Why School Leadership Doesn’t Have to Be Lonely | The LeveragED Team

Introduction

Victoria Andrews: I’m Victoria Andrews, and you’re listening to the Getting Smart Podcast. At Getting Smart, we are huge believers in the power of community and building on the collective knowledge of each member of that community. However, so often in education, the educational leaders who are tasked to build these ecosystems are often the ones that are left out when we think about building and growing and learning. They often do so in silos, especially when it comes to innovative systems. They work long hours, they may not have anybody to bounce those ideas off, and they may not have anybody to just even challenge their thinking. And when they do make a mistake, it’s often done publicly with little margin for a learning curve. However, leaders that are looking for a place can find a place to learn, to grow, and connect with the crew from LeveragED.

Today I’m joined by the team at LeveragED. They are taking an active role in building the human capacity of school leaders across the country. I’m grateful today to be joined by Senior Director James Deenihan, Chief Program Officer Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter, and the Executive Officer Meghan Mackay. How are you all doing today?

Meghan Mackay: Great, thank you.

Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter: Well, how are you?

James Deenihan: Great. Thanks for having us.

Victoria Andrews: So grateful for you all and for having this conversation.

Why LeveragED Focuses on School Leaders

Victoria Andrews: For those listeners that may not even be familiar with what LeveragED is doing, can you please share a little bit about the origin story and the impetus for it being created?

Meghan Mackay: Sure. So a lot of what we do at LeveragED is connecting people, and so much of that comes from this notion of it’s lonely when you are leading school systems. It’s lonely when you feel like you don’t have anybody to talk to about it. And so we’ve created this community of learners who are leaders in schools around the country.

And really, it started from this notion of people kept asking us, “What should we be doing?” And we thought, “We should really get people together because they need each other.” And so that was really sort of the first… It was really during COVID that people started calling and saying, “What should we be doing?”

And we said, “Let’s get people together on a call and bring your best stuff. Let’s talk about it.” And it was this helpful conversation that really brought people together. And some of it was also just we knew that children deserve to have leaders who are leading schools that really are focused on them as learners.

And then we thought, “But who’s focused on the leaders?” And so that’s what we do. We focus on the leaders.

Invest, Amplify and Connect

Victoria Andrews: And it’s so necessary. Like you said, it’s hard to pour from an empty cup. We say that in education all the time, but we never talk about who’s pouring into the leader’s cup. And to know that you guys have several offerings to do that, and your three key pillars do that in different ways too. So you’ve got invest, amplify, and connect. Can you share how you use those three pillars to do exactly what you’re saying that you set out to do, which was build up those leaders?

Meghan Mackay: Yeah, sure. So I think a lot of it is investing in their growth means asking them, “What is it that you need?” So it’s not necessarily just we’re giving, it’s more we’re listening, and we’re trying to respond to the need. So that investment is really in them because we know that we really need some great leaders around the country leading schools.

The part around connect is then we connect them to each other, which of course amplifies all of their strengths, and really then amplify itself is like spreading the good word about all the good things that are happening within schools around the country and within their relationships with each other.

I think that that piece of it, you never know what’s gonna come from that. So we’ve seen lots of people partner, we’ve seen lots of people do collaborations and build things together, and I feel like they are more invested in themselves when they get to work with other people who are also invested in making sure that we have great education systems.

How School Leaders Collaborate Across Schools

Victoria Andrews: So what do some of those collaborations look like in action? What are some of the active collaborations that have come from their time together?

Meghan Mackay: James, do you wanna take that one?

James Deenihan: Sure. Well, I think some of the collaborations that are really coming together is as we’ve built these communities, leaders are able to really build, again, their community together and lean on each other and make sure that they’re coming together, really deciding upon how they can work together, where they can lean on each other.

That can look like helping each other through different problems that they may be facing in their role and in their school communities. It may also mean that you’re building out sessions that you’re going to do because you wanna present work that you’re doing together at conferences.

And it can also mean that you’ve sparked an idea together that you actually want to figure out and say, “There’s a problem that I think we both have a skill set that we can join and really solve, a problem that we know others are facing, but we have the unique abilities to really join forces together and to help solve it.”

Adaptive Skills for Today’s School Leaders

Victoria Andrews: And historically, like most master’s programs or leadership programs, they don’t really equip leaders to manage in that way. I know that when I went through my master’s program, there wasn’t a how to reach out across to another campus and actually actively collaborate. So knowing that there is power in having a shared co-conspirator, for lack of a better term, to attack a problem, how has the educational landscape right now changed to the point where leaders do need to evolve to meet that need?

Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter: I think one of the things that we’re learning, right, is you mentioned when you went to school, we oftentimes were focused on the technical skills, right? Around what school historically looked like and the things that we would need on day one. And oftentimes, I’m sure that any of us who have been to sort of a teachers college or any sort of institution, it sounds great, and we think we’re ready, and then we go into the classroom, and we meet children, and we realize that we have to meet the moment, and the skills that got us to this moment are not the skills that will get us to the next moment. And as the landscape of education is rapidly evolving, there is an underinvestment, we believe, in the adaptive skills and the community relations, if you will, in order to help leaders find their people, but also to understand that regardless of what the landscape will look like eventually, it’s those adaptive skills that will help leaders meet that moment. And so, for example, rather than thinking about how to run a great planning meeting, it’s how do I respond to crisis? If I’m noticing that the advent of AI is now in schools, how do I make sure that we’re really focused on the thinking work that kids need to do in order to be thinking people when they meet this world that necessarily wasn’t created for them? And I think that the more that we over-invest in the adaptive skills, leaders will feel prepared for anything. And our hope is that that level of preparation will allow them to sustain themselves in their jobs for longer.

What Leaders Ask For

Victoria Andrews: Knowing that, as Meghan mentioned before, you guys are really great about actively listening to your members in your community, and then Richard, you stating some of those adaptive skills, can you share a story of some of your members actively asking for support on specific skills?

Meghan Mackay: So I’ll say some of the things that we do are really crowdsourced. So it’s not just our ideas. We really do ask people, “What is it that you need?” So things that have come from that are things like, “I wanna present at a conference, but I don’t know how to do that, and I don’t know how to apply and make it compelling.”

So we put together a package to help people learn how to put together their own packages for presenting at a conference. That’s one example. Another one is that we believe in ongoing learning, and oftentimes leaders are the last ones to say, “I need something that will help me get to the next level.”

And so we’ve done some things where we have them go through an online course through Harvard that we facilitate, and they get a certificate at the end of it from Harvard, not from us. And what they do is that they’re collaborators in the work. And so though everybody needs to go through the program themselves, we also facilitate conversations around: What are you learning? How would you put this into practice?

So I think of us as being very hands-on in some ways when people ask for it, but we’re not trying to push some agenda on them. It’s really like you come with the needs that you have, and we figure out whether or not we can make that happen. We also ask people to contribute, so we know that there are some people in our leadership community who are really good at facilitating conversations, so we ask them to give back by facilitating conversations among the other leaders.

LaunchPad, The Collective and The Cohort Experience

Victoria Andrews: And knowing that, as you guys mentioned before, leaders’ needs are gonna be varied. The spaces in which they’re working are just as diverse as probably the members of your community. Can you guys share a little bit about the different program offerings you have? I know that there’s LaunchPad, and you mentioned the course from Harvard.

These seem like exceptional opportunities, especially for leaders that are just go-getters and wanna continue to strive and grow. Can you share with our listeners what somebody could possibly get into?

Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter: Sure. You just mentioned LaunchPad, which is a 10-month experience, a program that supports leaders in building and sustaining schools, right? And so they work on leadership alongside the practical systems and decisions that let schools carry out their missions over time. There’s the Collective community, right, which is an ongoing professional community, and it gives leaders the relationships, the development, and ways to share what they’re learning with each other. And then there is a cohort experience, which is a three-month experience where leaders really bring complex problems of practice into small, deliberately assembled groups.

These problems do not have clear solutions. So it’s not like, you know, how do I build a schedule that meets the needs of all learners? That’s not what we’re talking about. These are very complex problems that really require people to grapple with and sit with the different ways that they show up inside a problem, the different ways they should be thinking about the problem, and it’s done with a group of people. And the goal of that is to have people think about themselves and their problems differently and to give them many ways that they could approach it. We’re not promising to solve the problem for them. We’re giving them the tools and requisite skills to help think about how to solve the problem themselves.

Bringing Hard Problems to a Brain Trust

Victoria Andrews: What are some of the problems that some of the leaders have come up with? Like you said, the master schedule is always gonna be a problem, but hopefully with some AI widgets and tools, people are getting a little bit better. And I appreciate that you said you’re not there to solve the problem, but just to provide a lens in order to see the problem a different way or in a different context. What are some of the problems that might have come up?

Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter: Yeah. We do believe in Vegas rules. I won’t give specifics, but I will say that, you know, imposterism is a thing, right? All of us have gone through that experience at some point where we are not fully confident in our own capacity to meet the moment for whomever and wherever we’re serving. And so we really wanna help unpack that, right? What is it about the environment? What is it about you? What is it about the way you’re thinking or what you’re experiencing that isn’t allowing you to show up as your best self in order to meet the moment for your respective community or even for the people that you serve?

That’s one example of that. Another example of that might mean, hey, there is a deep tension between my values and what I’m being asked to do, and how do I flex between those two in a way that I’m still honoring myself, but I’m also delivering for what is expected of me?

