<h1 style="text-align:center;">How Do Principals Perceive The Effectiveness Of Their Professional Development When In A Mastermind Program?</h1> <h2 style="text-align:center;">Jethro Jones</h2> <h2 style="text-align:center;">University of Missouri – St. Louis</h2> <p style="text-align:center;">December 2, 2024</p> # Abstract This proposal seeks to determine how principals perceive their professional development when engaged in a mastermind. It provides a review of the scant mastermind literature, and delves into coaching and leadership development literature as well. A mastermind is a specific approach to professional development that is focused on gathering a few people together (virtually or in person) over a regular period of time to meet and discuss present issues, “The members collectively tackle current challenges and opportunities, mentor one another, and hold each other accountable for actions collectively agreed upon at group meetings” (Garmy et al., 2019, p. 3) _Keywords_:  leadership, leadership development, coaching, peer coaching, reciprocal coaching, mastermind, leader development, principal # Introduction Apple, Inc is one of the largest companies in the world, operating at a scale that many of us cannot even fathom. Their work touches the lives of many people around the world. They created innovative products, entirely new categories of products and produced much innovation and opportunity for people the world over. In a world where it is so easy to be focused on certain metrics, Apple does some surprising things. When asked in an ongoing legal battle about how profitable the Apple App Store is for the overall business, the man who has been directly responsible for the part of the Apple ecosystem since its inception, Phil Schiller responded, “I believe it is [profitable]”.. “I’m simply saying ‘profit’ as a specific financial metric is not a report I get and spend time on. It’s not how we measure our performance as a team,” he said” (as cited in Gruber, 2024). 37Signals is a company that makes productivity and communication software. They are not nearly as big as Apple, but also provide a lot of value to their users. They have been profitable since their very first year, over 20 years ago, have not taken on investors and pay their people in the top 10% of their industry in whatever place their hiring for and no matter where the person lives (Fried, n.d.). Jason Fried, CEO of 37Signals says they only focus on one aspect of profitability: the overall profitability of the company. He says, “Number one is that we've always run a profitable business. '” (Hurff, 2023). So while a subset of the company, Hey Email, for example, may or may not be profitable, they don't look at that. They only look at the overall profitability of the company. Apple and 37Signals both have one thing in common. They don't focus on the metric that almost every other business focuses on: the bottom line for each product line. Or put another way, they only focus on the bottomest of lines: the overall profitability. These two examples provide an alternative angle that we will use to explore leadership in schools. All too often in schools we focus on things that seem like they really matter, and in some ways, they do matter. Grades and assessments are a legislatively convenient way to measure schools. Teacher evaluations and certifications can often help us know how successful teachers will be. But Apple and 37Signals both are clear on what really matters: the overall profitability of their businesses, not the individual profit and loss statements of a particular product line. We're going to take a similar approach in our discussion through the rest of this proposal. Test scores and grades are all made up and can be canceled on a whim (Jones, 2020). Kids are promoted through school regardless of their achievement or proficiency (Grose, 2023). And, kids are over-tested, anyway, at least according to the Obama administration (Moser, 2015). The focus of this proposal is to gauge how principals feel about their leadership development as it relates to their ability to enact change when using a non-traditional approach like a mastermind. In 2016, I created the first mastermind for school leaders. Since then, several others have followed suit and created their own version of this powerful new professional development paradigm that has existed for years in business settings. # Research Questions How do principals feel about their current state of leadership development and skill in managing change after coaching in a mastermind program, compared to before participation in a mastermind program? In this case leadership development means the degree to which a principal is capable and confident of his ability to lead change in his school. A mastermind is defined as a group of principals that are joining together in a friendly alliance to discuss their plans (Greenstreet, n.d.). Greenstreet further defines a mastermind thus (though it may be too woo-woo for most researchers) from Napolean Hill's The Magic Ladder to Success, published in 1930: “The process of mind blending here described as a “Master Mind” may be likened to the act of one who connects many electric batteries to a single transmission wire, thereby ‘stepping up’ the power passing over that line by the amount of energy the batteries carry. Each mind, through the principle of mind chemistry, stimulates all the other minds in the group” (Greenstreet, n.d.) Our study will focus solely on school principals engaged