Knowing and Responding to Your Community Through Resonant Leadership

Key competencies of resonant leadership and the importance of resonant leadership for superintendent wellbeing and school culture.

Empathy is often underrecognized as a critical skill for effective leaders and is particularly necessary for leaders in challenging and emotionally-demanding environments, such as education. Educators and educational leaders experience substantial stress and benefit from a leader who can recognize, understand, and tune into their emotions.

To support AASA's mission of developing school leader capacity and building support for mental health, AASA has partnered with Hanover Research to prepare a series of reports on resilient, nimble, and resonant leadership for district and school leaders. The first report in this series discussed the role of resilience in leadership and culture, while the second focused on nimble leadership. This report, the third in the series, discusses the key competencies of resonant leadership and the importance of resonant leadership for superintendent wellbeing and school culture. Much of the literature within this report comes from authors, such as Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee, who originally developed and popularized the concept of resonant leadership through the books they wrote in the mid- 2000s. Synthesizing the empirical literature on resonant leadership, this report includes the following sections:

• Section I: Understanding Resonant Leadershipdefines resonant leadership and reviews the competencies of resonant leadership, including emotional intelligence, renewal and mindfulness, and empathy and compassion.
• Section II: The Impact of Resonant Leadership examines the importance of resonant leadership for educational leaders as well as the role of resonant leadership qualities in school and district culture.