Plenty of education leaders aspire to district leadership roles, but for many, the pathways to advancement within districts remain unclear. Conversely, districts need strong leadership pipelines to support student achievement and teacher retention, and facilitate effective succession planning.
Aspiring and current district leaders looking to best position themselves for promotion take the following concrete steps to be ready when the right opportunity presents itself.
1. Identify skill and experience gaps
- Interview leaders currently in roles in which you would be interested. Ask them specifically about the core responsibilities of their jobs, and learn about what a typical week really looks like.
- Review job descriptions or postings for roles for which you would like to be considered with an eye on identifying experiences or preferred qualifications that you might not yet have.
- Look for commonalities in similar job descriptions across districts. Do you need to gain experience with making operational decisions? Leading instruction or change initiatives? Do you need to build your skills at using data to impact results?
- Reflect on a few key experiences you could gain to strengthen your candidacy for a potential leadership role.
2. Seek opportunities for stretch assignments
Once you have identified the experiences you are hoping to gain, communicate this with your supervisor and other district leaders.
Often, just communicating that you are looking for a particular experience or to build your skillset in an area is all it takes to get you an opportunity for a stretch assignment—a task outside of your normal scope of work that allows you to build new skills.
This could be assisting with policy development for the district, leading a pilot of a new initiative, chairing a district-wide committee, pariticipating in strategic planning or systemic professional learning, or mentoring new leaders.
3. Build your mentorship network
Good mentors will help reflect your strengths back to you, identify areas for growth opportunities and connect you with experiences that will be invaluable in your career trajectory. Building a strong mentorship network requires looking for individuals who can help strengthen your leadership in different ways.
Look for someone who can serve as a sponsor, opening doors for you and speaking positively about you, even when you’re not in the room. Find another person who currently sits in a role to which you aspire who is willing to mentor you.
Finally, develop a strong, supportive network of colleagues in similar roles to your current position with whom you can share ideas and collaborate on projects.
4. Prepare for interviews, in real time
The best way to have your resume polished and ready when an opportunity arises is to keep it updated in real time, rather than waiting to dust it off when you’re in the middle of preparing your application.
As you expand your scope of work, tackle a stretch assignment or achieve great gains in student achievement data, capture that accomplishment on your resume. Review older information to see what remains a relevant, strong example of your work, and what might no longer be fresh.
Collect positive feedback from others, including supervisors, colleagues, direct reports, parents and students, and keep it in a physical or digital file. This feedback can be great when preparing for an interview, because you can review it for common themes for which others have recognized you.
Keep other artifacts similarly organized, so that when you get a call for an interview, you can review your highlights as you prepare and rehearse.
5. Find ways to keep learning
There are so many different ways to engage in professional learning nowadays—taking courses, attending webinars and conferences, listening to podcasts, reading books and magazines—that make it simple to incorporate regular professional learning into our lives.
Think beyond engaging in professional development just to check a box, and identify how you can use it as a tool to upskill yourself for a future role. If you focus on building your skills in the right areas, you can not only strengthen your performance in your current role but also set yourself up to be a top candidate for your next one.
The best time to position yourself for a district leadership role is right now. By investing time in developing yourself, you can find greater job satisfaction, experience personal growth, and equip yourself with the skills that will help pave the way for career advancement.
