Capacity Building in My Direct Reports
BY JUSTIN D. DAGGETT/School Administrator, December 2021

Justin Daggett, superintendent in Manson, Iowa, builds relationships with his direct reports to make progress jointly on district goals. PHOTO COURTESY OF JUSTIN DAGGETT

If you aspire to be a great leader as the superintendent of your school district, then you aspire to inspire people to work hard at becoming the best version of themselves. If all the individuals in your school district grow into the best version of themselves, then the school district grows into the best version of itself.

We’ve all had the experience of hearing a gifted motivational speaker who inspired us to go conquer the world, only to be brought back to the reality of the day-to-day grind of running a school district. So how do we as leaders inspire the individuals we lead in a perpetual way that withstands the rigor of a school year?

As superintendent of a 750-student district in north-central Iowa, I have seven direct reports consisting of my building principals and directors. In my first couple of years as superintendent, we set annual goals collectively (such as 80 percent of students in grades 9-12 will be proficient in reading, math and science according to our standardized state assessment, or we will successfully implement MTSS districtwide), which we attacked with intensity and vigor in August, only to forget these goals as soon as October rolled around. As a result, we never got any traction in the areas we wanted to grow.

To solve this problem, I developed a four-step process that has played out effectively. First, find out what each individual wants for themselves. Second, guide them in forming achievable goals with concrete action plans that will get them what they want and benefit the organization. Third, work hard to help them achieve it. Fourth, celebrate the accomplishments.

»Step 1: Find out what your leaders want to accomplish.

I realized it was my job as superintendent to help us keep our focus on the vision we wanted to realize for our district — and each of my direct reports had to have some ownership in that vision if they were going to persevere through the challenges.

So my first step was to find out what each building principal and director aspired to accomplish. This required me to put in the time to build a relationship with each person and communicate with them regularly.

Many responsibilities and demands impinge on our time as a superintendent, and this personal communication can easily succumb to the almighty to-do list. However, I have learned I must intentionally make time to communicate individually with my leaders and get to know them. Get to know their strengths, limitations, aspirations and fears. In doing so, I recognize what motivates them and what they are passionate about. I discover what they care about deeply or aspire to achieve and figure out a way to help them do that for their own benefit and the benefit of the organization.

The time spent with each leader individually on a consistent basis has built strong relationships and flipped the traditional top-down districtwide improvement plan that we see so often. Instead we created an organic self-driven improvement plan that each individual owned and systemically aligned.

My elementary principal has for two years running had the personal goal of developing consistency in large-group, small-group and individual literacy instruction across kindergarten through 6th grade. This has caused us to engage his staff in developing tight and loose documents, walk-through observation forms and a way to measure and analyze curriculum implementation data. All of these actions move the whole system forward toward our mission of achieving excellence in education and developing responsible citizens.

»Step 2: Guide them in forming achievable goals with plans.

Here is the secret sauce. As the district leader, build the structure and systems that give each individual the plan to achieve the success they desire. Where we once set annual goals only to forget them the second month of the school year, today we still hold our annual goal-setting retreat before the school year where we articulate our vision and distill that into one big goal. But we realized setting annual goals is way too long to maintain focus.

Because our school year operates with trimesters, we attempt to accomplish our goal by the end of the first trimester. That may sound crazy, but it forces us to have a narrow focus, and it creates a sense of urgency to get to work on it. I set one, and each building principal and district director sets one. Every week I check in with them on what lead indicators (action steps) they are going to take that week to reach their trimester goal, and how I can support them in that work.

Focusing weekly on action steps for both of us created a narrow focus and ownership by both parties. We then schedule our week intentionally to protect time to work on our lead indicators. This is a must or the chances of accomplishing those tasks greatly diminishes. At the end of the week, we grade ourselves and see how we did. We don’t lose heart if we fail to reach all of our lead indicators, but we do learn from the effort and know how to improve our time management the following week.

Using this model, the principal at our alternative K-12 school was able to successfully implement PBIS during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, he is working on embedding MTSS into that system with Tier 2 supports.

»Step 3: Work hard to help them achieve their goals.

Our weekly conversations now are quite meaningful as we maintain a plan with specific weekly, monthly and trimester milestones to pursue. As superintendent, I try to remove any barriers between the administrators and their goals and lend whatever support they need to achieve them. 

This may mean allocating resources or connecting them to someone who has a greater depth of knowledge in their goal area than I do. Typically, this support takes on the form of brainstorming solutions to problems that arise or reflecting on why we currently are where we are in relation to our goal area, and what we can do differently to accelerate our progress.

My job is to ensure they pursue the weekly action steps we agreed upon. This is not micromanagement. It is accountability — the perfect blend of pressure and support. I am not telling them what to do. I’m simply holding them accountable and supporting them in what they said they were going to do. If they fail to do their weekly action steps, it becomes my responsibility to find out why and help them correct it. If they hit their weekly target, it gives me an opportunity to celebrate together their hard work and dedication toward the organization achieving its mission.

»Step 4: Celebrate.

At the end of the trimester, we hold a mini-retreat off site where we can detach from the fervent pace of the district, where we mark our first trimester accomplishments and recalibrate ourselves for the next trimester. Most of the time, we stay within the same goal area, but at times we move to a new goal because we accomplished what we set out to do in the first trimester.

No more rewarding work exists than to help professional colleagues grow, learn and optimize their God-given talents. As they grow in their capacity, the whole district grows in its capacity to serve children.

JUSTIN DAGGETT is superintendent of the Manson Northwest Webster Schools in Manson, Iowa. Twitter: @jdaggett11