Superintendent William Harner (center) encourages his administrative colleagues in Quakertown, Pa., to participate in district-level leadership training programs run by AASA and his state administrators’ association. PHOTO COURTESY OF QUAKERTOWN, PA., COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

The most important thing we do as superintendents is identify and mentor current and future leaders in our school districts. That includes those serving in operational support staff roles.

Management guru Peter Drucker once said that culture trumps strategy every time. I submit that preparing highly effective principle-centered leaders in our districts who set and maintain the conditions of high expectations for performance will powerfully impact both culture and strategy. It’s organizationally transformative. 

Though you may be long forgotten after you leave your school district, your greatest legacy will be those who you mentored along the way and what your mentees subsequently do along their own leadership journeys.

As systems thinkers, one of our first steps should be to build a leader development system that strengthens every current leader’s knowledge, skills and abilities, or KSAs, then to identify potential future leaders (your bench) who can be prepared to step up at a moment’s notice. Personally, I employ an eclectic approach using a mix of Jim Collins, Stephen Covey, John Kotter and Robert Marzano. What are the KSAs that good leaders have and how do you build this leadership mindset?

An Army Start

For the past four decades, I have had the privilege of serving in leadership roles — 20 years in the military and 24 in public education, including 17 as a superintendent. For three years, I served on the faculty at the U.S. Military Academy teaching leadership and developing our nation’s future leaders. At West Point, we used 12 dimensions of the Cadet Leader Development System as our curriculum. The dimensions were crafted using decades of research and graduate performance.

In education, Marzano, co-author of District Leadership That Works, replicated what West Point has done for generations. His meta-analysis research identifies 21 school and district responsibilities for leaders, which I use as a mental checklist of leadership attributes when selecting and mentoring school and district leaders.

With the board of education’s expectations to create a culture of continuous improvement in academic achievement at the most efficient cost, I develop plans and opportunities for my leadership team members to strengthen their skills to create Level 2 organizational change, essentially a leader’s personalized learning plan.

Marzano’s meta-analysis research tells us that if we improve the average leader’s knowledge, skills and abilities, the potential overall impact of this improvement in leadership can be growth in student achievement of 9.8 percent to 24 percent. In my experience, creating a leader development system can exceed those results.

Vicarious Mentors

How do you build leadership capacity throughout your organization? It means creating a personalized learning plan for each leader.

The first step is role modeling to your team as a student of leadership yourself, so find your own mentors. During the latter part of my military career, I stopped studying generals and started studying superintendents, especially leaders who made a major difference for students. In the mid-’90s, my vicarious superintendent mentors were Daniel Domenech of Fairfax County, Va., Eric Smith of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., and John Stanford of Seattle.

It was the example of Stanford, a two-star Army general, who inspired me to transition from the military to public school leadership. Philanthropist Eli Broad and his foundation built the Urban Superintendents Academy model upon Stanford’s success in Seattle. Stanford’s book, Victory in Our Schools, offers an excellent template to build upon for school district leaders.

During my last two years in the Army, while enrolled in an educational leadership doctoral program at the University of South Carolina, I was assigned for my superintendent’s practicum to observe and work for Valerie Truesdale. What a stroke of luck! She was an assistant superintendent in Columbia, S.C. Another fortunate stroke was being assigned Smith as my mentor as a Broad Academy fellow six years later. Job shadowing a mentor provides invaluable experiences. Seeing is believing and packs in a lot of learning.

Almost every one of my administrators in the Quakertown, Pa., district has completed or enrolled in a doctoral program. They used their practicum hours to job shadow senior district leaders and participate in authentic projects, program development and meetings — even board executive and collective bargaining sessions. The administrators get to have experiences two levels up from where they are in the organization.

Building a Bench

Another step is developing a view of what the leadership landscape of your school district is. That entails identifying who you can expect to be a part of your guiding coalition, then strengthening their leadership knowledge, skills and abilities through job-embedded assignments or in some cases, assignments in areas where they did not have prior experience. 

My approach depended on the size of the district I led and what the school board expected of me. In my first district, South Carolina’s Greenville County Schools with 90 schools and centers, the task was a bit more complex than an average-size district.

Our approach in Greenville was to build strong instructional leadership teams. One part of that included building a bench of future leaders for the district. We designed a partnership with Furman University and graduated 45 proven instructional teacher leaders over a three-year period. I called them Jedi Knights, as the intense 15-month master’s program mirrored a highly selective Army program in which its graduates were nicknamed the same. Fast forward 20 years, some of those graduates are national leaders in education and involved in the Wallace Foundation’s school leadership initiatives.

In smaller districts, mentoring and building your district’s leadership capacity is leveraging all of the internal talent and external opportunities available to you. It also means re-thinking principal supervision and coaching — creating instructional leaders from a school management mindset. In Pennsylvania, the state and other organizations provide multiple programs that offer the opportunity to intentionally match programs to the needs of your leaders and your district. I have used the National Institute for School Leadership, Pennsylvania-Inspired Leaders, the Educational Policy Fellowship and other programs to fine-tune individual team members’ skills and expertise. For my aspiring and current senior leaders, I have had them participate in our state association’s aspiring superintendent workshops and AASA’s district-level leadership programs. 

William Harner (rear center), superintendent in Quakertown, Pa., says his mentoring work means “rethinking principal supervision and coaching.” PHOTO BY GARY WECKSELBLATT/QUAKERTOWN, PA., COMMUNITY SCHOOL DISTRICT

Finally, mentorship includes acknowledging and supporting the career development of your instructional leaders. It means preparing them for their next step on the career ladder. I take every opportunity to help members of our team build their resume by nominating them for recognition and awards, even when this results in promotion out of our district into the higher ranks of school and district leadership elsewhere.

While it’s hard to lose talented people you have developed, this expands your own area of influence and can provide you the knowledge and satisfaction you are improving the quality of education beyond your own district. In just the past few years, Quakertown administrators were recognized as Pennsylvania principal of the year, principal supervisor of the year and curriculum leader of the year. Also, the senior leadership at the Bucks County Intermediate Unit includes a Quakertown alum.

Aligned Systems

As you reflect on your own district systems, I recommend you think about what you are doing to impact student achievement through leadership as a distinct discipline all its own.

What are your mentorship programs that are aligned to accomplishing your district’s current and future objectives? Does your team have the KSAs to accomplish the myriad expectations placed on you by your board and community? Are your supervision systems aligned with your intent to grow and develop your people?

Looking back to the schools and districts that I have led and the growth in student achievement and college readiness that more than doubled in each organization, I have no doubt that leadership development is a key part of that success. 

Purposefully invest your time in mentoring your team. It is incredibly satisfying to watch what happens and to know that your legacy will far outlast your service.

WILLIAM HARNER is superintendent of Quakertown Community School District in Quakertown, Pa. Twitter: @BillHarner