in a mastermind group. There are multiple kinds of mastermind groups that exist. We will focus on mastermind groups that conform to the following criteria: 1) they charge a fee for the service; 2) they are led by an experienced coach, and 3) they follow a structure for their meetings. These criteria will be addressed in more depth later. Sometimes participants desire a certain arrangement that helps them connect with the others. Sometimes, as in the case of a Catholic school principal, "In my other mastermind group, there was a lack of faith in Christ that was missing from the mastermind but was present in my school" (R. Maestes-Sanchez, personal communication, April 23, 2024). Maestes-Sanchez was looking for community with other Catholic school principals, and so she left one group to join another group where that collegiality existed. My hypothesis is that principals will feel like they have greater satisfaction in their ability to lead and lead change because of their mastermind experiences. Furthermore, I believe that principals will state that a mastermind is their most effective form of professional development and that it reduces loneliness and isolation, problems that are prevalent among school leaders (Roberts, 1991; Valle et al., 2015). While researchers and educators are constantly focusing on student achievement (Goff et al., n.d.; Huff et al., 2013; B. Master et al., 2020; B. K. Master et al., 2022; Roberts, 1991; Warren & Kelsen, 2014), principals day-to-day are being asked to do many different and extensive tasks, not the least of which is leading change in a building (Roberts, 1991). The pressure to do the work of raising student achievement will always be there, but there is an opportunity to find other ways of measuring the value that principals provide schools. The challenge for a school principal, is that it is "an exquisitely intellectual exercise" (Hochbein, 2023). Furthermore, it is the type of job that really puts the middle in middle management. Principals are in the middle of everyone, and are being pulled in every direction by teachers, parents, students, school boards, superintendents, state legislatures, and community members (Jones, 2022). Due to this barrage of requests, principals are tasked with myriad expectations from every side, and are expected to solve problems at many different levels, regardless of their experience in dealing with such problems. From the plumbing issues to the internet being down to supporting a student struggling with their identity to reprimanding a teacher to counseling parents going through a divorce, principals are required to meet many diverse needs. Peter Vaill used the metaphor of “permanent white water” in describing “the uncertainty, chaos, and complexity inherent in today's managerial environment” (as cited in Collins & Holton, 2004, p. 220). Valle et al. (2015) describes the challenges facing principals as three-fold: “adjusting to school context, keeping and developing human capital, and maintaining instructionally sound partnerships” (p. 88). This narrowing of challenges to just these three surely underestimates the challenges facing principals. The question naturally arises: how do we prepare and support principals for this challenging role, where they serve so many masters? Principals are truly in permanent white water and need support to make change happen. There is an extensive amount of research in the area of how to support principals to improve instructional practices in the school and improve student achievement (Goff et al., 2014; Huff et al., 2013; B. Master et al., 2020; B. K. Master et al., 2022), but little research describing how principals perceive that support in non-traditional mastermind settings. When a new principal is hired, they are rarely given the directive, “Just keep everything how it has been for the last twenty years at this school.” Truly, schools are one institution where change is constant. Even if a school manages to keep the same staff year to year, there is likely a change in student population from student movement or natural student progression. At the very least, no two school years can be identical as the kids grow older, new kids come into the lower grades and older kids leave by promotion to the next grade level up or graduation (and some by dropping out). In a K-5 building, the school will almost unfailingly have an entirely different student body every six years. Thus, the principal’s primary role is to lead change, whether that is forced by circumstance, chosen or directed by district administration, or simply as a reaction to the changing demographics of the school which is naturally occurring. Change is and always will be constant. While there are several models of change management, and styles of leadership coaching, our purpose here is to focus on the mastermind approach. A mastermind is a specific approach to professional development that is focused on gathering a few people together (virtually or in person) over a regular period of time to meet and discuss present issues. In "The E-Myth Revisited" (1995), Gerber defines this as working on your school instead of just working in your school. The major benefit of the mastermind approach is the "friendly alliance" described by Greenstreet above. This is important because even in the best cases, districts, schools, and universities may make a decision about training, professional development, or support based on political pressures and politics at the local level (Valle et al., 2015). Even when all the processes are in place, and people are working hard to do the right things, political pressures come in and make the challenging job of principal even more challenging. A mastermind does not free members from political pressure, but the "friendly alliance" at the very least does a good job of keeping political pressure out of the mastermind of principals in the first place. Perhaps the closes corollary in education is the Professional Learning Community as advocated by DuFour et al (2010) in which they define a PLC as an "ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve" (p. 14). The major difference between the two is that the mastermind is a choice group you enter into, to engage in friendly discourse, support, and brainstorming, while the PLC is an assigned group that you are placed into to focus on student outcomes. Masterminds are a powerful force because everyone chooses to be there and chooses to engage in the conversation. This self-selection bias will most likely prove out in the survey results as well. However, this research is valuable because the concept of a mastermind for school principals is a relatively new one. As far as I know, I am the first person to explicitly use this approach in a coaching practice for school principals, starting in 2016. In the following sections, we’ll review the literature on mastermind, coaching, and leadership development and then examine the design strategies for this proposal. # Literature Review ## Defining Mastermind "Mastermind" is not a common term in educational research. Using this term led to very limited results. Therefore, we will include the phrases peer, support, and coaching to better identify research related to the mastermind approach for principal development. The effect on student achievement is outside the scope of this proposal, so we will not focus on studies or papers that clearly define how student achievement is impacted. Rather, we are focused on leadership qualities, actions, and perceptions. There are many ways to define a mastermind. We will focus on mastermind groups that conform to the following criteria: 1) they charge a fee for the service; 2) they are led by an experienced coach, who may or may not have the experience of the principals he or she is leading, and 3) they follow a structure for their meetings. **Charging a fee:**  There are many free mastermind type opportunities out there, but we will ignore them for the sake of this proposal. In a randomized clinical study, conducted by Master et al. for the Executive Development program focusing on principals, they found that as the money got further away from the school budget (i.e., by being paid for with federal dollars instead of local) “may have reduced district and principal investment in the programs” (B. K. Master et al., 2022, p. 279). Although one of the studies by Paetow, et al. enlisted participants in the mastermind on a no-cost basis, and used free tools, thus representing a zero-cost approach, the no-cost approach strategy introduces other biases that will further dilute the process this study is going for, specifically that participation is lower and harder to track when enrollment is open, optional and free (Paetow et al., 2018). In another study, 100 post-doctoral students had been offered an opportunity to participate in a mastermind group (also, free of charge), and while, due to the anonymous nature of collection, we don't know how many of the 100 actually participated in a mastermind group, the responses rate of 16 seems to indicate that perhaps not that many participated, despite their glowing reviews of the mastermind experience (Garmy et al., 2019). Neither of the studies focused on masterminds specifically charged a fee for their services, nor did they have an experienced coach leading the group. They both were collaborative processes where the members ran the group. **Led by an experienced coach:** I'm intentionally leaving out the term certified here because coaching certification has some glaring drawbacks (Stahl, 2015), not the least of which it is unregulated and therefore is nearly impossible to compare one school's certification to another. An experienced coach may or may not have certification or training, but more importantly, the coach has had clients in the past. **Follow a Structure for Meetings:** For the final leg of this mastermind definition stool, masterminds must have meetings, with an agenda or at the very least a process they go through. This immediately excludes Facebook and other social media groups for specific jobs, of which there are many with thousands of members constantly asking questions, giving support, and sharing resources. While these may be helpful for leaders (Skeels & Grudin, 2009), they don't ultimately fit into our schema for the scope of this proposal. It is essential that they have a structure, even if it is self-directed: “Each mastermind group agrees on the agenda, goals, approaches, timelines, frequency, and format of its meetings. Meetings are regular and can be face-to-face, virtual (e.g., via teleconference or Skype), or a mixture of both” (Garmy et al., 2019, p. 1). These three requirements will help us identify participants for the study proposed later. There are three major papers that have helped in the literature review process. Catherine Valera completed a literature review on Collaborative School Cultures, which, while not the focus of this review, does serve to provide some information about