Developing Rural School Leaders Through Leadership Coaching: A Transformative Approach

ABSTRACT

In this article, we report the findings of a study of a three-year, research-practice partnership designed to enhance the leadership capabilities of school leaders in 12 predominantly rural, high-poverty school districts in the southeastern United States. The partnership provided cross-district, job-embedded leadership development to ten school leaders through leadership coaching in a leadership learning community (LLC). Utilizing transformative learning theory, we illustrate how the leaders’ participation in the LLC increased their leadership capabilities through a combination of personalized learning, a focused improvement process, facilitation and coaching, and collaboration with other leaders. We conclude with implications for research and practice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All names are pseudonyms.