3. School leadership models: Current Landscape
45_84 95_84 51_84
School leadership models: Current Landscape
Common practice
Incremental leadership
Distributed Leadership
Concentrating leadership:
Placing the vast majority of all instructional leadership responsibility and accountability for teachers’ personal development with school principals
Adding leadership roles:
Expanding leadership capacity through a variety of different roles, but most with limited time and authority and rarely with an integrated vision of how they will work together
Integrated model:
Creating leadership structures that distribute responsibility for teaching and learning among an empowered group of talented individuals that work in teams

4. Principals feel responsible for teacher performance and growth
“For the teachers that I lead, I am…”
Principal n1 = 131
Principal n2 = 106
TL n1 = 403
TL n2 = 48
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015

5. Principals manage significantly more people than leaders in other fields
In a typical school, principals manage up to 10 non-instructional staff, increasing the total to ~50 people 47
Process for arriving at 72%:
In Q15 of Fall survey only, we asked Principals how many individuals they DIRECTLY supervise (teachers and other) n=36 responded; they supervise ~37 staff total. 26 of these are teachers.
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015; Bain Organizational Practice

6. Teachers are unsatisfied with the feedback they receive
“There’s not nearly enough time given to each teacher.”
“10 minutes is not long enough to get true picture of lesson or my teaching performance.”
“The time evaluators and coaches spend in the classroom is not enough to be able to judge a teacher's ability to teach effectively.”
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015

7. Current practices result in few teachers substantially improving their performance each year
“Substantial improvement seems especially difficult to achieve after a teacher’s first few years in the classroom”
TNTP, The Mirage
Source: TNTP, The Mirage, 2015

8. Teachers feel isolated and are unlikely to recommend their school as a place to work
“On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend working at your school in your current role to a qualified friend or colleague?”
1 Net Promoter Score calculated as Promoters (9-10) less Detractors (0-6) divided by total respondents (0-10)
*Benchmarks represent for-profit companies in Bain decision and org effectiveness database
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Survey 2015, Bain organization diagnostic surveys.

9. Support drives teacher satisfaction
13_84
Support drives teacher satisfaction
“On a scale 0-10, How likely is it that you would recommend your current role to a friend or colleague (assuming they have the necessary qualifications for the role)?”
District B
Note: N = 655
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015

10. School leadership models: Current Landscape
45_84 95_84 51_84
School leadership models: Current Landscape
Common practice
Incremental leadership
Distributed Leadership
Concentrating leadership:
Placing the vast majority of all instructional leadership responsibility and accountability for teachers’ personal development with school principals
Adding leadership roles:
Expanding leadership capacity through a variety of different roles, but most with limited time and authority and rarely with an integrated vision of how they will work together
Integrated model:
Creating leadership structures that distribute responsibility for teaching and learning among an empowered group of talented individuals that work in teams

11. 12 additional leaders for every principal
5_84 8_84
School systems recognize the leadership challenge and have added a large number of roles
District A
12 additional leaders for every principal
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015

12. Teacher leaders focus on facilitation over other development activities
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015

13. “For the teachers that I lead, I am…”
Teacher leaders do not feel responsible for the development of the teachers they lead
Teacher leaders
“For the teachers that I lead, I am…”
Principal n1 = 131
Principal n2 = 106
TL n1 = 403
TL n2 = 48
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015

14. Contributing to the challenge, few teacher leaders feel supported in their roles
“I do not have time in my schedule to be responsible for teacher performance and growth.”
Teacher leader
“I have very little impact because I have been unable to observe what most of the teachers do in their classrooms. Therefore I feel as if I have no real authority.”
Teacher leader
Source: Bain Distributed Leadership Study 2015

15. School leadership models: Current Landscape
45_84 95_84 51_84
School leadership models: Current Landscape
Common practice
Incremental leadership
Distributed Leadership
Concentrating leadership:
Placing the vast majority of all instructional leadership responsibility and accountability for teachers’ personal development with school principals
Adding leadership roles:
Expanding leadership capacity through a variety of different roles, but most with limited time and authority and rarely with an integrated vision of how they will work together
Integrated model:
Creating leadership structures that distribute responsibility for teaching and learning among an empowered group of talented individuals that work in teams

16. Successful distributed leadership models share five key principles1 2
Make a bet on a leadership model
Create and strengthen leadership capacity 3 4 5
Focus leaders on improving teaching and learning
Create teams with a shared purpose
Empower leaders with time & authority to lead

17. Distributed leadership models that follow these principles have been well received by teachers
Denver Public Schools
% of teachers who agree with the following statements…
89%
My teaching practice has improved as a result of working with a Team Lead
My Team Lead is successful at both evaluating my teaching practice and coaching me to improve my teaching practice
85%
84%
I am glad that my school adopted a distributed leadership model
“I can’t stress enough how impactful it has been to work with a Team Lead. I am learning and growing constantly this year, and I truly think that having a fellow teacher’s perspective and feedback has been a ‘game changer’ for me.”
Team teacher at DR school