# Sustained Leadership Development: A review of the Literature ### Jethro Jones There's a significant amount of research out there about job-embedded professional development for teachers, but not as much for principals (Andrew Croft et al., 2010). Job-embedded leadership development research is often focused on teachers as informal leaders in their schools, not necessarily focused on principals specifically (Hunzicker, 2012). This is an area that I'm not interested in. There is an interesting case study of a university partnering with a district to provide a pipeline for principals, but this is not what I'm looking for (Valle et al., 2015). My focus is on the leadership development experiences of sitting principals. These leadership development experiences are often provided by state associations, consultants, district personnel, and others. Although, most of those experiences provided by the aforementioned service providers are almost always one-off experiences. I'm intentionally leaving out book studies from this list for on their own, they are not sufficiently meeting the definition of a leadership development experience. My hypothesis is that one-off leadership development (conferences, speakers, one-time trainings) are largely not as meaningful to school leaders, as that has been my experience, and my experience with other colleagues. ## Definitions I define Sustained as a leadership development experience that continues beyond a single time and space. For sake of clarity, it must last at least one academic year, and some sort of training should happen one time per month in that academic year, for a total of at least 10 hours over the course of the academic year. Leadership Development, according to Thirlby (2022), does not have a theory of practice. Because we cannot effectually or empirically define what makes agreement leads or hero to become one, we are lacking in tools and strategies to support and evaluate estate leadership development: "The general assumption that a leadership development investment will produce great leadership, however, does not necessarily follow. This is because those in the field of leadership development including organizations, professional management associations, and practitioners, are not adequately measuring and cannot confirm empirically what constitutes effective leadership development" (Thirlby, 2022). My hypothesis is that leadership development is a personal process, supported by Thirlby (2022), that one goes through, and the more one can have reflective touchpoints where they can work "on the [school] instead of in the [school]" (Gerber, 1995) Reflective Touchpoints are simply times to reflect and evaluate one's own leadership practices, typically facilitated by a leadership development coach or developer. Outline - Definitions - Leadership Development - Touchpoints - Mentoring - Job-Embedded PD for school principals - Current state of PD for school principals - Literature on Leadership Development for school principals - Literature on Job-Embedded PD for sitting school principals - Literature on Mentoring - Broader leadership development literature - Systematic Literature review - Does it already exist on this topic? ### References - Andrew Croft, Jane G. Coggshall, Ph.D., Megan Dolan, Ed.D., Elizabeth Powers, & With Joellen Killion. (2010). _Job-Embedded Professional Development: What It Is, Who Is Responsible, and How to Get It Done Well_ (p. 24) [Issue Brief]. National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality. [https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED520830.pdf](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED520830.pdf) - Gerber, M. E. (1995). _The E-myth revisited: Why most small businesses don’t work and what to do about it_ (1st ed). HarperBusiness. - Hunzicker, J. (2012). Professional development and job-embedded collaboration: How teachers learn to exercise leadership. _Professional Development in Education_, _38_(2), 267–289. [https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2012.657870](https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2012.657870) - Thirlby, J. (2022). _The Process of Leadership Development: How Leaders Experience Growth Over the Span of Their Careers_ [Ed.D]. Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. School of Education St. John Fisher College. - 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](https://doi.org/10.4236/ojl.2015.43009)