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Growing Leaders from Within: Homegrown Leadership: Building Culture, Capacity and Continuity Through Internal Development · The Leaders Lounge - AASPA Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to ASPA's Promising Practices Podcast Series.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Alexis Christ, meetings coordinator with ASPA.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Today we are joined by Carrie Stroga, Deputy Superintendent at Orange Ulster BOSEs.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Carrie.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, Alexis.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Nice to be with you.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Got to be here as well.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Carrie, how long have you been with your school district and what is the size of your district?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been with BOSEs for, I'm going to say 22 years at this point.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're called the Cooperative Educational Services.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we're in New York State, and we're a regional group, a regional school that serves our component school districts in our area.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we provide career and technical education for 11th and 12th graders.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we have over 2,000 students in that program.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: We provide intense special needs programming for students, and we have about a thousand students there.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we also provide adult education to new language learners as well as trades.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we have thousands, three or four thousand that we provide there.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So large amount of students, but very unique populations.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: All right, wonderful.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Our promising practice topic for today is growing leaders from within, homegrown leadership, building culture, capacity, and continuity through internal development.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Carrie, tell us more about this topic and how it can help your district.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm very passionate about this topic because I think what we can all say we're facing across the country is an educational fall-off in terms of replacing our educators of tomorrow and replacing our leaders of tomorrow.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're really facing a challenge in that employment landscape.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think one of the things that we can do to, if you want to say, solve our own problem is really to focus on how we're going to grow our leaders from within.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because it does allow us to maybe take the temperature down that on that a little bit so that we feel like maybe we have a little control of how our leaders of tomorrow will come to be.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's through our work.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: What are early indicators that someone has leadership potential, even if they're they've never held a formal leadership role?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that if we if you talk with your colleagues, that we can really say similar things, right?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we see people who solve problems without being asked.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: We see people who notice a gap, they fill it.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a teacher who gets another bunch of teachers together to work with a struggling student.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe it's a teacher who sees an area of professional development that needs to be addressed and they kind of create it on their own.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think that when we look for people, we're really trying to, maybe if I had to name the indicators, I would say they really influence people without authority.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um and they they naturally are turned to by their colleagues.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um they are emotionally regulated under pressure.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: They hold it together.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: You see them when there's a crisis and they're who everyone turns to.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they think systemically, they think, why is this happening?
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they try to figure out the why so that it doesn't continue to happen rather than just solving the immediate problem that they're facing.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they see other adults in the room.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, they are focused on their students within their classroom, but they also have the ability to see the other adults and recognize team culture, recognize team dynamics.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think that often they make people around them better.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: You notice when that person is in the room, other people rise up and are better with them.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: What's the biggest mistake organizations make when trying to develop internal leaders and how can they avoid it?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think this will not shock people either, that that leadership is not a course.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think the mistake districts often make is they send someone to get a certificate, um, they send them to a leadership academy, um, they send them to a summer institute, and then they're shocked why nothing has changed.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because those approaches are really very transactional and leadership at its essence is relational.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, really, you learn leadership by the relationship and the true mentorship and the apprenticeship and doing the real work.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that when you have a course that's separate and apart from the real leadership, I think that's a good reason why it's not connected.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's a big mistake districts make.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can you walk us through a practical leadership development framework that doesn't require a huge budget or outside consultants?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's a good one.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I think often uh a big price tag is attached to things.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I actually created uh a framework that I call Grow From Within, um, that I use, and it has four phases, and I found it to be pretty successful, and it doesn't require any effort other than that of you and the team that you work with.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So the first phase I call C.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So really identify, look and train your current leaders to find those indicators, the indicators we just talked about, problem solvers, influencers without authority, um, emotionally regulated professionals.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really an intentional act, not passive.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Really intentionally look for those people in your space, in your school district, and build talent spotting, like looking for talent in your supervisory meetings with your team.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Really make that a part of their responsibility.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the second phase I call name, like affirm.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: You really need to go directly to the person that you see those leadership qualities in, and you need to name it for them.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: You need to say, like, I noticed the way you handled this very big challenge, um, and I see leadership in you.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, name it for them.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I want you to know that I see it because I think that by naming it, that's very, very powerful.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: It takes that aspiring leader, someone who maybe thought about being a leader, but had never been explicitly told that.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: It now starts to connect those actions with potentiality for them.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the third phase I call pull up a chair, um, and meaning invite them, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And begin and intentionally inviting emerging leaders to places where decisions are made and problems are solved and where leadership happens.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure they have a seat at that table, not just to sit and observe, but to actually contribute and have a voice there, because pulling up a chair is literal.