Public school districts have grown into large, complex, and daunting organizations. Districts employ an increasingly fragmented staff with different skills, different functions, and different backgrounds. In 1950, teachers made up more than 70% of all public school staff. Today, teachers comprise only about half of the school workforce; one non-teacher employee exists for every teacher in the district. At the same time and from another direction, the heightened focus on student achievement and the demand for greater scrutiny have compounded the pressure on school management.
As school districts increase in size, intricacy, and accountability, they must invest more in the human capital that drives almost all of the services they deliver. Accounting for over 80% of district operating budgets, human capital should be districts' number one management priority. The potential for competitive advantage derives from a district's ability to exploit and grow the unique features of its human resources and capabilities.
This human resource-based view of strategy gained momentum throughout the 1990s in the private sector. A 2003 Mercer Consulting report found that 88% of the 300 organizations studied had linked human resources to their business strategies. Many studies have documented the benefits of embedding human resources in business strategy. Organizations that are able to keep their employees "engaged" perform, in the results of a Gallup survey, at levels up to one and a half times better than the norm. The companies awarded Fortune Magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" distinction have been demonstrated over time to outperform the S & P 500.
Despite its private-sector successes, prioritizing human resources as a strategic mission has not deeply penetrated public school districts. Transformational human resource activities in districts have suffered, according to DMC members, from "undermanagement." Most district reform efforts aimed at human resources have centered on the transactional level of improving employee services, record keeping, and benefits administration. Some progress has also occurred at the traditional level of human resource practice, the recruitment and selection, training, and compensation of employees. But the knowledge management, strategic redirection, and cultural change that would constitute transformation have not yet taken root sufficiently in districts.
Formal succession planning, however, has not received much attention in school districts until very recently. Even now, to the extent that they exist at all, succession planning discussions have been focused primarily on building Principals, and not on central office and non-instructional leadership positions. A good example is an initiative Maryland started in 2006, led by the State Department of Education, that attempts to escalate the amount of proactive succession planning aimed at the strengthening the pipeline of Principal candidates statewide. The program essentially asks districts to take district processes to a new level in managing the pipeline, from leader identification all the way to leader retention. The program and concepts have received strong endorsement from DMC members, including non-Maryland districts that have had the opportunity to critique the program.
A new model for human capital growth in public school districts needs to prioritize leadership development and employee motivation across the organization.
Diffusing leadership skills requires rescuing the concept of succession planning from its traditional confinement as "another HR compliance exercise."
Succession planning goes beyond the basic question of selecting replacements for positions. Whereas replacement planning finds backups to fill vacancies on an organizational chart, succession planning grooms talent for the future. Succession planning should encompass a dialogue about leadership in the public school district-what characteristics define it, who displays it, who has the potential to display it, and how to transition from the former to the latter.
The planning should elicit the opinions of all stakeholders in the district. It should inspire a culture of vision and motivation that aligns with the district's strategic objectives and that infuses the work of all school officials.
Succession planning becomes all the more imperative given the mounting challenge of finding qualified candidates for school leadership positions. After interviews with every major search firm in the school field, the District Management Council gathered startling quotes that expose the severity of the shortage problem. One search firm leader vividly described the movement from "having a flood of candidates for a superintendent vacancy in the early ‘90s to a lake, to a river and today to a puddle." Over 50 percent of superintendents "strongly agree" that the dearth of applicants for superintendent positions represents "a crisis in American education." Only 46.5% of superintendents see themselves still holding a superintendent position in five years.
When those vacancies do inevitably occur, however, most school districts scramble for successors. Confronted with a vacancy, districts most commonly respond by 1) "Relying on expediency to identify someone to fill it" 2) "Secretly preparing successors" and 3) "Waiting until positions are vacant and then scurrying around madly to find successors." None of these options adequately prepares a district to face challenges and meet goals.
Successions should not pose a crisis, but instead present an opportunity to formulate a district's objectives and to develop a cadre of leaders who can execute them. Research on the effects of leadership has documented a consistent and statistically significant, albeit small, correlation with student achievement. But the research has been too limited in scope. It has focused on "instructional leadership," the tactics for quality teaching and learning, as the traditional, direct connection to student achievement. Yet instructional leadership presupposes a district-wide involvement to bring about effective practices in individual schools. All employees contribute to the human capital that, in turn, determines a district's "brand experience."
