Eleanor—Ellie—Drago-Severson is Professor of Education Leadership and Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. A developmental psychologist, Ellie teaches, conducts research, and consults with team, school, district, and systems leaders—as well as teacher leaders—in public, charter, and private schools and systems. She supports professional and personal growth; leadership development for principals, assistant principals, teachers, schools, districts, and organizations; and coaching and mentoring in K–12 schools, universities, medical institutions, educational associations, and other adult education contexts both domestically and internationally. She is also an internationally certified developmental coach who partners with leaders to build internal capacity, lead on behalf of social justice, and strengthen capacity across their systems. For more than three decades, Ellie’s teaching, research, and partnerships in the field have sought—synergistically—to explore and extend the possibilities of adult development and developmental leadership as levers for internal capacity building at the individual, team, organizational, and societal levels. Her work explores interconnected streams that focus on the connection between internal capacities and educational leaders’—broadly and inclusively defined—practice on behalf of growing bigger selves and helping others to do the same. She also takes a developmental approach to creating conditions that support our desires to thrive and support those in our care, as well as feedback for growth, the pressing challenges national and international educational leaders are facing and ways to help them manage these challenges, and leadership preparation and development. In addition, her work offers a new, learning-oriented model for leadership development; supports adult development in individuals and teams within and across systems; lifts leadership at the individual and systems levels; supports diverse adult English language learners and those who serve them; and grows teacher, principal, assistant principal and district-level leadership. Consonant with urgent conversations about transforming teams, schools, systems, and society into more learning-inclusive and equity-oriented contexts, her work foregrounds how we can support leaders’ internal capacity building in schools, districts, organizations, and leadership preparation programs—and how these capacities inform the gifts leaders are able to give to those in their care, each other, and the world as they lead for social justice and strive to make the world a better place for all. Ellie loves opportunities to accompany educators and other leaders in their vital work—and never takes it for granted. Instead, she considers it a gift.At Teachers College, Ellie is director of the PhD Program in Educational Leadership. She teaches aspiring and practicing principals in the Summer Principals Academy; aspiring superintendents in the Urban Education Leaders Program; and leaders from a range of for-profit, management, and consulting sectors in the Accelerated Education Guided Intensive Study (AEGIS) Program. She also coaches leaders in the Cahn Fellows Program for Distinguished Leaders and in her private coaching practice to help them grow—on the inside—and to grow their practice. In addition, she serves as faculty director and co-facilitator of the Leadership Institute for School Change at Teachers College. Ellie is author of the best-selling books Helping Teachers Learn: Principal Leadership for Adult Growth and Development (Corwin, 2004) and Leading Adult Learning: Supporting Adult Development in Our Schools (Corwin/The National Staff Development Council, 2009), as well as Becoming Adult Learners: Principles and Practice for Effective Development (Teachers College Press, 2004) and Helping Educators Grow: Strategies and Practices for Leadership Development (Harvard Education Press, 2012). She is also coauthor of Learning for Leadership: Developmental Strategies for Building Capacity in Our Schools (Corwin, 2013), Reach the Highest Standard in Professional Learning: Learning Designs (Learning Forward & Corwin, 2014), Tell Me So I Can Hear You: A Developmental Approach to Feedback for Educators (Harvard Education Press, 2016), Leading Change Together: Developing Educator Capacity Within Schools and Systems (ASCD, 2018) and Growing for Justice: A Developmental Continuum of Leadership Capacities and Practices (Corwin/Sage & Learning Forward, 2023).Ellie’s teaching, scholarship, and developmental approach to leadership foreground the power of growth, relationships, and interconnections—since these are essential to learning, development, individual perspective broadening, authentic collaboration, and capacity building at the individual, team, school, district, and systems levels. Her teaching, mentoring, and life’s work are inspired by her husband and soulmate, her parents and family, her relationships, her teachers, her own experiences as a middle and high school teacher, her experiences as a program director and teacher of adults, her work with leaders in the field, her coaching work, and—last but not least—her work with practicing and aspiring leaders in graduate programs and in the field. Taken together, these experiences form an interdisciplinary palette that is complemented by adult developmental theories and other life-changing frameworks.Ellie’s work has earned awards from the Spencer Foundation, the Klingenstein Foundation, and Harvard University, where she served on faculty for eight years and was awarded the Morningstar Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Dean’s Award for Excellent in Teaching. Most recently, Ellie received three outstanding teaching awards from Columbia University. She earned degrees from Long Island University (BA) and Harvard University (EdM, EdD, and a postdoctoral fellowship). Ellie grew up in the Bronx and is deeply grateful for the ways that it—and the community that raised her—have shaped her life.