That’s not something that has a black and white A or B, then C. And it takes a lot of nuanced thinking and examination from people who think and learn differently. So one of the ways that those cohorts are constructed is that we want people who are gonna push on each other. Everyone doesn’t think the same, everyone doesn’t have the same job, and we actually are very clear that this is not a moment for you to flex your title, right? We actually don’t care about that, right? We actually want people to show up as people. And so I might think this way, you might think this way, but the brain trust allows you a 360 perspective to be able to think differently and respond differently. And then what we find is that those small groups of people continue after the experience is over, right? Which is actually what we want. We want them to find their people, and we want them to be able to lean on their people as other problems arise.

Keeping Students at the Center of Leadership

Victoria Andrews: And I really appreciate, Richard, you highlighting just how human-centered it is. I think sometimes, especially in education, people can think, “Oh, this person sits in their tower. They make decisions. They are so far removed.” But at the end of the day, they are indeed human. And human beings by nature are just complex and nuanced individuals. So understanding and honoring where people are, what they’ve experienced, their lived experience, but also relying on, like you said, and I love that, the brain trust in that space to help them illuminate, “Oh, there might be a blind spot that I’m not considering or I’m not taking into account.” And so even with all of the different programs and the strong offerings that you guys provide, how do you make sure that students and outcomes for students really just continue to stay at the heart of what you’re doing?

Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter: Sure. I think even when you come… So LaunchPad is the program where we have the most direct-to-school support and impact, we would say. And as I mentioned before, we’re not necessarily focused on skills, while those matter, and we do touch on those pretty deliberately and specifically, but we’re focused on developing the leader through a set of competencies that we believe are transferable no matter where they may be leading.

And so first and foremost, while we know that schools are very important hubs of learning, right, it takes a strong leader to manage the performance of the people who are charged with said learning. And so we place a premium on performance management as a competency to be able to equip leaders to figure out how they flexibly, in nuanced terms, but expansively manage the faculty that they have in order to meet the results that they have promised to their communities. The second, though, is that because schools are learning institutions, there need to be instructional management skills. How do I manage the instructional experience of my community, whether I’m leading one school or I’m leading ten schools, right? There needs to be a very strong instructional vision through which leaders are able to develop their teachers, support their students, et cetera. But you can’t do any of that if there are no systems to manage, right? You gotta have strong systems management skills in order to make that whole ice cream shop work really well. And so those are the three main competencies that we’re aiming to support leaders with. And our theory of action here is if we over-invest there, it makes everything else a lot easier, right?

Relational trust and influence increase, strategic clarity increases, systems-level problem-solving increases, and what we mentioned before, adaptive execution also increases, right? Because what we want to do is simulate the experience where people can fail safely. You mentioned earlier in this call that oftentimes when people are failing, they’re doing it right in front of their community, and it’s not safe to do that.

And so we want to replicate those experiences early and often, to where leaders have a place to fail safely, to get feedback from their peers and from their coach before they’re tasked to do that with their communities, where the stakes are a bit higher.

Victoria Andrews: Meghan or James, anything else to add? I mean, because Richard just really nailed it with that. But I feel like I saw both of y’all like, “Yes,” in agreeance. Anything else you wanna add to that?

Meghan Mackay: Well, I think so much of it is, you know, leaders are in charge of the growth of their teams. They’re in charge of the growth of the children that they’re serving, and we wanna make sure that we’re investing in their growth too, because there’s always something to learn, and the curious learners who are the leaders in our midst really love to be able to do that group learning and those cohorts, and bring your problem of practice to the table, because it is lonely.

And so, so much of it is let’s make sure that leaders feel equipped to lead in a way that they want to lead, that they can show up as themselves and continue that journey of leading and leaning into some of the discomfort that comes with that.

James Deenihan: Yeah. And I would say what I think is true across all of the offerings is really that the learning has to connect to decisions that leaders are actually making. And so it’s the community and it’s the relationships that allow you to look at the challenges you’re facing honestly, to fail safely when needed. But it’s the structure of all the different offerings that moves you beyond reflection and into action, and that actually allows you to lead your community and bring your full self to the work.

Feedback and Giving Back to the Community

Victoria Andrews: As you guys continue to build out these offerings, what kind of internal checks or pivots, or even commonalities, are you noticing across the different programs that are kind of surfacing to the top when it comes to leaders and some of the obstacles and challenges they’re facing?

Meghan Mackay: Well, we ask for feedback. We love feedback. It turns out we have all these brilliant people we work with, and they have lots of brilliant ideas about what to do next. And so that part of it is really great because it just feels like everything keeps folding back into the whole, and whole meaning W-H-O-L-E, not the hole that it’s gonna drown in.

And so really, we ask people to contribute. Everything that we do is pro bono, and we ask for a give back. And people feel really good about being able to contribute back to the community. So a lot of those facilitated conversations are also done with leaders we are working with.