Herein lies a paradox of education reform. While reform efforts advocate systemic approaches to change, they have addressed only instructional forms of leadership. For comprehensive reform, districts must supplement their work on instructional leadership with a greater regard to "organizational leadership"-the vision, motivation, and alignment for all employees.
Conceiving of leadership more broadly requires a distinction between leadership and management. Both are necessary, but leadership and management entail distinct competencies. Leadership means coping with change, developing vision, aligning people, motivating, and inspiring. Flowing from leadership, management provides the structure: coping with complexity, planning and budgeting, organizing and staffing, controlling and problem solving.
Legendary management guru Peter Drucker captured the difference between the sweeping nature of leadership and the technical quality of management when he said,
"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."
DMC believes that the balance in public schools between management and leadership is off. Districts need to pay a greater regard to developing leadership skills.
Because leadership relates more to vision than hierarchy, all employees have the potential of exercising it. Breaking a large organization into smaller units can facilitate the dissemination of leadership by allowing workers to identify better with one another and to perceive the impact of their actions.
Studying leadership skills has dominated both the academic and the general press, from research by Kouzes and Posner to books by Malcolm Gladwell and Jack Welch. Much of this literature has taken the form of lists of specific traits that successful leaders embody. Creating a litany of characteristics, however, raises several problems. The very inclusiveness of such lists-"toughness" and "humanity," "humility" and "confidence"-hinders their usefulness. Moreover, while it is possible to refine an individual's personal attributes through formal coaching, it is nonetheless a formidable undertaking. Perhaps most fundamentally, categorizing certain qualities can obscure other essential dimensions of leadership.
It is more fruitful to view leadership as the interplay of many elements and the flexibility to adapt them to different situations. A leader must at various times apply diverse styles of leadership, some more authoritative or coercive and others more democratic or collegial. Each of these styles demands different capabilities within a leader's overall emotional intelligence. Daniel Golman's heralded work in this area is getting increased attention and traction with district leaders. By treating leadership as a set of common challenges and asking what leaders should do in these situations, we can study leadership as a series of steps to be implemented. Nonetheless, formal leadership development and succession planning processes are rare in public education, which led DMC to create an 8-step process that captured best practices from school districts, elsewhere in the public sector and the private sector.
In beginning a succession planning process, it is worth "overinvesting" in setting the stage internally to avoid later roadblocks. Contemplate the purpose, goals, and expectations of the succession planning process. Recognize the expansive reach of succession planning - the avoidance of leadership crises, the potential cost savings in hiring new leaders, and the growth of a leadership culture. Use this information to write a mission statement that captures the urgency of succession planning. Major stakeholder groups, such as the current leadership team and board must be behind the effort without reservation. Also, expectations need to be firmly established about process duration and intensity.
The succession planning process should not be designed to address today's organizational challenges, but those of the future. As with many DMC initiatives, the succession planning process is designed to take a reactive district process (e.g. filling leadership vacancies) to one that is deliberately proactive (growing the district's leadership talent pool.) Districts should use succession planning as a process for reflecting on the district's future. In this step, districts should take into account both endogenous factors (organizational changes, board priorities, curricular approaches, decentralization, etc.) and exogenous factors (demographics, economy, state and federal legislature, etc.) to identify future needs for an evolving organization.
Having charted a vision for the district's future, examine the role of leadership in enacting the vision. Assess the characteristics necessary for leadership in the district. Build a "leadership code" that explains leadership characteristics and behaviors that drive success in the district.
Aspirationally speaking, certain skills should transcend an organization and unite all of its leaders. A "leadership code" is a consolidated viewpoint of what matters as leaders progress up the organization. For example, Jim Collins' popular "Good to Great" model traces a progression from capable management, the ability to make productive contributions, through effective leadership, the vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, and, finally, to enduring executive greatness.
Yet leadership is of course not a rigid concept. To emphasize an earlier theme, the roles and responsibilities differ for instructional, organizational, and public leadership. While districts are quick to emphasize the importance of instructional leadership as closest to the core mission of public education, real-world job responsibilities force ever-increasing amounts of organizational and public leadership responsibilities as leaders rise through the organization. Even within these subfields, the desired traits and behaviors depend on the organization's objectives and the time horizon.