“With this comprehensive and compelling book, Eleanor Drago-Severson establishes herself as a leading expert on authoritative leadership in education.”

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorPart 1. Foundations1. A New Model of Leadership for Adult Growth and LearningIn This ChapterMeeting Adaptive ChallengesThe Need for a New Model of LeadershipSupporting Learning Across the SystemRe-envisioning Staff DevelopmentThe Research Informing This BookA New Learning-Oriented Model of School LeadershipOrganization of the BookSummary and ConclusionReflective Questions2. How Constructive-Developmental Theory Informs the Pillar PracticesWhy Constructive-Developmental Theory?Informational Learning vs Transformational LearningConstructive-Developmental Theory: An IntroductionWhy Ways of Knowing Matter When Supporting Adult GrowthShaping School Cultures: Noble Expectations and Hidden Developmental DemandsThe Holding Environment and Why It Matters in SchoolsThe Learning-Oriented Leadership ModelChapter SummaryFrequently Asked QuestionsApplication ExerciseReflective QuestionsPart 2. Pillar Practices for Growth3. Teaming: Growth Opportunities for Individuals, Organizations, and SystemsAbout Effective Teaming and Its ValueKey Elements of Successful TeamingThe Team as a Source of Individual Growth and DevelopmentWhy and How School Leaders Employ TeamingTeam Structures That Nurture Adult DevelopmentImplementing Teaming: Lessons From the FieldChapter SummaryFrequently Asked QuestionsApplication ExerciseReflective Questions4. Providing Leadership Roles: Learning and Growing From Leading TogetherAbout Providing Leadership RolesDevelopmental Benefits of Providing Leadership RolesExamples of School Leaders? Use of Providing Leadership RolesCases and Lessons From the FieldChapter SummaryReflective Questions5. Collegial Inquiry: Engaging in Shared Dialogue and Reflection on PracticeCollegial Inquiry: A Kind of Reflective PracticeCollaborative CulturesHow Collegial Inquiry Attends to Developmental DiversityWhy and How School Leaders Employ Collegial InquiryPractices School Leaders Use to Initiate Collegial InquiryCase Study: One Principal?s ?Rare and Unique Opportunity? to Engage in Reflective Practice Over TimeConvenings: Personal Case-Based Discussions That Support Collegial InquiryChapter SummaryApplication ExercisesReflective Questions6. Mentoring: Building Meaningful and Growth-Enhancing RelationshipsAbout Effective Mentoring and Its ValueMentoring and Developmental DiversityImplications: How Our Way of Knowing Influences the Way We MentorWhy and How School Leaders Employ MentoringAn Example of a Mentoring Program: Lessons From the FieldA Protocol for Mentoring Relationships That Nurture Adult DevelopmentChapter SummaryApplication ExerciseReflective Questions7. Implementing the Pillar Practices: Cases From the FieldCase 1: Mentoring Principals and Assistant PrincipalsCase 2: Coaching School LeadersCase 3: Leading Teachers by ListeningCase 4: Supporting Adult Development Through Schoolwide TransformationCase 5: The Pillar Practices, Hawaiian StyleChapter SummaryApplication ExerciseReflective Questions8. The School as Learning Center: Stepping Forward With HopeMeeting Adaptive Challenges by Building Developmental CapacityThe Promise of Building Schools as Learning CentersImplications of the New Learning-Oriented Leadership ModelAttending to and Valuing Adults? Ways of KnowingPutting the New Learning-Oriented Model Into PracticeStepping ForwardOn the Gift of GivingResearch AppendixGlossaryEndnotesReferencesIndex

Eleanor—Ellie—Drago-Severson is Professor of Education Leadership and Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. A developmental psychologist, Ellie teaches, conducts research, and consults with team, school, district, and systems leaders—as well as teacher leaders—in public, charter, and private schools and systems. She supports professional and personal growth; leadership development for principals, assistant principals, teachers, schools, districts, and organizations; and coaching and mentoring in K–12 schools, universities, medical institutions, educational associations, and other adult education contexts both domestically and internationally. She is also an internationally certified developmental coach who partners with leaders to build internal capacity, lead on behalf of social justice, and strengthen capacity across their systems. For more than three decades, Ellie’s teaching, research, and partnerships in the field have sought—synergistically—to explore and extend the possibilities of adult development and developmental leadership as levers for internal capacity building at the individual, team, organizational, and societal levels. Her work explores interconnected streams that focus on the