Giving Compass' Take:

• In this story from Bain & Company, the authors examine how distributed leadership in schools can improve student performance.

• The authors stress the importance of transformational leadership for exceptional schools. How can the education system train young teachers into future leaders who can go on to transform other schools?

• To learn how we can cultivate an innovation mindset in the classroom, click here.

We know from hundreds of examples nationwide that extraordinary student outcomes are possible at the individual school level. These persistent rays of hope shine through even in the most challenging of educational environments. Breakthrough results in student achievement occur when the significant challenges our students face are met with an even greater level of teacher talent and dedication—when talented individuals work together to do extraordinary things. Yet we also know that these kinds of schools don’t develop randomly on their own; an essential ingredient behind each of these success stories is transformational leadership.

Two years ago, we conducted an in-depth study focused on how school systems could develop more school leaders with the capabilities required to transform their schools. Progress since has been highly encouraging. But our most recent research has uncovered another critical challenge: While many school districts and charter management organizations (CMOs) are investing in programs to develop more transformational leaders, there is rarely a plan in place to deploy these people effectively within an individual school setting. As a result, development efforts are fragmented, our principals are overwhelmed, and teachers lack the support they need to progress as instructors in enough numbers to produce high-performing schools at greater scale.

The opportunity is clear: We need to commit to models of “distributed leadership” in our schools that establish a cadre of talented educators in each building who have end-to-end responsibility for the development of the teachers on their teams.

A growing number of schools are stepping up to the challenge and we’ve identified a set of best practices that are starting to succeed in the real world. Our most successful systems are on a path to develop more transformational leaders. The next step is to put them in distributed leadership models that will enable them to move farther and faster to transform their schools.

Read the full article about distributed leadership by Chris Bierly, Betsy Doyle and Abigail Smith at Bain & Company