Posing questions for leadership development and practise: a coaching strategy for veteran school leaders

Abstract

Although recommended as an approach to improving school leaders’ practises, especially for novices, the processes of cognitive coaching for veteran leaders are underreported. This study explored district-level coaches’ perspectives on posing questions for veteran principals as the coaches reflected on their 2-year pilot programme. The protocol included survey results from year-one’s seminar sessions and a structured interview during year two. The surveys provided coaches opportunities to express their immediate reactions to seminar sessions’ focus on cognitive coaching to pose school improvement questions to veteran principal protégés. The structured interview occurred nearly 18 months after seminar and encouraged coaches’ descriptions of their implementation of posing questions. Findings included the following coaches’ perspectives: (a) seminar addressed adult learning needs; (b) posing questions shifted coaches’ tendencies to provide solutions; (c) trust issues; (d) time constraints; and (e) working across district lines offered more advantages than disadvantages.

Acknowledgements

Thanks are expressed to the participants in the project for their candid and ongoing feedback. Additional faculty and graduate students who provided support to this project include (alphabetically) Frederick C. Buskey, C. Michael Campbell, Matthew Della Sala, Hans W. Klar, Robert C. Knoeppel and Kenyae L. Reese.

Notes

This manuscript reports a project approved by Clemson’s Institutional Review Board (IRB2012–169). This research is a portion of a larger programme extending a decade’s long partnership between Clemson’s faculty of Educational Leadership (Preschool through 12th grade, P12) and a regional consortium of school districts.

1. The tenth district was a very small, single-campus for all grade levels district that opted not to participate

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jane Clark Lindle

Jane Clark Lindle, PhD, is a professor in Department of Educational and Organizational Development, E.T. Moore School of Education at Clemson University, 326 Tillman, Clemson, SC 29630, USA. Email: [email protected]. She is a professor in Eugene T. Moore of Educational Leadership at Clemson University in the USA. Her research focuses on the development of educational leadership for the implementation educational policy at the micropolitical level with an emphasis on ensuring safe learning environments for diverse students and communities. She has served as a special education teacher and principal in Kentucky, both North and South Carolina, and Wisconsin. Her most recent publication is Political Contexts of Educational Leadership: ISLLC Standard 6, part of a series of texts produced by the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA).