Transforming K-12 Education Through Leadership Development

Solution & Results

Five years into Lead From Here, Ravenscroft’s transformation into a more intentional learning community of citizen leaders progressed with some significant insights and changes. Each year, we conduct evaluations with multiple stakeholders to measure progress and learn how effective LFH implementation has been. That feedback helps drive ongoing improvements in the program.

Here are some of the key lessons we have learned together through this education partnership:

• Leadership development can occur with students as young as 4. Developmentally appropriate experiences can begin to introduce students to key values, mindsets, and skills that will make them more successful during and after their school years;
• Leadership is a muscle. It must be exercised to get stronger, and those exercises are different at different stages of development;
• Leadership development enhances student academic development. Leader attributes such as resilience and resourcefulness, as well as a growth mindset, contribute to academic, athletic, and artistic successes;
• Academic learning relationships are transformed by the infusion of leadership. LFH positively affects the ongoing development of meaningful, consistent learning relationships between faculty and students that directly support students’ growth, their development, and the educational community’s wellbeing. Strengthening these relationships supports Ravenscroft’s entire academic environment and culture of learning;
• Organizational change supports individual change. LFH has been successful in part because it is not purely about the students. Rather, it seeks to change how administrators, faculty, staff, and even parents go about their work, and how they interact with students;
• Developing leadership skills requires a diverse group of participants. Everyone benefits and develops stronger leadership competencies when they’re able to work with a diverse set of peers and teachers. The process of working with people from different personal, cultural, social, and professional backgrounds — as well as different ages — is an example of leadership in action that students will need to be successful;
• Everyone learns at a different pace. Students, teachers, administrators, staff, and parents absorb and model leadership competencies at different rates. Some of those differences are developmental — younger students learn differently than older students, for example. Some of those differences relate to the wide-ranging experiences, expectations, personalities, and professional roles in the diverse Ravenscroft community; and
• Everyone can Lead From Here. Every individual, regardless of their position or grade in the school, can lead because everyone has leadership potential. LFH helps all members of the Ravenscroft community see themselves as leaders, discover their potential, and make choices about how they can lead with others to create positive change.