Coaching the Person and not the Problem

• In Event: Growing and Sustaining Equity-Centered Leaders: Reimagining Professional Learning and Coaching

Abstract

In the District, we have 8 leadership coaches who coach about 150 individuals across the system. This number includes school based staff aspiring to become principals, assistant principals aspiring to become principals, principals in their first 3 years, principals on an improvement plan, or principals who need short cycle coaching.

At the core of the leadership coaching program is the equity-centered belief that the identities of both the coachee and the coach should always be front and center when reflecting on school leadership, as these identities are the source of one’s own power, resourcefulness, resilience, and judgment. Related to this belief is the notion that coaching is about creating “sacred relationships with people that take them to the core of their being” and that coaching is about supporting their “discovery of who they are, what they want, and how they contribute to their family, workplace, community, and the world” (Lasley et al., 2015, p. 3).

In accordance with these beliefs, coaches are asked to decenter their own personal experiences as a principal in the District and refrain from didactically giving advice based on these experiences, which does little to empower the coachee. In fact, the coaching program explicitly rejects the “pathology worldview,” in which “problems are identified, evaluated, and solutions are implemented”; instead, “coaches work with people from a resourceful point of view… where people can discover their own creative solutions” (Lasley et al., 2015, pp. 3-4). We believe that every school leader already innately has the answers and the role of the coach is to draw their power out of them. As is often said in the leadership program, “we coach the person, not the issue.” The coachee is therefore the one to set their leadership growth goals, control the conversation, and push to form their own reflections.

Through an analysis of survey feedback from coachees evaluating their coaches from the past three years of the program, we learned that:

Coaches fundamentally impacted the reflexive practice of the coachees. School leaders who experienced this program reported that their coaches helped them be more inquisitive about their work and in turn, think more intentionally about how they are asking their leadership teams and teachers to reflect on their work.

Coachees see their coaches as a lifeline who sustain them in this work. Thanks to the support and trust built with the coach, the coachees felt empowered to tackle difficult equity issues at their schools and see themselves as equity-centered leadership.

Coaches agree that their participation in this program has a transformative impact on themselves as individuals, as it helped to sharpen their own active listening skills and be more critically aware of their intersectional identities and the identities of others.

Author

• Kwand T. Lang, The School District of Philadelphia