What practices have kept leaders going when challenges are even greater than usual?
These last two years have brought unprecedented crises to schools across the country. They’ve had to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and the heated debates about school closings, vaccines, and mask mandates; at the same time, many districts have faced pushback on equity and culturally responsive education initiatives. School and school system leaders have had to figure out how to respond to these controversies, all while continuing the already difficult work of providing the best education possible for their students.
As facilitators of professional learning for principals, central office staff, and department of education leaders, my colleagues and I at The Leadership Academy lead sessions focused on building leaders’ capacity to coach teachers, offer actionable feedback, or promote culturally responsive practices. Since March 2020, these sessions have inevitably pivoted to discussions on how to lead through crisis. The leaders we support have experienced student walkouts, COVID hospitalizations, and frequent requests for information from the press and community members. And they’ve had to spend their days filling in as classroom teachers and bus drivers to deal with staffing shortages. Leaders have shown up to our sessions angry, exhausted, and in tears. It’s perhaps no surprise that so many are resigning, planning their retirement, and in some cases being fired, in great numbers (National Association of Secondary School Principals, 2021).
Learning from today’s leaders
When I was a school and district leader from 2002 to 2015, I faced the usual challenges related to improving instruction for students, but never did I face them under such dire circumstances. So I wondered: How can leaders make the needed improvements to their systems under these difficult conditions?
To glean some wisdom, I turned to some veteran education leaders: Meisha Porter, former chancellor of New York City Schools, led the reopening of the city’s public schools during the COVID pandemic; Jeannie Stone, former superintendent of Richardson Independent School District (ISD) in Texas, shepherded her district through an equity-focused transformation amid community pushback; Nancy Gutiérrez, CEO of The Leadership Academy, guided her organization through significant financial and organizational challenges; and Susana Cordova, former superintendent of Denver Public Schools in Colorado and now superintendent-in-residence at the national nonprofit Transcend, led her district in Denver through a teachers strike. While the crises looked different for each of their communities, these leaders made similar leadership moves to carry them through.
Build trusting relationships and listen to those closest to the problems you are trying to solve.
All the leaders named their strong relationships with staff, teachers, administrators, and families as essential for moving their work forward during a crisis. When Porter became the chancellor of New York City Schools in March 2021, she already had spent decades serving the public schools in a number of roles and communities. From the relationships she’d already formed, she knew that staff morale was low and that staff felt directives were simply coming from “on high.” So she sought out advice on reopening from staff in as many roles as possible throughout the city. Although she’d previously served in almost every position in the city’s department of education, she said, “I had never held those roles during a pandemic,” so having the guidance of current staff was priceless.
After students at rival high schools in Richardson ISD circulated racist images on social media, Superintendent Stone set out to better understand the presence of systemic racism in the district. She interviewed 150 students and family members to learn about their experiences of bias and discrimination. As part of this listening tour, a group of students of color spoke with Stone for three hours and shared a list of demands based on their experiences. They asked that the district commit to dismantling systemic racism, give students a seat at the table, create programs that close achievement gaps, and prioritize the comfort and safety of students of color. These became Stone’s North Star. She hung the recommendations on her door and asked the students to hold her accountable for meeting them. She even told the school board that they should ask for her resignation if the students’ demands were not met.
Explain the reasons behind decisions.
“Transparency is ‘job one’ for leaders in a crisis,” says researcher Amy Edmonson (2020) of the Harvard Business School. “Be clear about what you know, what you don’t know, and what you’re doing to learn more.”
To that end, Stone used a variety of media, including frequent videos on YouTube and Twitter, to share the thinking behind the district’s decisions. These were not sound bites but extended messages. In one 12-minute video, she explained how important it is to “see every student as ours”:
We genuinely want every student to feel like this is their school district. We want every aspect of who they are to be not only acknowledged but also embraced and valued. And we want the same thing for our staff. (RichardsonISDVideo, 2021)
She also engaged the board of education in creating an equity policy that clearly communicates the district’s vision and plans for dismantling inequities across the district. Stone and her team then leaned on that policy as they built a more equitable budget and as they pushed an initiative to expand access to gifted and talented courses.
Chancellor Porter in New York communicated in a variety of ways as well. In interviews on national news programs, she explained why she believed in-person school was critical and pointed to guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Biden administration, and the mayor’s office that the district was using to determine how to reopen safely. She engaged in a listening tour to hear the community’s concerns, share research showing that in-person learning was better for children academically and emotionally, and described the safety measures that would be in place.
