The School Growth Webinar series theme this month is Think BIG!

Topics: Webinar, Leadership

Innovation isn’t just dreaming about what could be--it’s putting feet to those ideas. The most successful leaders are able to synchronize their school design with alignment between what should be, what could be, and what is. Then an Innovation Plan can be developed to determine what will be.

Topics: Leadership

Brad Soden had a problem. His wife was paralyzed after a car accident, so she was unable to accompany he and the kids on camping trips. So did he listen to the many "experts" who told him he couldn't solve this problem by building an off-road wheelchair? Of course not!

Topics: Administration, Leadership

April showers bring May flowers. After such a long, hard winter we're all ready for spring, but the spring season brings with it some big challenges for school leaders.

Topics: Administration, Leadership, Culture

"Our industry does not respect tradition — it only respects innovation."

- Satya Nadella, New CEO of Microsoft

In his first day as the new CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella provided 3 valuable lessons regarding leadership. His two predecessors were founder and billionaire Bill Gates followed by billionaire Steve Ballmer (the 30th employee of the company), so he obviously has some big shoes to fill. His start was a bit rocky, but we're pulling for him to learn quickly and achieve great success.

Topics: School Design, School Culture, School Growth, Current Events, Leadership, Faculty

Sometimes the biggest threat to your leadership and career is you.

• If you lose your love for your personal mission--which hopefully aligns extremely well with your school's mission--your productivity will decline, impacting the entire community.
• If you fail to adapt to new opportunities for growth because of tradition or fear, you will yield leadership to your competitors.

Topics: Administration, School Culture, Engagement, Personal Reinvention, Leadership

Topics: Administration, School Design, Leadership

A survey of school websites produced this wordle image. The size of each word is indicative of the frequency of its usage on each page. As you can see, "Excellence" is used consistently and persistently as a means of communicating the high standards and quality of the program. But how does the school leader support this statement? What evidence can the faculty offer to support the school's "Excellence" claim?

Topics: School Design, School Culture, Teacher Quality, School Growth, Board Culture, Leadership, Faculty, Culture

Are you killing yourself, your creativity, your leadership, your organization, and your people by living under the tyranny of the urgent? Do your habits create a culture of constant reaction, or planned response? Does your leadership style cultivate fear and stress, or confidence and trust?

Topics: Leadership