Courageous and Uplifting Leadership

It’s the engine that motors school districts toward excellence through equity

It was Monday morning and the middle school had flooded over the weekend. Told it would take two weeks to reopen, the superintendent quickly moved this crisis to the top of his growing list that already included keeping lights on, making payroll, building teachers’ capacity to deliver engaging and rigorous instruction, and meeting state requirements for school improvement in a school district that ranked last in the state.

Yet Marcus Newsome, who was the new superintendent of the Petersburg, Va., City Public Schools, was smiling this morning during the city partnership meeting that convened top leaders from the state, city and school district. Toward the end of the meeting, Newsome told the fellow officials: “I’m happy to report that the predicted two-week closing of our middle school didn’t happen. It opened on time this Monday morning! I’d shared with everyone at the school that we needed ‘all hands on deck,’ and they made it happen.”

Newsome publicly acknowledged the school’s janitor and other staff members who had taken the lead in ensuring the school opened on time. He also sent each a personal thank you.

In the past, Petersburg staff would likely have responded differently to such a crisis. This time, there was a significant change. It began with a courageous leader — someone who runs toward, not away from challenges.

A Time to Act

Throughout history, public leaders as diverse as Aristotle, Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King Jr. have pointed to courage — a word derived from the French root word “le Coeur” or “heart” — as the most important of all virtues. This brand of leadership is not based on self-promotion or ego but on sacrificing for the greater good, which in public education means promoting inclusiveness and equity for all children.

Effective leaders use the five principles of courageous leadership to face the facts and their fears and to address challenges head-on. When these principles guide the work, the efforts build trust and are more likely to be sustainable districtwide.

» No. 1: Get to your core.

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” With school board politics, resistance to meeting diverse students’ needs and punitive financial and accountability measures serving as distractors from educating our children, we must be rooted in a personal connection to why we are advocating for children each day. The more personal the connection, the more steadfast will be our effort.

Every successful superintendent has a way to stay connected to this core. Aaron Spence, superintendent of the 67,000-student Virginia Beach, Va., City Schools, reminds himself daily of his personal connection to help all children and make sure they get the best education possible. He watches prospective principals walk through the building to see if they talk with students and teachers. Did they notice what was happening in the school? Did they connect directly with the students? He makes expectations clear, like the importance of knowing the names of the children who are struggling.

Amy Sichel, superintendent of the 8,000-student Abington School District in Philadelphia’s northern suburbs, celebrates schools’ successes with the students “to stay focused on the small wins vs. the big downs” that poor policy delivers. Sichel says she is personally energized by her ability to have influence beyond Abington by mentoring incoming professionals to leave a legacy and “keep public education alive.”

The daily routine of Dallas Dance, superintendent in Baltimore County, Md., includes praying, working out and staying connected to his own children, his colleagues and the district’s 112,000 students. Letting go of the negative interactions and starting each day with a blank slate helps sustain positive energy. As Dance explains, “Most parent complaints are about the role I’m playing — not about me personally.”

When leaders have a core connection to the work, they are optimistic about meeting seemingly insurmountable challenges. Maintaining this attitude is essential to courageous leadership. As Newsome says, “Each one of us has the ability to set the temperature for the room. It’s important to come in daily with the brightest of views in the toughest of times. We are leaders. Others feed off us, and if we aren’t optimistic, they don’t stand a chance.”

» No. 2: Face the facts and your fears.

Data reflecting poor performance, especially among subgroups, often become the catalyst to action. In Abington, Pa., the data showing gaps between the majority of the student body and minority and special education students compelled district leaders to ask whether being a good district was enough. In North Carolina’s Charlotte-Mecklenburg district, with its 147,000 students, Superintendent Ann Clark used data indicating wide gaps in reading proficiency to galvanize the schools and the community to change course.

Courageous leaders don’t use data as a weapon but rather as a tool for improvement. They don’t leverage fear to achieve greater results, but focus on how to collectively face the challenge and become mutually supportive and accountable for meeting the needs of students. The goal is improving the action, not punishing the actor.