To create a district-specific leadership code districts should first gather opinions from stakeholders about what really matters for successful leadership in the district. At this stage, the superintendent should listen, not talk, while the stakeholders brainstorm leadership qualities. Then, draft a summary viewpoint that graphically expresses the district's leadership factors. Synthesize the common and distinct constituents of leadership into a District Leadership Code. This single cohesive structure, the eventual product of the process of developing and refining a leadership definition for the district, should allow any district stakeholder to state: "Leaders need to demonstrate these qualities to be effective in our district." Finally, establish metrics, such as performance reviews, survey data, and recruiting statistics that gauge and adjust the leadership program.
Though designing a leadership code is a district-specific process, the basic components of leadership generally apply to all districts. Indeed, in DMC-led exercises in several mid-size districts yielded central office leaders and building-level leaders generating, on balance, very similar lists of desired leadership characteristics.
Nonetheless, while the desired characteristics of leadership may go across districts, those qualities take color in the context of the individual district. The culture of a district should also be reflected. For instance, do we need leaders who must function with a high-degree of independence or do we need leaders that must be flexible enough to respond to central direction? Is our culture ruthless or supportive? Do we tolerate risk taking or not? What types of leaders will be successful in this culture? With brutal honesty, deliberate on the district's attributes, positive, negative, and neutral. Adopt the perspective of a candidate considering various districts to put into relief the opportunities, resources, and culture your district would offer a leader, both positive and negative. Positive or negative features of a district may include opportunities, or lack thereof, for new projects and responsibilities, availability of resources in staff, materials, and technology, and presence of a culture of collegiality and high family and teacher engagement.
Perhaps the single most significant factor underlying effective leadership development is open and honest feedback about an emerging leader's performance. Without an honest discourse about an individual's strengths and weaknesses, proactive development opportunities cannot be deliberately pursued. A district should evaluate its current and emerging leaders against its leadership code through development and use of a formal evaluation rubric.
To provide a relative view of these emerging leaders, districts can evaluate leadership candidates on a matrix that serves as a function of both past performance and future potential. One purpose of such a matrix is to identify the district's "high-potential" leaders, commonly referred to as "hipo's". Using such a matrix to drive further proactive human capital development activities is widely considered a "best practice" in the private sector, and is increasing in use in the public sector as well.
The performance rating assesses an employee's fulfillment of the requirements of his/her position. "Workhorses" and "stars" have surpassed their overall job requirements, whereas "underperformers" and "question marks" have not satisfied duties or have left extensive room for improvement.
The potential rating forecasts an employee's latent value. It rewards "stars" and "question marks" who can proceed to levels above their current position or who can at least undertake additional responsibilities. By this measure, "workhorses," who possess vital technical knowledge that precludes transfer, and "underperformers," who are functioning at or near capacity, receive lower scores.
On average, about 20 to 25% of employees may reside in the "stars" category displaying both outstanding achievement and great potential, whereas 10-15% may reside in the "underperformer" category. An individual's placement is not immutable. Rather, the matrix should prompt a discussion about how to shift people to higher groups on the grid while addressing clear non-performers.
A good example from the public sector is The State of Georgia, which employs a variation of such a talent matrix to evaluate its employees and nourish leaders.
Echoing Peter Drucker's leadership/management scheme, Georgia distinguishes between "doing the right things," a reflection of leadership potential, and "getting the right results," an appraisal of management process. As state employees hone their technical prowess and their functional leadership, they can ideally reach the level of "consistent star," someone who is fully developed in the current assignment and merits more responsibility.
Understanding where your leaders are helps the district plan corrective action, either driven by the district in forms like formal training or job rotations, or by the employee through self-actuated behavioral change.
Once the pool of leadership talent has been identified against the leadership code rubrics, further analysis is needed to evaluate the district's "bench strength" and leadership mobility within the organization. Districts should force themselves to complete a deep bench strength analysis, which yields measures concerning the depth of leadership talent within the organization. Compute this measure by listing potential successors for each major position and assigning successors a ranking to denote:
Level 1-Successor ready to lead within one year
Level 2-Successor ready in one to two years
Level 3-No successor ready within a five-year period
A Level 3 ranking presents an organizational "hole." The lower the percentage of holes relative to key positions, the greater the organization's bench strength.
The basic bench strength measure serves as a foundation on which to calculate several other metrics of an organization's human capital inventory, such as:
Armed with this data, districts can make targeted investment in readying internal candidates or proactively recruiting external candidates where succession risk is present. Districts can ask important questions like
By this stage in the succession planning process, a district will have a very good view of where the high potential leaders lie and where the major risks are. Those potential successors ranked in an organization's bench strength must be further cultivated through on-the-job learning and formal training. Districts may be forced to answer, "How can we get someone ready more quickly?" or even, "Do we have anyone that's ready now?"