collaboration in educational institutions. Hooker (2013) conducted a literature review on the topic of peer coaching which will help define peer coaching further. David Day did a review of the literature on leadership development in 2000. And finally, in 2022 and 2020, Benjamin Master et al reviewed the randomized clinical trials for the Executive Development Program (EDP) with coaching for the National Institute for School Leadership (NISL). We'll look at each of these studies, and more throughout. ## Limited Research Base There are many leadership development programs, but very little experimental or quasi-experimental studies about coaching and student achievement, and even less about how leaders perceive that coaching ( Master et al., 2022). Almost all research examples are case studies, literature reviews, and not much by way of experimentation or randomized clinical trials. Goldman laments the lack of literature on peer coaching, especially emphasizing the lack of research as it relates to personalized learning plans for leadership development: “the literature considers coaching related to leadership development in terms of developing specific individual leadership skills (such as clarity of communication); its application to the implementation of an entire individual leadership plan is not discussed in the literature” (Goldman et al., 2013, p. 64). Collins and Holton (2004) examined 83 studies from 1982 to 2001 that included formal training interventions. With these studies, they conducted a meta-analysis to "determine the effectiveness of interventions in their enhancement of performance, knowledge, and expertise at the individual, team or group, or organizational level" (Collins & Holton, 2004). They separated the studies according to research design and focused on the measure of outcome of the intervention as the analysis unit. They looked at the effect sizes for knowledge outcomes, expertise outcome, and system outcomes and found they ranged from .35 to 1.37 (Collins & Holton, 2004). While those effect sizes are typically in the range that shows positive evidence, the key is ensuring that right interventions are offered to the right leaders (Collins and Holton, 2004). This theme runs throughout the research. If the right development is offered to the right leaders, then it seems to work. Who knows better than the principals themselves what the right solution is for them? In traditional pairings of mentor principals or coaching principals, inexperienced leaders are paired with more experienced leaders who are typically at already-high-performing schools, thus making it difficult to see how the coaching is helping (Valle et al., 2015). The challenge is that if a principal is at a high-performing school already, so many other systems are in place to support the success of that principal that it is difficult to ascertain if it is the coaching or they systems that are helping the principal find success. ## Leadership Development, Leadership, and Leader Development Leadership development, leadership and leader development all have different meanings and purposes. “Coaching, in particular, has gained popularity in the past 10 years as a tool to reinforce the individual’s learning during leadership development programs" (Hunt & Weintraub, 2007 as cited in Goldman et al., 2013, p. 64). Despite many organizations spending considerable effort, money, and time on leadership development, there is little evaluation or report of the results these interventions. Many organizations do not report or evaluate the results of their leadership development programs, because the results are difficult to track, difficult to understand and could be influenced by several other factors (Collins and Holton, 2004). In the randomized clinical trial, while the evidence on student achievement was less than stellar, we learn that adding the element of coaching "can have a positive effect on principals’ behaviors such as supporting teachers’ leadership development, as reflected in actions such as sharing feedback results with teachers, emphasizing continuous improvement, and holding teachers accountable for supporting students” which are all factors relating to the types of behaviors we are interested in studying (Master et al., 2022, p. 259). This information leads us to believe that there are other benefits to coaching besides student achievement. Finally, as it relates to a mastermind, collaboration is of utmost importance, hearkening back to the idea of a friendly alliance. Schools that have a collaborative culture create a fertile ground for improved teaching and learning to flourish (Azorin and Fullan 2022, Valera, 2023). In schools, because most of our work is done in a classroom model, we often think that is the best way to teach our peers. But it's much more valuable to have someone cocreate that with you as a coach (Master et al., 2022). There are many other benefits to coaching, not the least of which is self-actualization (Warren & Kelsen, 2014). In addition, transformational learning (Goldman et al., 2013), and personalization (Collins & Holton, 2004). One way to make the training personalized and transformational for leaders is through Individual Leadership Plans, which are self-managed and self-developed (Goldman et al., 2013). We also see that principals who have the benefit of coaching have better outcomes for things that matter. “teachers in treated schools reported that principals conducted more classroom observations and they described greater