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PROGRAM FOR NEW PRINCIPALS
Coaching New and
Experienced Principals:
Lessons Learned From a
Three-Year Study
Michael Silver, Director of Educational Administration, SU
Monica Chandler, Project Director, SU
Chad Lochmiller, Assistant Professor, WSU
Washington Educational Research Association
State Assessment Conference December 9, 2010
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Outcomes for Today
• Share a definition and framework of leadership coaching
• Share a description of the Program for New Principals at Seattle University
• Identify research findings on differences in coaching new vs. experienced principals
• Identify and discuss implications for coaching school leaders
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A Definition of Coaching…
“Coaching is the practice of providing deliberate support to another individual to help him/her to clarify and/or to achieve goals.”
“All coaching is centered on increasing the coachee’s ability to set goals effectively, to act in pursuit of those goals, and to reflectupon those actions and their impacts.”
Blended Coaching (2005)
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Foundational Coaching Skills
• Relationship Building– Establishing trust and rapport
• Communicating Effectively– Active Listening
– Powerful Questioning
– Providing Feedback
• Facilitating Learning and Results– Planning and Goal Setting
– Designing Actions
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Blended Coaching Strategies
Facilitative Coaching
– Primarily addresses an individual’s “ways of thinking and being”
– Locus of control is with coachee, not the coach
– Builds self-reflective practice
– Develops problem solving skills and diagnostic abilities
– Can produce powerful shifts in thinking and beliefs
– Rests on the assumption that coachee has skills and knowledge to resolve need
Instructional Coaching
– Primarily addresses “ways of doing”
– Used when it is clear that the coachee does not have the skills or knowledge needed
– Coach may share own expertise by modeling and providing resources
– Nested in facilitative coaching
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Coaching is not…
• Coaching is not training– Addresses the needs of the individual, not a
particular curriculum
• Coaching is not supervision– A coach does not have the authority to give
directions or determine employment status
• Coaching is not therapy– Coaching focuses on the accomplishment of
professional goals
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Coaching vs. Mentoring
Coach MentorOutside the organization; outside perspective
Organization insider; senior expert
Provides continuing, regular support that is safe and confidential
Informal, voluntary, may not be regular
Goal: nurturing of significant personal, professional and institutional growth through a process that unfolds over time
Goal: show novice the ropes
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On the coaching relationship…
“The coaching relationship isn’t the same as a mentoring relationship… in a coaching relationship the coach is creating a space for the other person to grow… a mentoring relationship is about a specific culture or organization… it’s really not about the person….”
Coach
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PROGRAM FOR NEW PRINCIPALS
On being a coachee…
“…I feel like I can talk about so much more with my coach…I don’t feel like I am going to be judged…I don’t feel like I will be fired if I talk about things I don’t understand…As [her] coachee, I am free to learn…I feel like she was picked just for me…”
Coachee
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Why Coaching Works
• Objectives are realistic and important for personal and professional needs
• Control over what, how, why, when, where of learning
• Direct application to work
• Provides support for transfer of learning and sustained practice
• Provides feedback on results of efforts
• Responsive to wide range of experiences, knowledge, interests and competencies
-Speck and Knipe (2001)
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PROGRAM FOR NEW PRINCIPALS
Seattle University
Program for New Principals
Goals: • Create and sustain a research-based, model program that supports
new and experienced school and district administrators through leadership coaching
• Train and develop highly skilled coaches committed to the success of school and district leaders
Purpose:• To have a positive impact on student achievement by helping
administrators develop and/or refine the skills to be effective instructional leaders
Funding:Stuart Foundation, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, JP Morgan Chase
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PNP Program Components
• Support for New Principals (SU)– Seattle University graduates receive coaching support for 3
years
• Support for New and Experienced Principals– Receive coaching for 1-3 years
– Coaching is provided on-site for 4-6 hours /month
• Support for Supervisors of Principals– Workshop series on use of effective coaching strategies
– Coaching is provided on-site for 4-6 hours/month
• Support for Leadership Coaches– Initial 3 day coaching workshop
– Four follow up training workshops over course of year
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PROGRAM FOR NEW PRINCIPALS
RESEARCH ON THE PROGRAM
FOR NEW PRINCIPALS
2009-2012 External Program Evaluation
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Study Context
• Research is based on a multi-year, external program evaluation for
the Program for New Principals at Seattle University conducted by
faculty from Washington State University.
• Research began in 2006-07 and has been completed every year
since.
• Research is primarily qualitative evaluation, with methods including
interviews, observations, surveys, and review of documents.
• Data in this presentation reflects research conducted in the 2009-10
program year, specifically surveys and interviews completed in
Spring 2010.
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Program Evaluation Sample
35 (43%)
Experienced
Administrators
22 (27%)
Leadership
Coaches
14 (17%)
Novice
Administrators
11 (13%)
Central Office
Administrators
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Research Questions
• The research explored two questions:
– What differences do leadership coaches perceive when working
with novice versus experienced school administrators?