connection between internal capacities and educational leaders’—broadly and inclusively defined—practice on behalf of growing bigger selves and helping others to do the same. She also takes a developmental approach to creating conditions that support our desires to thrive and support those in our care, as well as feedback for growth, the pressing challenges national and international educational leaders are facing and ways to help them manage these challenges, and leadership preparation and development. In addition, her work offers a new, learning-oriented model for leadership development; supports adult development in individuals and teams within and across systems; lifts leadership at the individual and systems levels; supports diverse adult English language learners and those who serve them; and grows teacher, principal, assistant principal and district-level leadership. Consonant with urgent conversations about transforming teams, schools, systems, and society into more learning-inclusive and equity-oriented contexts, her work foregrounds how we can support leaders’ internal capacity building in schools, districts, organizations, and leadership preparation programs—and how these capacities inform the gifts leaders are able to give to those in their care, each other, and the world as they lead for social justice and strive to make the world a better place for all. Ellie loves opportunities to accompany educators and other leaders in their vital work—and never takes it for granted. Instead, she considers it a gift.At Teachers College, Ellie is director of the PhD Program in Educational Leadership. She teaches aspiring and practicing principals in the Summer Principals Academy; aspiring superintendents in the Urban Education Leaders Program; and leaders from a range of for-profit, management, and consulting sectors in the Accelerated Education Guided Intensive Study (AEGIS) Program. She also coaches leaders in the Cahn Fellows Program for Distinguished Leaders and in her private coaching practice to help them grow—on the inside—and to grow their practice. In addition, she serves as faculty director and co-facilitator of the Leadership Institute for School Change at Teachers College. Ellie is author of the best-selling books Helping Teachers Learn: Principal Leadership for Adult Growth and Development (Corwin, 2004) and Leading Adult Learning: Supporting Adult Development in Our Schools (Corwin/The National Staff Development Council, 2009), as well as Becoming Adult Learners: Principles and Practice for Effective Development (Teachers College Press, 2004) and Helping Educators Grow: Strategies and Practices for Leadership Development (Harvard Education Press, 2012). She is also coauthor of Learning for Leadership: Developmental Strategies for Building Capacity in Our Schools (Corwin, 2013), Reach the Highest Standard in Professional Learning: Learning Designs (Learning Forward & Corwin, 2014), Tell Me So I Can Hear You: A Developmental Approach to Feedback for Educators (Harvard Education Press, 2016), Leading Change Together: Developing Educator Capacity Within Schools and Systems (ASCD, 2018) and Growing for Justice: A Developmental Continuum of Leadership Capacities and Practices (Corwin/Sage & Learning Forward, 2023).Ellie’s teaching, scholarship, and developmental approach to leadership foreground the power of growth, relationships, and interconnections—since these are essential to learning, development, individual perspective broadening, authentic collaboration, and capacity building at the individual, team, school, district, and systems levels. Her teaching, mentoring, and life’s work are inspired by her husband and soulmate, her parents and family, her relationships, her teachers, her own experiences as a middle and high school teacher, her experiences as a program director and teacher of adults, her work with leaders in the field, her coaching work, and—last but not least—her work with practicing and aspiring leaders in graduate programs and in the field. Taken together, these experiences form an interdisciplinary palette that is complemented by adult developmental theories and other life-changing frameworks.Ellie’s work has earned awards from the Spencer Foundation, the Klingenstein Foundation, and Harvard University, where she served on faculty for eight years and was awarded the Morningstar Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Dean’s Award for Excellent in Teaching. Most recently, Ellie received three outstanding teaching awards from Columbia University. She earned degrees from Long Island University (BA) and Harvard University (EdM, EdD, and a postdoctoral fellowship). Ellie grew up in the Bronx and is deeply grateful for the ways that it—and the community that raised her—have shaped her life.

