Developing Resonant, Resilient and Nimble Leaders

Examine key skills and strategies to develop leadership skills and practice self-care to support resilience, including 360-degree assessment and mentoring strategies.

District leaders face a range of current and emergent challenges that will require them to exercise resonant, resilient, and nimble leadership to sustain their organizations and empower employees. Future leaders must prepare teachers for learning environments that are currently undergoing demographic, technological, and economic transformations, changes that are expected to continue into the foreseeable future. Additionally, leaders themselves must also be prepared to lead in various political climates that pivot wildly and without warning. Teaching leaders to handle a single crisis or solve a single problem is not enough. District leaders must be resonant, i.e., they need to be in constant tune with their staff, community, and students; resilient, i.e., they need to have inner strength and health and project strength and optimism to meet challenges; and nimble, i.e., their skills, knowledge, and dispositions need to be honed to solve any problem and address any crisis – whether those challenges are political, demographic, technology, or economic.

To support AASA's mission of developing school leader capacity at every level, AASA has partnered with Hanover Research to prepare the following report on developing resonant, resilient, nimble leaders. This report draws on available research examining school district leadership, including research across sectors relevant for school and district leaders. This report includes the following sections:

• Section I reviews key skills associated with resonant, resilient, and nimble leadership in the literature and available literature examining the impact of these skills on leadership outcomes.
• Section II reviews strategies to develop leadership skills and practice self-care to support resilience, including 360-degree assessment and mentoring strategies.