While a leader’s instinct during a crisis can be to forge ahead quickly, it is crucial that they take time to hold open, safe conversations that invite dissenting points of view.
At The Leadership Academy, where I currently serve as executive director of innovation and programs, CEO Gutiérrez held biweekly virtual all-staff community meetings throughout the pandemic to share information about the virus and how it was affecting staff members; clients; and New York City, where the nonprofit is headquartered. During these meetings, Gutiérrez and her leadership team presented action steps that we revised weekly as we learned more about the pandemic and its effects on our staff and clients. We shared what leaders were telling us they needed and how we could better support them and discussed how to continuously fine-tune our shift from in-person to virtual professional learning. We used these meetings to check in with staff on their well-being and to gather their feedback on new policies and practices. Said Gutiérrez, “These meetings allowed the leadership team to meet the goals we set at the beginning of the pandemic: put our people first, stay connected, and stay in business.”
Listen and respond to the concerns of those who disagree with you.
While a leader’s instinct during a crisis can be to forge ahead quickly, it is crucial that they take time to hold open, safe conversations that invite dissenting points of view. Those discussions will ultimately breed the innovative solutions needed to address a crisis, researchers Gemma D’Auria and Aaron De Smet (2020) of the McKinsey Institute have found.
Although Chancellor Porter was committed to reopening New York’s schools, many families did not believe the buildings were safe. One parent told her during an online forum, “You have never kept the bathrooms clean at my child’s school. How can I trust you are going to have hygiene measures in place during COVID?” Acknowledging their fears, Porter organized and led tours of the schools, showing families the ventilation systems, personal protective equipment (PPE) and masking supplies, and safety plan. This allayed the fears of many families. Porter and her team also conducted empathy interviews with key stakeholders to take stock of their experiences during COVID: “With a focus on ZIP codes hit hardest by the pandemic, we were able to gauge what was important to our school communities as we prepared for reopening,” she said. Some of the themes that emerged from the stakeholder group conversations included concerns about disparities in resources and outcomes, quality of instruction, the need for targeted social-emotional learning, and technology use. This effort led to the creation of the 2021 Instructional Principles that guided NYC schools’ reopening. The district’s priorities, developed as a result of stakeholder conversations, included focusing on early childhood literacy, developing students as digital citizens, and ensuring a culturally relevant and sustaining curriculum was in every school.
When community members questioned Stone’s equity initiatives in Richardson, she emphasized that the policies were designed to benefit all students, and not to threaten, offend, or shame anyone. “This is about love and acceptance so that everyone who attends school here and works here feels like they belong here, and that their differences matter,” she said. She highlighted the impact of specific initiatives, such as the algebra-for-all program that increased the percentage of 8th graders taking algebra from 36% to 52%. Sharing specific examples like these helped parents see the benefits of the equity initiatives, even if they’d initially been against them.
Have a professional and personal cabinet of trusted advisers.
While Superintendent Stone has many senior colleagues in the Dallas area, as well as a superintendent “sister circle,” she also got support and advice from a variety of Richardson ISD staff members — ranging from principals to cafeteria workers — who share her equity mission and love for students.
Chancellor Porter spoke regularly to her most trusted personal and professional friends throughout the pandemic, and she received an outpouring of love and support from Black women leaders across the country, especially Black female superintendents. She embraced their friendship and texted them updates and questions regularly, learning and growing thanks to their advice.
During the teachers strike in Denver, Superintendent Cordova met daily with her leadership team to share words of inspiration from supporters and discuss how they could all center the needs of students and teachers through the crisis. “I have never had so many people praying for me in my whole life,” she said. “It was grounding for me to think about words that have comforted so many people in times of grief and to realize there is a way to prosper and think about the future.”
In addition to speaking regularly to her leadership team and a few key members of her board of directors, Gutiérrez often reached out to her mentors in the field and sought support and advice from close friends. She formed a critical friends group with colleagues leading other education nonprofit organizations to learn from their experiences and share that learning with her staff and board. “We shared hopes and fears as well as shifts in strategies and policies that were needed to sustain the external work and maintain internal morale,” she said. Through her networks, Gutiérrez was able to gather information about layoffs happening across the industry and about federal loan and grant programs, which enabled her to gain the trust of her board and staff when making important financial decisions.
Be true to your values.
In times of crisis, communities need a strong, consistent leader with integrity and solid core values. While it can be frightening at times, as Harvard Kennedy School Professor Marshall Ganz (2008) says, “Leadership requires accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve purpose under conditions of uncertainty.”