“With this comprehensive and compelling book, Eleanor Drago-Severson establishes herself as a leading expert on authoritative leadership in education.”

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorPart 1. Foundations1. A New Model of Leadership for Adult Growth and LearningIn This ChapterMeeting Adaptive ChallengesThe Need for a New Model of LeadershipSupporting Learning Across the SystemRe-envisioning Staff DevelopmentThe Research Informing This BookA New Learning-Oriented Model of School LeadershipOrganization of the BookSummary and ConclusionReflective Questions2. How Constructive-Developmental Theory Informs the Pillar PracticesWhy Constructive-Developmental Theory?Informational Learning vs Transformational LearningConstructive-Developmental Theory: An IntroductionWhy Ways of Knowing Matter When Supporting Adult GrowthShaping School Cultures: Noble Expectations and Hidden Developmental DemandsThe Holding Environment and Why It Matters in SchoolsThe Learning-Oriented Leadership ModelChapter SummaryFrequently Asked QuestionsApplication ExerciseReflective QuestionsPart 2. Pillar Practices for Growth3. Teaming: Growth Opportunities for Individuals, Organizations, and SystemsAbout Effective Teaming and Its ValueKey Elements of Successful TeamingThe Team as a Source of Individual Growth and DevelopmentWhy and How School Leaders Employ TeamingTeam Structures That Nurture Adult DevelopmentImplementing Teaming: Lessons From the FieldChapter SummaryFrequently Asked QuestionsApplication ExerciseReflective Questions4. Providing Leadership Roles: Learning and Growing From Leading TogetherAbout Providing Leadership RolesDevelopmental Benefits of Providing Leadership RolesExamples of School Leaders? Use of Providing Leadership RolesCases and Lessons From the FieldChapter SummaryReflective Questions5. Collegial Inquiry: Engaging in Shared Dialogue and Reflection on PracticeCollegial Inquiry: A Kind of Reflective PracticeCollaborative CulturesHow Collegial Inquiry Attends to Developmental DiversityWhy and How School Leaders Employ Collegial InquiryPractices School Leaders Use to Initiate Collegial InquiryCase Study: One Principal?s ?Rare and Unique Opportunity? to Engage in Reflective Practice Over TimeConvenings: Personal Case-Based Discussions That Support Collegial InquiryChapter SummaryApplication ExercisesReflective Questions6. Mentoring: Building Meaningful and Growth-Enhancing RelationshipsAbout Effective Mentoring and Its ValueMentoring and Developmental DiversityImplications: How Our Way of Knowing Influences the Way We MentorWhy and How School Leaders Employ MentoringAn Example of a Mentoring Program: Lessons From the FieldA Protocol for Mentoring Relationships That Nurture Adult DevelopmentChapter SummaryApplication ExerciseReflective Questions7. Implementing the Pillar Practices: Cases From the FieldCase 1: Mentoring Principals and Assistant PrincipalsCase 2: Coaching School LeadersCase 3: Leading Teachers by ListeningCase 4: Supporting Adult Development Through Schoolwide TransformationCase 5: The Pillar Practices, Hawaiian StyleChapter SummaryApplication ExerciseReflective Questions8. The School as Learning Center: Stepping Forward With HopeMeeting Adaptive Challenges by Building Developmental CapacityThe Promise of Building Schools as Learning CentersImplications of the New Learning-Oriented Leadership ModelAttending to and Valuing Adults? Ways of KnowingPutting the New Learning-Oriented Model Into PracticeStepping ForwardOn the Gift of GivingResearch AppendixGlossaryEndnotesReferencesIndex

Eleanor—Ellie—Drago-Severson is Professor of Education Leadership and Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. A developmental psychologist, Ellie teaches, conducts research, and consults with team, school, district, and systems leaders—as well as teacher leaders—in public, charter, and private schools and systems. She supports professional and personal growth; leadership development for principals, assistant principals, teachers, schools, districts, and organizations; and coaching and mentoring in K–12 schools, universities, medical institutions, educational associations, and other adult education contexts both domestically and internationally. She is also an internationally certified developmental coach who partners with leaders to build internal capacity, lead on behalf of social justice, and strengthen capacity across their systems. For more than three decades, Ellie’s teaching, research, and partnerships in the field have sought—synergistically—to explore and extend the possibilities of adult development and developmental leadership as levers for internal capacity building at the individual, team, organizational, and societal levels. Her work explores interconnected streams that focus on the connection between internal capacities and educational