personalization of instruction to students through formative assessment practices, both of which have been associated in prior research with improvements in student learning" (Grissom et al., 2013; Kingston & Nash, 2011 in Master et al., 2022, p. 277). The Executive Development Program didn't provide the results researchers were looking for when it came to student achievement, but they found strong evidence of success with coaching: “principals…provid[ed] almost universally positive feedback about it. For example, in interviews of 41 EDP-trained principals, many said that their coach helped them think more strategically and intentionally” (Master et al., 2022, p. 277). It is hard to make change in a school when you don't think more strategically and intentionally. Master et al. also identifies different aspects of coaching that at the very least makes principals perceive it to be more effective: “These include receiving personalized coaching from an experienced administrator and one with a deep knowledge base; coaching that is tailored to the specific school context; sustained coaching that involve revisiting issues and action plans; and a degree of trust between principal and coach” (2022, p. 259). One of the differences between a mastermind and a professional learning community is that the PLC is chosen for you and the mastermind is chosen by you. It is common knowledge that when you choose your own groups, you are more likely to be committed to them. And district and principal buy-in are valuable components of the system (Master et al., 2022). When it comes to implementing new strategies learned in workshops, coaching has a profound effect by helping leaders cocreate with someone else their takeaways (Master et al., 2022). Workshops or Classroom learning is the type of approach most educators gravitate towards because it is what we know. But there are drawbacks: “Classroom programs suffer from transfer of training challenges and high start-up costs, among other limitations.” (Day, 2000, p. 6). More emphasis should be place on learning in the context of the work (Day, 2000; Hooker, 2013) # Research Design This proposal will be a mixed-methods research design, where participants will be surveyed and answer semi-structured interview questions which will then be analyzed by modern AI programming tools. I'm going to survey practicing principals on their perception of the value of their professional development experiences in a mastermind setting compared to their perceptions of professional development before being involved in a mastermind setting. This Sustained Professional Development Survey is a Retrospective Pre-Post (RPP) test instrument. It is designed and delivered in Google Forms to keep it simple and familiar since most principals are already familiar with Google Forms. The validity of the RPP is designed to ensure that respondents are able to isolate their experience before an intervention as well as after the intervention, while completing both responses at the same time: "respondents are requested to report their current attitudes or beliefs and, at the same time, retrospectively think back to a specific time prior to the program onset" (Little et al., 2020). When respondents were given a tradition pre-post test, where they take a pre test before an intervention and take the same test after intervention, they typically overestimated their competencies in the pretest. But in the RPP, respondents "did not include the same magnitude of overestimation as did the reports made using a TPP design" (Little et al., 2020). Little et al also found that "RPP design, especially in educational, social, and health science program outcomes" was valid and reliable, lowering overestimation of the pre-state, and especially in "leadership skill development courses" (Rohs, 2002). There are drawbacks to the RPP, but the drawbacks are consistent with the data collected by Little et al. (2020). In our situation, we are not conducting and experiment but rather are focusing on program evaluation, consistent with Little et al's process, "data from both examples were initially collected for the purpose of program evaluation, which did not have an experimental focus" (Little et al., 2020). ## Sample The sample that I will use will be a convenience sample of principals who have been clients of mine in the masterminds that I have run in the past (excluding current clients), and/or clients of my colleagues who also run masterminds for principals. I will focus on this sample because this idea of a mastermind is so new to education that not many other people are doing it. As I have pioneered this professional development practice in education, I already know almost everyone who is running a mastermind and have a good enough relationship with them that I can ask them to send this survey to their current and former clients. Furthermore, mastermind leaders will be incentivized to pursue this because I will share the results with them through this dissertation and they will be able to use it in their marketing efforts as well. In order to gather perceptions on the wider principal audience, I will also use my 4500-person following on the social media site, X (neé Twitter) and 3500-member email list to survey principals who may be in a mastermind that I don’t know about, yet. Again, because this is a convenience sample, there is likely bias inherent in that my audience likely knows about a mastermind. Participants will self-select to continue the conversation to participate