care deeply, work hard, and know the research on effective leadership practices. But they’re stuck. Why?

Because they’re overwhelmed by the day-to-day, distracted by competing priorities, and under-equipped in key foundational skills, like time management, organization, and communication.

Recent Example

I worked with a principal last year who lamented how poorly he was completing the teacher evaluation system. He described his belief in the importance of feedback to teachers and the role of the principal as an instructional leader. However, he also recognized the ineffectiveness of the current evaluation system in making those things happen. 

After digging into what that system looked like, I realized that the reason he wasn’t able to use the evaluation system in a way that might improve practice was his personal organization and time management. Observations were often scheduled last minute and debrief conversations sometimes weeks later. He was rarely prepared to observe effectively and had little time to provide coherent feedback or prepare for capacity building debrief conversations. While he still needed to develop his skills related to teacher observation and feedback, he could never get better at them because he did not have the time or organizational structure to make that happen.

We started by creating a proactively scheduled calendar that spread observations out across the year. Next, we calendared time in his schedule to prepare for observations, to have debrief conversations, and to plan for how to make those conversations effective.

After a month of using the system, he reported feeling much better about how things were progressing and in his ability to engage in this part of his job. We then began working on how to improve his skills as an observer and in giving effective feedback. Because he had the underlying system created and had experienced some success (which helped him build some self-efficacy), he was able to engage in that improvement work.

Most powerfully, later in the year we began brainstorming how to improve his practices by fostering a stronger building leadership team. He immediately began to examine how he could schedule time to prepare for meetings and other possible systems (ie: improved agenda) without my prompting. This underlying time management strategy was transferable in supporting his other work.

When we build underlying competencies, we not only bridge the actual barriers getting in the way of improved leadership practices, but we also build capacity that transfers across leadership domains.

The Real Barrier: Capacity, Not Just Practice

Research tends to focus on distal antecedents (aka, individual characteristics) of leadership, like personality traits or leadership styles. These are certainly impactful, but they’re often fixed or hard to influence.

My dissertation focused on proximal antecedents, or the the things we can develop:

• Cognitive and problem-solving skills

• Self-efficacy

• Leadership decision-making

• The ability to reflect and analyze context

• Time use, prioritization, and core management skills

These are the malleable capacities that make the difference between a principal who knows what to do, and one who can actually do it.

In fact, as much as 40% of the difference between effective and ineffective principals may lie in these underlying capacities, not just their knowledge of best practices.

What My Study Found

In my dissertation, I studied how Cognitive Personal Leadership Resources (CPLRs), especially problem-solving, influence principal practices.

All participants described spending much of their time solving problems: planning ahead, responding to unexpected events, and making decisions about what to prioritize. They used both proactive and reactive problem-solving processes, often in rapid succession, to plan their time, initiate change efforts, and respond to the needs of students, staff, and families.

This wasn’t a binary.

Every leader operated in both modes.

But the most effective leadership came when leaders were able to:

• Anticipate rather than only respond

• Reflect before reacting

• Align decisions with core values and goals

Their problem-solving process included:

• CPLRs: knowledge of effective conditions and systems thinking

• Past experiences

• Self-efficacy

• A personal theory of action developed over time

This theory of action helped them interpret what mattered most, and make faster, more confident decisions when the pressure hit. But the ability to stay in proactive mode more often required intentional development of internal skills and leadership habits.

The Theory of Action Puzzle

Participants consistently described refining a personal “theory of action,” a kind of internal leadership map shaped by:

• Their beliefs about what matters most

• Their self-confidence in specific domains

• Their past successes and failures

• Their ability to read and respond to context

But here’s the catch: even a well-formed theory of action breaks down when competing priorities, limited time, or unpracticed skills enter the equation.

They struggled with:

• Balancing service leadership vs. empowering others

• Navigating confidentiality vs. transparency

• Supporting staff without overburdening them

These are not simple trade-offs. They require reflection, communication, and confidence, especially in the moment.

The Skills That Matter Most

Beyond CPLRs, participants identified several foundational leadership skills as critical to effective practice:

• Time Management – How they allocate limited minutes defines what gets done

• Communication – Especially the ability to engage in difficult conversations

• Strategic Planning – Aligning short-term actions to long-term goals

• Change Management – Supporting people through transition and resistance

• Reflection – Learning from experience to refine future action

Each of these showed up repeatedly in the interviews; not as nice-to-haves, but as necessary enablers of practice.

Without them, leaders defaulted to reaction.

With them, they could lead with intention, even in chaos.

So What Does This Mean for Leadership Coaching?

If we want to build leadership capacity, we must coach beneath the surface. That means helping leaders:

• Examine their theory of action

• Reflect on the beliefs and habits shaping their daily practice

• Develop the skills to manage time, people, and pressure

• Strengthen their self-efficacy in critical areas

• Learn to make proactive decisions—even in reactive environments

Reflection Question

What’s one underlying competency or skill that you might develop to improve your practices?