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Really pull up a chair for that person.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then the fourth phase I call grow and sustain.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, really at this point, then you have to develop and coach.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Once somebody steps into a leadership role, whether it's formal or informal, now your obligation is intensified because now you need to meet with them regularly.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: You need to ask them, what's working?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you really being stretched?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Where are you having a hard time?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Create peer learning opportunities for them.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then develop in them the capacity to see and name leadership in other people, right?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because you need to create the cycle so that it can replicate itself.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do you balance promoting from within while also ensuring you're bringing in fresh perspectives and avoiding insularity?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So this one I think is one of the most important or um critical tensions in a leadership development because promoting exclusively from within without intentionality can really calcify a culture.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you can end up with people who have learned all the same things and absorbed all the same blind spots and have no one really to challenge the status quo.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's not what you're looking for.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the goal is to not to never hire externally, but it's to be really strategic about when and why you do.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think really you can grow internally for your culture carrier roles.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I call so your positions that require um deep relational equity, institutional knowledge, um, and trust that's built over time.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: So your next principal is very often in your current assistant principal.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: It makes sense.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: They have that knowledge and they're ready to move that forward.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you recruit externally for expansion or disruption.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're launching something that's really genuinely new, or when you've done a real internal, honest internal assessment and you've seen some gaps, you may want to recruit externally, really, to try to fill those gaps and to bring some new perspective in.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think you also, though, need to use structures to introduce fresh thinking, and you can do that without having to import it.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: So cross-district learning.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: So do you bring together different um leaders from different buildings and different parts of your program, from different districts, from districts that are like-size districts or different-sized districts?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's lots of opportunity to really learn from one another and really grow and challenge your status quo without having to hire somebody externally, but instead really start to bring in ideas from outside and grow the people from within.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think then you really have to audit your culture pretty pretty regularly.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: You have to ask, are you questioning, are we questioning our own assumptions?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Are we really, um, are we open to challenge?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if the answer is no, it that's not really an issue of where you've hired somebody from.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: That is more of an issue of psychological safety.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think when if you look at external hires, when an external hire fails, it's certainly not, or very rarely because they don't have talent.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: It often has to do with that they didn't have the relational capital in the district to lead the change in the culture where they came, in an established culture.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So the homegrown leader really has that capital coming in, and that's their advantage, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: The organization's job is really to make sure that they don't use that capital to just perpetuate the status quo, but they use that capital to help the district continue to grow.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: How does investing in homegrown leadership directly impact student outcomes and organizational culture?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this one, the the research is really pretty strong that um that leadership when leadership's stable, when it's trusted, when it's continuous, student achievement increases.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: There is there is a direct correlation to student achievement.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if even if we look beyond that data, um when the person that's leading your school has grown up in that community, they understand the families, um, they know the staff, um, they have relational equity with everybody in the building, they really don't have to spend the first two years gaining that.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: They get to start leading right from the beginning.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I also think there's a cultural impact because when teachers see their own colleagues elevated into leadership, it really sends a message to them that growth is possible where they are and that your school invests in its own people.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that message translates to retention.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think also when the teacher or the leader in the building was once a teacher there, um they have there's a there's a difference, there's a shrinking of the distance between the decisions made.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So the teachers feel closer to that leader.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it really um allows conversations to be more honest, I think, um, in my experience, and accountability is more relational.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then I think that when leadership is um when there's a continuity in the leadership, I think it also allows culture to compound.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and certainly the culture that you're looking to continue.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, each year builds on the last and it allows you to get momentum.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I think every time a leader leaves, the cost is big, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because the organization doesn't just lose that person.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: They lose institutional knowledge, um, they lose relational trust, they lose momentum, um, they have to rebuild things from scratch.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because so it isn't just a leadership vacancy.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's often years of culture and relationships and progress.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that cost is real and it costs staff and it costs students.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's largely preventable if we're really working on growing from within.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up here today?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just think this is an important topic for all of us right now, as I mentioned in the beginning, um, with the employment landscape looking the way that it does, um, with us really facing kind of a cliff of not only teachers, but if we don't have more teachers coming into the industry, we don't have more leaders coming into the industry.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that it gives us an opportunity to not only reflect and look at how we might be able to grow some of our own leaders, but it really causes us to investigate and look deeply at the culture of our organizations and really ensure that that culture inspires people to teach, has people enjoy working where they are, want to stay where they are and grow where they are.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I think I did not coin the phrase, but they say retention is today's recruitment, is the new recruitment.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think it's a critical, a critical function that we all have as leaders in education moving forward.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, Carrie, for sharing your insights and promising practices with our members.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: We invite you to join us next month and every first Wednesday of the month for our promising practices podcast series where we will explore best practices for your district.