in the qualitative aspect of this study. This sample period will run during principals month, October, to gather data at a time when principals are feeling appreciated and will possibly feel more generous with their time and attention. Although a convenience sample, the study will be valid and reliable because their responses will be recorded and will be publicly accessible on my podcast, Transformative Principal. Others will be able to easily see the data collected. And, I'll be updating via my blog and newsletter the process of my dissertation to keep the ideas open to multiple other researchers who may also be interested. ## Instruments The Sustained Professional Development Survey comprises 10 Likert-based sets of questions and three open-ended questions that will allow principals to respond in an open-ended manner. At the conclusion of the survey, respondents will be able to schedule a time to meet with me for a short 15-minute screening interview to discuss the findings and see if there is a powerful story behind their responses. The Sustained Professional Development Survey will be used to filter those whose stories we will examine at a deeper level. I will use a structured interview process to learn their perceptions about sustainable leadership development and whether their needs are being met in their current offerings of professional development. While I will likely interview many respondents, I will limit my pool of qualitative studies to keep it manageable to no more than 15 case studies chosen from the 15 minute interviewees. I plan to limit it to powerful stories of great impact from the experiences they have had to share the effect of the mastermind experience on leadership development using analytic induction. There are a lot of different ways we can ask questions and different things we can focus on. The role of a principal is an "exquisitely intellectual enterprise" and it requires "responses that are not patterned, judgements that are delicately thoughtful and many times perhaps, quite agonizing" (Roberts, 1991). While many studies focus on instructional leadership I am interested in principals' ability to lead change in their schools, which requires different skills than instructional leadership. ## Data analysis While I'm still learning about data analysis, this section will need some editing in the future. For the qualitative review, I'm planning to use analytic induction, which "is a method for generating causal explanations of phenomena through the intensive analysis of a small number of cases" (Thirlby, 2022). I'll take 6-10 of the respondents and use analytic induction to determine what commonalities we can find between them that will help tell the story of why a mastermind is a powerful method of professional development. Likert scale questions won't be analyzed in a meaningful way, as they are merely a filter for use in narrowing down my prospective interviewee list to manageable number. For the quantitative review of the qualitative responses, I'm interested in trying a newer approach, and using Artificial Intelligence to perform content analysis of open-ended responses. I can use statistics to gain insight after coding, but am interested in trying something more modern: "the use of open collection methods such as open-ended questions or interviews facilitates a better expression of ideas among students, allowing researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the relevant issue" (Álvarez-Álvarez & Falcon, 2023). This approach of not limiting responses to only Likert scale-type questions will hopefully result in principals being more honest about what they experience. The qualitative questions are chosen for a specific purpose. The first question, what caused you to join a mastermind is intended to have an open-ended response, with mostly known answers. The second question about the single biggest benefit, is designed to elicit a 1-2 word (or short sentence) response which will be much clearer for the content analysis done by AI piece. Finally, the third question is going to a get a variety of responses based on the different groups that participants are in based on their perceptions of their peers and the benefit, or lack thereof, that they received. This should lead to a more complex content analysis that will hopefully test the limits and capabilities of the AI. ## References Collins, D. B., & Holton, E. F. (2004). The effectiveness of managerial leadership development programs: A meta‐analysis of studies from 1982 to 2001. _Human Resource Development Quarterly_, _15_(2), 217–248. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.1099 Day, D. V. (2000). Leadership development: _The Leadership Quarterly_, _11_(4), 581–613. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1048-9843(00)00061-8 DuFour, R., DuFour, R. B., Eaker, R., & Many, T. (2010). _Learning by doing: A handbook for professional learning communities at work_ (Second edition). Hawker Bronlow. Fried, J. (n.d.). _Working at 37signals_. 37signals. Retrieved April 29, 2024, from https://37signals.com/jobs Garmy, P., Olsson Möller, U., Winberg, C., Magnusson, L., & Kalnak, N. (2019). Benefits of participating in mastermind groups. _Health Education and Care_, _4_(2). https://doi.org/10.15761/HEC.1000155 Gerber, M. E. (1995). _The E-myth revisited: Why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it_ (1st ed). HarperBusiness. 