Awash in data, courageous leaders focus on making data manageable, meaningful and a catalyst for improvement. Sichel uses what she terms “getting results teams.” They are building-based, mixed groups that analyze student results, select focus areas of concern, develop a specific action plan and prepare progress reports for her toward continuous student achievement.

» No. 3: Make organizational meaning.

The best school districts choose an overarching strategy for improvement rooted in their stakeholders’ core beliefs and vision, a clear-eyed analysis of the internal facts and external research, and a coherent way forward.

The strategy for the high-performing Abington district was to open Advanced Placement classes to all students while providing low-performing groups with the necessary supports to succeed. The plan for closing gaps between schools in Charlotte-Mecklenburg was strategic staffing in which high-performing principals and a select leadership team moved to the lowest-performing schools. Improvement plans were designed by those who were doing the actual work. It has since become a badge of honor to be chosen to lead a low-performing school in that district.

» No. 4: Ensure constancy and consistency of focus.

The greatest challenges to success for every student in America are the policies that promote one child over another and punish educators for being ill-equipped to address the multiple and increasingly serious issues students bring with them to school.

Even in the toughest circumstances, someone in each district is succeeding with the same students that others are failing. Cyndee Blount, chief academic officer in the Petersburg schools, uses several strategies to build a process that enhances trust, communication and cohesion around instruction.

Principal partners. Recently retired principals from a high-performing neighboring district were recruited as partners and mentors for each Petersburg principal. The retirees — selected based on a history of success in schools with similar populations, demographics and/or instructional needs — work to build the instructional capacity of leaders and teachers. They support the principal with everything, including developing the school improvement plan, providing professional development and joining the principal in teacher observations, debriefing, reflection and collaborative decision making.

Instructional leadership. A shift in the perception of the building principal from manager to instructional leader was necessary to convey the urgency of improving daily instruction. In Petersburg, Blount and instructional teams built professional development toolkits that included presentations, talking points, engaging activities and instructional look-fors to use in walkthroughs. Principals, along with building-level instructional leaders, received the training first, then delivered the presentations to teachers and over subsequent weeks provided increasingly intensive feedback using a common protocol during walkthroughs.

Central office as support for schools. Staff in the district office collaborate on and monitor each school improvement plan. Blount and a central-office team meet monthly with site leaders to expedite physical and human resources. Real-time support boosts trust, morale and results.

Courageous leaders promote a culture that addresses the diversity of needs their students bring with them to school. They use student voice to inform their plans and the students themselves to help implement and evaluate them. Students also can galvanize the community and influence key policymakers. To alleviate distractions, courageous leaders often act as buffers against external politics so their staff can concentrate on teaching and learning.

» No. 5: Build sustainable relations.

The lifeblood of any organization is trusting relationships. Without trust among the adults in a school, there is almost no chance that students will excel in their academics. Building relationships with school boards, community members and parents makes it possible for district leaders to advance their core mission. Likewise, working authentically from their core and aligning with the other leadership principles, these leaders enhance trusting and sustainable relations.

When driven by mission rather than ego, leaders can listen more intently to the ideas and concerns of others. Newsome began his successful tenures at Newport News, Va., Chesterfield County, Va., and now Petersburg by asking questions and listening to all stakeholders, including adults who had no children in the schools. Responses to questions like “What do you believe is needed to ensure a quality education?” fueled the first student-led convocation in which the theme was “I Believe.” It brought together the best thinking of the community, as well as the state education department and the governor’s office, as they worked collaboratively to make Petersburg a model for other urban districts.

When leaders welcome various voices and state their values, yet allow others to shape a collective vision and appreciate individual roles in the success of every child, they build sustainable relationships toward a greater good.

The Driving Engine

Understanding and meeting the needs of people begins at the top and must permeate all levels. Although specifics vary depending on the context, the guiding principles for success in every school district remain the same. Excellence through equity is the pathway forward, and courageous leadership is the engine to get there. 

Alan Blankstein is founder of the HOPE Foundation and Solution Tree and co-author with Pedro Noguera of Excellence Through Equity: Five Principles of Courageous Leadership to Guide Achievement for Every Student. Read this article and more on his website. E-mail: ablankstein@hopefoundation.org. Twitter: @AlanBlankstein