– What implications do these perceived differences pose for the
program or for professional development of leadership
coaches/school administrators?
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Findings
• Leadership coaches reported the following differences in their work with experienced school principals:
1. Coaches generally indicated that experienced principals approached the coaching relationship with a different set of expectations and needs.
2. Coaches found experienced principals more receptive to facilitative coaching (probing their thinking) as opposed to instructional coaching (showing them how).
3. Experienced administrators were often “skeptical” or “resistant” to leadership coaching as they were concerned that accepting coaching meant acknowledging a weakness in their performance or practice.
4. The coaching relationship, particularly developing trust, took longer to establish when working with experienced principals.
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Different Focus and Interest in Coaching
• According to the leadership
coaches:
– Novice principals tend to focus
their coaching on learning their
roles;
– Whereas, experienced principals
tend to have interest in using the
coaching support to optimize
their leadership performance.
New principals are focused on
performance enhancement and
generally learning their role, whereas
veteran principals are interested in
optimizing their leadership, which
means exploring one's way of being
as a leader, one's values, beliefs, and
sense of identity.
-- PNP Leadership Coach
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Explanations for the Differences
• Leadership coaches offered different explanations for the differences between their work with experienced and novice administrators:
– From my experience it seems like an experienced principal does not need as much of the "emergency" problem-solving as a new principal does.
– [Experienced principals] have had the time for more reflection on their job and have found that events, certain types of situations, and even people issues repeat themselves… so, once they have resolved one issue they are better able to apply that experience to another one.
– I think an experienced principal has more confidence and a sense of urgency in an experienced principal that will often propel him/her into action on instructional matters that novice principals do not.
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Relying on Facilitative Coaching
• Coaches indicated that
they tended to rely on
facilitative coaching
strategies with
experienced principals
whereas they often used
instructional coaching with
novice principals.
Coaching an experienced principal
requires spending more time
unpacking their current knowledge or
understanding of the challenge or
organization…
… you have to use more facilitative
questioning to probe their thinking to
understand why and how they make
decisions and how this experience
may be tied to something that
happened before and is now
influencing how they think about the
problem.
-- PNP Leadership Coach
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Coaching to Their Strengths, Not Weaknesses
• Coaches found experienced school administrators often avoided the
coaching support because they feared it would acknowledge a
weakness or deficit.
When I first found out about the coach, I was
like, what did I do wrong? It was not something
that I saw as being helpful, I thought it was
being provided because I had done something
wrong. I now realize that wasn’t the purpose
of this – but it still took me time to admit that
the coach was here to work on my strengths
and not highlight my weaknesses.
-- School Administrator, Seattle
I think you need to understand what
principals in this district are going through –
there is sort of this view that we either move it
(student achievement) or lose it (our job)…
When a coach shows up, your first thought is
that you’re on the way out because you’re not
doing the work or getting the job done. The
coach may be well-meaning, but that’s just the
culture in the district that we’re working in
right now.
-- School Administrator, Seattle
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Difficult to Establish Trust
Experienced principals bring more to the
table in terms of skills and strategies. But
they also have baggage that they have
accumulated over time. It takes time to work
into a trusting relationship with an
experienced principal because that person is
assessing the coach as much as the coach is
assessing the coachee… Many experienced
principals may have been burned in the past
and they have to overcome their concerns
about whether this relationship will really
benefit them. This takes time to achieve.
--- PNP Leadership Coach
• Coaches indicated that
developing a relationship with
an experienced administrator,
particularly developing trust,
often required greater effort
than it did with a novice
administrator.
• Coaches saw this as a
reflection of past experience
more than an apprehension to
coaching.
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Explanations for the differences?
• Leadership coaches explained that some of the differences they encountered coaching experienced principals stemmed from:
–Relationship with the central
office supervisor or
administration.
–Quality of the relationship
between the administrator and
his/her staff.
–Previous experience with or
exposure to professional
development.
–Misconceptions about what
leadership coaching is/was.
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Implications for the Program
• Professional development for leadership coaches needs to differentiate whether/when strategies apply to novice or experienced administrators.
• Coaches need additional training on strategies to develop a relationship and overcome resistance when working with school administrators.
• Matching procedures used by the program should consider the principal’s experience level and their specific professional learning needs, as well as the school level and coach’s professional background.
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References
Bloom,G., Castagna, C., Moir, E., & Warren, B. (2005). Blended Coaching: Skills and Strategies to Support Principal Development. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Speck, M. & Knipe, C. (2001). Why Can't We Get it Right? Professional Development in Our Schools.Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
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Contact Information
• PNP website: http://www.seattleu.edu/coe/newprincipals/
• Michael Silver: [email protected]
• Monica Chandler: [email protected]
• Chad Lochmiller: [email protected]