If you are taking this course, my assumption is you are looking for strategies and resources that will help you better support teachers and students. My goal in the development of this resource is to provide these for you. 

I wrote Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H. because it didn’t exist. It was a book I wish I had as a school leader. Now as a systems coach, I have been able to take a step back and see the forest for the trees. I can see what else might be needed for leaders to enact the strategies I described.

I also needed others’ perspectives. For example, after my book was published in 2022, a colleague sent me an email with praise for its practicality and usefulness. “But,” she followed, “leaders are going to need more than a book.” I didn’t want to admit that at first. My fingers and my brain were tired. But I eventually acknowledged that she was right. How can I help leaders take the principles and tools from Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H. and put them into action?

This course offers ten actions any instructional leader can take to attain schoolwide excellence. As the titles suggests, the inclusion of coaching skills and strategies within a principal’s practice is the thread that runs through this new way of leading. Coaching is a process of supporting individuals to achieve their goals and improve their skills through reflection, analysis, and experimentation. Principals and other position leaders will find a lot of alignment between their roles and responsibilities and what coaches do on a daily basis.

How do I know these ideas work? First, I used them regularly over the course of sixteen years as a school leader. I fine-tuned these resources until they helped the faculty and me achieve the outcomes we desired. Second, I cross referenced the tools and principles shared here with what research has found to be effective, for example The Wallace Foundation’s synthesis “How Principals Affect Students and Schools”. There is close alignment.