Executive Coaching as a Model of Professional Development for School Superintendents

Abstract

This study is a utilization-focused program evaluation that describes the impact of an executive coaching model on the professional learning of superintendents who participated in the IASA School for Advanced Leadership (ISAL). The program evaluation is a knowledge-focused, or lessons learned-oriented, formative evaluation of the ISAL cohort program. A qualitative approach is used to describe the lived experiences of superintendents who participated in the coaching model provided through the ISAL cohort program. The results were intended to inform general practice and to provide recommendations on the use of a coaching model in the professional development of superintendents for the ISAL design team.This study provides insights to the extent the ISAL cohort superintendents found value the coaching model and what they learned from their coaching experiences. The data collected included surveys, interviews, and a limited analysis of documents provided by ISAL participants. These four components, combined with the evaluator working closely with the ISAL design team, provided the data necessary to identify patterns of effectiveness and to identify general lessons that could be learned from the use of a coaching model in professional development programs for educational leaders. The evaluation provides additional understanding to both the overall impact of the ISAL program on the professional development of superintendents, as well as the specific impact of the coaching model used within the ISAL program.Two considerations for further study were also provided. The first consideration is to conduct future evaluations to expand the analysis of the five ISAL leadership lenses as they were applied through the coaching model. A second consideration for further study is to examine the differences in the experiences of ISAL participants when viewed through various demographic aspects such as gender, race, level of experience as a superintendent, and type of district.