After listening to 150 stories of bias and discrimination from her staff and students, Stone met with all 6,000 of her staff members to share what she had learned from the conversations. She told them that systemic racism is alive in Richardson ISD and that it was her job to change the reality for students and families of color in Richardson. Her core value of centering students and their lived experiences inspired this work.
Within months of becoming superintendent in Denver, Cordova was confronted by colleagues she had worked collaboratively with for years who were now chanting her name in protest during a teachers strike. She decided that, no matter what, she would stay true to her core values, which included the ability to remain respectful even while disagreeing: “I needed to feel confident that I could face my colleagues when the strike was over, and to believe that good people can share goals and not agree on a way to get there,” she said.
While additional funding and the shift to holding professional learning sessions virtually fortified The Leadership Academy’s budget, cuts were still needed for the organization to survive. One of the academy’s core values is to take care of its staff, so Gutiérrez and her leadership team chose to furlough themselves first and — eventually — furloughed all members of staff every Friday rather than laying off any member of the team during the pandemic. While painful, these cuts kept the organization financially sustainable. Eight months later, The Leadership Academy was able to return everyone to full-time schedules and raise enough money to offer staff bonuses to show gratitude for the sacrifices they had made.
Offer hope.
Bounded optimism, hope, and realism allow community members to feel confident that their leader will see them through a crisis successfully (D’Auria & De Smet, 2020). Leaders can instill hope by sharing stories of the concrete steps they are taking and any quick wins that they can build on.
Leaders can instill hope by sharing stories of the concrete steps they are taking and any quick wins that they can build on.
Chancellor Porter took this idea to heart by sharing the success stories she heard from schools across the city. She made it a point in her external communications to regularly lift up and thank the often-forgotten school staff — nurses, cafeteria workers, and janitors. Seeing herself as her district’s “lead cheerleader,” she spoke publicly about accomplishments, creative solutions, and tremendous sacrifices being made to meet students’ and families’ needs.
As part of Richardson ISD’s equity initiatives, Stone sought to expand access to gifted and talented programs for students of color. To that end, she encouraged the director of gifted and talented programs to take the system apart, “as if it were an oven,” examine all of its parts, and then rebuild it to remove barriers. In one year, Richardson more than doubled the percentage of students of color identified as gifted and talented. Stone was then able to point back to this success as she tackled other areas of inequity in the district, giving her colleagues hope that change can happen.
Throughout the teachers strike, Superintendent Cordova tried to stay optimistic. She offered words of hope, reminding teachers and the community that while they were going through a difficult period, the strike was time-bound and not reflective of the ways they would work together collaboratively in the future.
While budgetary challenges plagued The Leadership Academy at the start of the pandemic, Gutiérrez consistently shared glimmers of hope with her staff. She kept the team informed about new funding opportunities, such as federal loans and funding from foundations. She regularly praised the staff’s quick shift from in-person to virtual training sessions, and highlighting these successes proved inspirational. Staff members who saw their colleagues’ success shifting professional learning conversations about race and equity online felt confident to move their projects online, too. Eventually, 90% of Leadership Academy trainings were moved online, which gave the nonprofit the income it needed to survive.
Seeing and being the light
When challenges in schools and school systems rise to crisis levels, that is when students, families, and communities need leaders most. With courageous and thoughtful leadership, improvements can continue to be made even amid tumult. When you see dark clouds on the horizon, remember your values, surround yourself with trustworthy advisers, listen deeply to your community (even those who disagree), and be open about the hard decisions you have to make — and about the successes you’re seeing.
In the darkest times, think of the words of Amanda Gorman in her poem from Joe Biden’s 2021 presidential inauguration, “There is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”
References
D’Auria, G. & De Smet, A. (2020). Leadership in a crisis: Responding to the corona virus outbreak and future challenges. McKinsey & Company.
Edmonson, A. (2020) Don’t hide bad news in times of crisis. Harvard Business Review.
Ganz, M (2008). Leading change: Leadership, organization and social movements. Advancing Leadership Conference, Harvard Business School.
Gorman, A. (2021) The hill we climb: An inaugural poem for the country. Viking Books.
National Association of Secondary School Principals. (2021, December 8) NASSP survey signals a looming mass exodus of principals from schools: The pandemic, political tensions and limited guidance and resources cited as major factors [Press release].
RichardsonISDVideo. (2021, April 9). Student equity. https://youtu.be/lR-S-otvzG4.
This article appears in the October 2022 issue of Kappan, Vol. 104, No. 2, p. 44-49.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Carole Learned-Miller
CAROLE LEARNED-MILLER is the executive director of innovation and programs at The Leadership Academy, Long Island City, NY.
