Transforming schools through leadership involves a personal learning journey for the leader.

In supporting senior leaders to be able to have transformational impact, we can reflect on the skills and actions that earned them those senior roles. The complex leadership demands related to transforming systems do not always tap the same skills and actions as previous roles- the senior leadership seat may ask you to think differently, use different skills and essentially, to be different.

In Season 2 Episode 6 of Learning Through Experience, Hanseul Kang highlights this.

“It's not enough to continue to do what we do now. We have to think about how we do that work in a way that is better for the people that we serve.”

Hanseul is the executive director (and former fellow) at The Broad Center at the Yale School of Management which fosters the ideas, policies, and leadership to help all students in K-12 public schools, particularly those from underserved communities, to learn and thrive. 

I taught my interpersonal and group dynamics course at the Broad Center this year. In this special episode, I talk with some of the fellows about their learning experience in the course.

The 4 core practices that we focused on this season of learning through experience — challenging your perspective, stretching and building range, directing your learning, reflection and inquiry – come through in the experiences they share.

Challenging Our Perspective of Leadership

Senior leaders in education may have come up through the ranks by getting things done, understanding policy and pedagogy, and being able to operate and manage.

That's impressive, important, and essential- we’ve got to respect the incredible work happening at this level. 

AND… the asks, the demands, the role, and what it asks of the leaders can be quite different once they’re in the senior seat. 

From a senior seat, there is an incredible amount of managing interpersonal and group dynamics across a complex set of stakeholders with different demands — sometimes in conflict with one another. 

Navigating the group dynamics becomes a huge part of their experience of leadership and their capacity to lead.

Leading in a reactive and defensive way, for instance, might be okay for putting out fires, but it's not enough to address the level of complexity and the kind of aspirations Broad has for what schools can do and be for children and families.

“A lot of people think you’ve only got to know pedagogy, you’ve got to know how to teach, how to write, what's a standard. But really, this level of work is critical to being an educator and changing the lives of children. Because even for their impact, you have to understand what's happening with the educators, the teachers, the administrators, the students, the parents, the families.” - Ericilda Xiomara “Dr. Xi” Herman, Ed.D. , Broad Fellow

Building Range And Expanding Leadership Capacity 

The context and the culture of learning at Broad welcome immersive learning through experience. It aims to transform systems in a way that includes transforming the self. 

Each learner has the opportunity to tell the story of their leadership journey. This is also an opportunity for them to rewrite that story. 

“I came into Broad and this experience but also into leadership with a really narrowly defined perspective of who I was and what was required to succeed.” - Andrew McRae, Broad Fellow

I've listened to a number of these stories and it's a wonderful way to see the leader’s learning journey live as they tell and step into a new way of seeing themselves in the company of others doing the same.

This is like filling your cup in such a way that stretches you. You become a bigger person able to hold more space so other people can have an experience of you, your aspirations for the world, and how you navigate towards your vision.

Directing Your Own Learning 

Many of us are used to learning through books, concepts, and ideas. We keep the idea of learning to the domain of the brain- if we can think new thoughts, we believe we have learned.  But this brain-bound model of learning is often not enough to be able to act and be different. To increase your depth for taking perspectives across many stakeholders, and thinking through and being with ambiguity and complexity, you can't always learn skills from experts and ideas from books.

You might have to learn through experience. 

It’s about building the muscle for treating each day as a new learning opportunity. 

You have to be able to learn when you're triggered, when you're stressed, when you’re out of your comfort zone, when the dynamics are complex, when the heat is high, when it's inconvenient, when you're in public, and when you don't feel like it. 

“The immersion experience gave me the opportunity to practice allowing myself to be more known in a different way, in a space with people I knew and trusted, and who shared my values and beliefs. So that when I'm not in that space, I have had a trial run at what it looks like to replicate that behavior.” - Andrew McRae, Broad Fellow

This work isn't just about transforming the schools. This is about transforming the schools through leadership. Since people lead through who they are and how they show up, a lot of transformation work includes transforming the self.. 

So how do we transform the education system through leadership?

When you need to change and transform people, systems, and possibilities, it's not just about pedagogy, transaction, or expertise.

It’s about committing to the learning journey, and you commit to it because there's something about you that you care about being able to do and to be. 

Directing your own learning based on your aspirations is one of the fundamentals of this podcast season. You guide your attention, practices, risk-taking and experimentation because you are motivated by being able to step up to meet the moment through how you show up.  

To learn more about the Broad Center and learning as a leadership superpower, tune into S2E6 of Learning through Experience.

→ Learning Through Experience is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and anywhere you find podcasts.

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→ Learning Through Experience is a podcast produced through the Yale School of Management and hosted by Dr. Heidi Brooks.