And so they’ll volunteer, and we’ll put them through some training in order for them to be successful in that realm, and then they’ve got a new skill that they’ve learned. And it feels good to be able to give back to that community.

LeveragED’s Reach and How to Join

Victoria Andrews: I appreciate that it’s like a cycle where they’re not just receiving the support, but also able to pour back into it. And so that way you guys are only as strong as the leaders that you’re supporting too. And most of the time when people pour back into something, it’s because they see a value or they received a high level of value from that. I just really appreciate the level of intentionality that you guys put into your offerings and how you keep the students and the humans that are experiencing that at the center of the work that you all are doing too. Right now, can you guys just give a little landscape view of how many states you’re in, how many affiliates?

And for our listeners that may want to join or are wondering, “How can I…?” Like, “I wanna go through a Harvard course and get a certificate,” or “I wanna participate in a facilitated conversation and grow as a leader.” Can you just provide that perspective?

Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter: Yeah, sure. So for our community, the Collective, I believe that we are spanning about twenty states, if I’m not mistaken. We have ninety-eight current members who are in that community. And then the cohort experience, we are currently in one of our waves, and we have thirty people who are a part of that experience. And then LaunchPad, we’re in our second cohort. We’re working with eight states, and we have twenty-five leaders who are part of that experience right now. And so right now we have almost two hundred people who are actively going through an experience within our ecosystem at LeveragED. And there are about a hundred more, frankly, who have done an experience and are not part of our immediate community, but we believe in office hours for life, and so we remain connected to everyone who has been part of our community at some time.

Victoria Andrews: Awesome. And for the listeners that are wondering, “How do I become a part of the cohort? How can I join LaunchPad?” What are some of the next steps that they could take?

Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter: Sure. So for folks who, first of all, follow us on all channels, LinkedIn and Instagram and YouTube, that’s where we share a lot of these powerful stories that come from the leaders who we serve. And it’s really a way for people to understand that, to your point earlier, we’re centering the human at the experience, not necessarily the roles that they currently occupy. But to answer your question more directly, for LaunchPad, there is an application that folks can fill out. However, most of those applications come from a state-based organization like an authorizer or a state association. And the role type for that would be someone who’s currently leading a school in the capacity of a principal or someone who’s managing multiple school sites in the capacity of either an ED, a chief schools officer, et cetera. For the cohort experience, it is an invite to apply, and so follow us on LinkedIn if you’re interested in that. And then, of course, our contact information is there, and that is also by interview. The Collective, though, you need to have gone through one of our experiences first in order to be accepted into the larger community. And so we have people focused on, for right now, either the cohort experience or LaunchPad. But of course, it’s no guarantee. We’re trying each other out for size, if you will. We really wanna make sure that people feel absolutely invested in each other first and foremost.

The allegiance is not to us, it’s to the community. And as Meghan mentioned, we do expect people to give back, and we take that requirement very seriously. And so people are able to give back, and we help people find ways in which they can do that. Folks don’t always know what their magic is, and we are really good at helping people find their superpowers, or articulate their superpowers rather.

And so we wanna make sure people know how they can give back, but that is something that we absolutely require, because the community doesn’t exist without the people.

Closing Thoughts

Victoria Andrews: So there’s tons of ways to get engaged if you are a leader, or if you know of a leader that is looking for a way to build or even further discover their superpower, we encourage you to reach out to them on LinkedIn and all of their social media so that you can become engaged. Again, we know that the role of campus leaders and those in education can often be lonely, it can be isolating, and it can be siloed, but it doesn’t have to be.

We’ve heard examples of LaunchPad and the Collective and the cohort that really build on leadership competencies and just really allow the light that’s already present in so many leaders not to grow dim, but to be illuminated by being in community with other leaders that are on this journey. Thank you, James. Thank you, Richard. Thank you, Meghan. I appreciate this conversation, and I hope our listeners really dig into the offerings that you guys have and take advantage of the amazing network that you guys provide. Thank you so much.

Meghan Mackay: Thank you.

James Deenihan: Thank you.

• LeveragED Foundation: https://www.leveragedfoundation.org/
• LeveragED Foundation team: https://www.leveragedfoundation.org/our-team
• LaunchPad: https://www.leveragedfoundation.org/launchpad
• The Collective: https://www.leveragedfoundation.org/the-collective
• The Cohort Experience: https://www.leveragedfoundation.org/cohort
• LeveragED Foundation on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leveraged-foundation/
• LeveragED Foundation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leveragedfoundation
• LeveragED Foundation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@leveragedfoundation
• Dr. Richard Seigler-Carter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-richard-seigler-carter/
• Dr. Meghan Mackay, Harvard Graduate School of Education profile: https://scl.gse.harvard.edu/people/meghan-mackay