Each participant in leadership training programs should be the subject of an individualized development plan (an "IDP"). The plan should ask such questions as: For what key position should this person be prepared? What kinds of competencies should be developed? What are the individual's career objectives? What learning objectives should guide the individual's development? By what methods or strategies may the objectives be met?
Generally, the most productive lever for leadership development is on-the-job opportunities that widen the scope, increase the depth, and vary the routine of responsibilities. Examples of assignments that satisfy these three areas could take the form of relaunching or revamping a failing service, launching a new service, managing a turnaround situation, handling a rapidly expanding service, preparing a strategic proposal for top management, taking on a difficult assignment, leading an unpopular change, or chairing a multi-functional team.
In addition to on-the-job opportunities, organizations may be able to invest in expert leadership coaching and mentoring with good results. Through a "360 degree" evaluation, expert coaches help leaders to understand all their areas of strength and weakness and to grow their emotional intelligence. Best practice coaching structures follow a sequence of enrolling the individual, building a relationship, fact-finding based on existing and new assessment data, collaborating to create a development plan, coaching to the development plan, evaluating the process relative to stated objectives, and planning next steps.
"Best Practice" programs of leadership development in both public and private sectors combine aspects of on-the-job responsibilities, coaching and mentoring and formal training. General Electric, for example, uses a tiered system. It starts with a residential course at GE's Management Development Institute, similar to a business school executive program. The most promising participants then move to a business management course that integrates classroom work and action learning projects. GE's program culminates with executive development that features less classroom instruction and more personalized involvement by GE executives. DMC member Meridian School's Administrators' Academy employs a similarly sequenced progression to move administrators from an "aspiring" to a "veteran" level of leadership. At the "aspiring" level, instruction occurs on a more traditional basis with large-scale university partnerships. At the "veteran" level, the academy utilizes more internal instructors and more varied methods.
As districts devote greater resources to identifying and preparing leaders, assuring the transfer of leadership responsibilities in succession is increasingly crucial. When transitions suffer, initiatives get put on hold and progress slows, often never to regain momentum. Ideally, the replacement of leaders should involve substantive overlap allowing for on-the-job training and a smooth handoff of responsibility. However, this may often not be feasible due to sudden departures, budgetary constraints or other mitigating circumstances.
To facilitate a smooth transition, many districts are structuring plans that outline the process of orienting new leaders. Transition plans have been used by new superintendents for some time, but enormous variance exists in the structure and approach of those plans. Moreover, transition plans can be applied to a broad variety of senior leadership positions. DMC favors a "goals-based approach" to constructing a transition plan. The product is a results-oriented plan around specific desired outcomes in managerial and organizational performance and district accomplishment. For example, one goals-based objective from a new DMC member superintendent reads, "Develop a plan to decentralize the organizational structure in order to be more responsive to the needs of principals, schools and the public." This is a clear structure that allows for broad stakeholders understanding of what the leader is doing and why. Conversely, an "activities-based approach" focuses on what the new leader will do, but does little to focus the leader on why they are doing it.
Succession planning is a fluid and continual process, subject to regular assessment and adjustment. Evaluation should signify bench strength by measuring the number of well-qualified internal candidates for each key position, the record of promotions, and the retention of high performers. At the same time, evaluation should also capture more subjective human capital metrics, including the perceptions of fairness, transparency, morale, confidence, and competence.
Ultimately, a successful succession planning program will be a tailored, systematic, and clear process that enjoys dedicated organizational support and that emphasizes long-term leadership development.
National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education.
Ibid.
Chief Executive Magazine; Mercer Consulting.
Gallup; Chief Executive Magazine; Great Place to Work Institute; Russell Investment Group.
Wright, Snell & Gerhardt, Cornell University, 1998.
Rothwell, AMA, 2005.
American Association of School Administrators, 2007.
Leithwood/LSS 2005; Waters, Marzano & McNulty, 2003.
Institute for Educational Leadership, 2001; Kenneth Leithwood, Educational Leadership, 2005.
Kotter, Harvard Business Review, 2001.
Goleman, 1998, 2004.
Adapted from Ulrich and Smallwood, 2007.
Collins, 2001.
Grubs; Hewitt Associates 2004.
Carter, 1986.
Larson & Richburg; RMC Research, 2004.
Joint School District No. 2, Meridian, ID.
Rothwell, 2005.
An Introduction to Succession Planning