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Peer coaching: A review of the literature. _Waikato Journal of Education_, _18_(2). https://doi.org/10.15663/wje.v18i2.166 Huff, J., Preston, C., & Goldring, E. (2013). Implementation of a Coaching Program for School Principals: Evaluating Coaches’ Strategies and the Results. _Educational Management Administration & Leadership_, _41_(4), 504–526. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143213485467 Hurff, S. (2023, December 14). _Jason Fried On Writing, Profitability, AI, and the Most Improbable Thing He’d Like To Do (but Probably Can’t)_. Churnkey. https://churnkey.co/blog/jason-fried/ Jones, J. (2022). _How To Be A Transformative Principal_. John Catt Educational Ltd. Maestes-Sanchez, R. (2024, April 23). [Personal]. Master, B. K., Schwartz, H., Unlu, F., Schweig, J., Mariano, L. T., Coe, J., Wang, E. L., Phillips, B., & Berglund, T. (2022). Developing School Leaders: Findings From a Randomized Control Trial Study of the Executive Development Program and Paired Coaching. _Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis_, _44_(2), 257–282. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737211047256 Master, B., Schwartz, H., Unlu, F., Schweig, J., Mariano, L., & Wang, E. (2020). _Effects of the Executive Development Program and Aligned Coaching for School Principals in Three U.S. States: Investing in Innovation Study Final Report_. RAND Corporation. https://doi.org/10.7249/RRA259-1 Moser, L. (2015, October 24). Kids Take Too Many Tests, Obama Administration Concedes. _Slate_. https://slate.com/human-interest/2015/10/american-students-are-overtested-obama-administration-says-it-s-too-much.html Paetow, G., Zaver, F., Gottlieb, M., Chan, T. M., Lin, M., & Gisondi, M. A. (2018). Online Mastermind Groups: A Non-hierarchical Mentorship Model for Professional Development. _Cureus_. https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.3013 Roberts, J. (1991). Improving Principals Instructional Leadership Through Peer Coaching. _Journal of Staff Development_, _12_(4), 30–33. Skeels, M. M., & Grudin, J. (2009). _When Social Networks Cross Boundaries: A Case Study of Workplace Use of Facebook and LinkedIn_. Stahl, A. (2015, November 4). _Three Reasons Why Coaching Certifications Are A Waste of Money_. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleystahl/2015/11/04/three-reasons-why-coaching-certifications-are-a-waste-of-money/ Valle, F., Almager, I. L., Molina, R., & Claudet, J. (2015). Answering the Call for 21st Century Instructional Leadership: A Case Study of a School District and University Job-Embedded Aspiring Leaders Partnership. _Open Journal of Leadership_, _04_(03), 86–101. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojl.2015.43009 # Appendix 1: The Questions ## The Sustained Professional Development Survey The following questions will use a Likert scale where 1 represents Strongly Disagree and 7 represents strongly agree. The midpoint 4 represents neither agree nor disagree. I’m intentionally leaving off agree and disagree and variants. As mentioned above, there will be two parts to each question, where the principals will respond to their perceptions BEFORE participating in a mastermind and AFTER participating in a mastermind. After obtaining consent the participants will be given the following Likert scale questions: 1. BEFORE MASTERMIND: My district-provided regular PD helps me develop the leadership skills necessary to lead change in my building. 2. AFTER MASTERMIND: My district-provided regular PD helps me develop the leadership skills necessary to lead change in my building. 3. BEFORE: My personal professional development has mostly been classes offered through a university. 4. AFTER: My personal professional development has mostly been classes offered through a university. 5. BEFORE: Attending state and national conferences has been the most beneficial professional development for me. 6. AFTER: Attending state and national conferences has been the most beneficial professional development for me. 7. BEFORE: I attend networking events in my community regularly 8. AFTER: I attend networking events in my community regularly 9. BEFORE: The mastermind has been the most beneficial professional development for me. 10. AFTER: The mastermind has been the most beneficial professional development for me. 11. BEFORE: I got what I needed from the mastermind and have no plans to stay in or rejoin a mastermind 12. AFTER: I got what I needed from the mastermind and have no plans to stay in or rejoin a mastermind 13. BEFORE: I know how to lead change efforts at my school 14. AFTER: I know how to lead change efforts at my school 15. BEFORE: I am excellent at having difficult conversations with staff 16. AFTER: I am excellent at having difficult conversations with staff 17. BEFORE: I am excellent at having difficult conversations with supervisors 18. AFTER: I am excellent at having difficult conversations with supervisors 19. BEFORE: I know how to proactively plan for difficult situations. 20. AFTER: I know how to proactively plan for difficult situations. ## The Open Ended Questions Each person will be interviewed by Jethro Jones and participants will be asked the following open-ended questions as a starting point. The conversation will naturally follow a course that is appropriate for each individual from there on. 1. What caused you to join a mastermind in the first place? 2. What is the single biggest benefit you have received from joining a mastermind? 3. Please describe how the makeup of the group you were/are in has helped you specifically.