leaders’—broadly and inclusively defined—practice on behalf of growing bigger selves and helping others to do the same. She also takes a developmental approach to creating conditions that support our desires to thrive and support those in our care, as well as feedback for growth, the pressing challenges national and international educational leaders are facing and ways to help them manage these challenges, and leadership preparation and development. In addition, her work offers a new, learning-oriented model for leadership development; supports adult development in individuals and teams within and across systems; lifts leadership at the individual and systems levels; supports diverse adult English language learners and those who serve them; and grows teacher, principal, assistant principal and district-level leadership. Consonant with urgent conversations about transforming teams, schools, systems, and society into more learning-inclusive and equity-oriented contexts, her work foregrounds how we can support leaders’ internal capacity building in schools, districts, organizations, and leadership preparation programs—and how these capacities inform the gifts leaders are able to give to those in their care, each other, and the world as they lead for social justice and strive to make the world a better place for all. Ellie loves opportunities to accompany educators and other leaders in their vital work—and never takes it for granted. Instead, she considers it a gift.At Teachers College, Ellie is director of the PhD Program in Educational Leadership. She teaches aspiring and practicing principals in the Summer Principals Academy; aspiring superintendents in the Urban Education Leaders Program; and leaders from a range of for-profit, management, and consulting sectors in the Accelerated Education Guided Intensive Study (AEGIS) Program. She also coaches leaders in the Cahn Fellows Program for Distinguished Leaders and in her private coaching practice to help them grow—on the inside—and to grow their practice. In addition, she serves as faculty director and co-facilitator of the Leadership Institute for School Change at Teachers College. Ellie is author of the best-selling books Helping Teachers Learn: Principal Leadership for Adult Growth and Development (Corwin, 2004) and Leading Adult Learning: Supporting Adult Development in Our Schools (Corwin/The National Staff Development Council, 2009), as well as Becoming Adult Learners: Principles and Practice for Effective Development (Teachers College Press, 2004) and Helping Educators Grow: Strategies and Practices for Leadership Development (Harvard Education Press, 2012). She is also coauthor of Learning for Leadership: Developmental Strategies for Building Capacity in Our Schools (Corwin, 2013), Reach the Highest Standard in Professional Learning: Learning Designs (Learning Forward & Corwin, 2014), Tell Me So I Can Hear You: A Developmental Approach to Feedback for Educators (Harvard Education Press, 2016), Leading Change Together: Developing Educator Capacity Within Schools and Systems (ASCD, 2018) and Growing for Justice: A Developmental Continuum of Leadership Capacities and Practices (Corwin/Sage & Learning Forward, 2023).Ellie’s teaching, scholarship, and developmental approach to leadership foreground the power of growth, relationships, and interconnections—since these are essential to learning, development, individual perspective broadening, authentic collaboration, and capacity building at the individual, team, school, district, and systems levels. Her teaching, mentoring, and life’s work are inspired by her husband and soulmate, her parents and family, her relationships, her teachers, her own experiences as a middle and high school teacher, her experiences as a program director and teacher of adults, her work with leaders in the field, her coaching work, and—last but not least—her work with practicing and aspiring leaders in graduate programs and in the field. Taken together, these experiences form an interdisciplinary palette that is complemented by adult developmental theories and other life-changing frameworks.Ellie’s work has earned awards from the Spencer Foundation, the Klingenstein Foundation, and Harvard University, where she served on faculty for eight years and was awarded the Morningstar Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Dean’s Award for Excellent in Teaching. Most recently, Ellie received three outstanding teaching awards from Columbia University. She earned degrees from Long Island University (BA) and Harvard University (EdM, EdD, and a postdoctoral fellowship). Ellie grew up in the Bronx and is deeply grateful for the ways that it—and the community that raised her—have shaped her life.

“With this comprehensive and compelling book, Eleanor Drago-Severson establishes herself as a leading expert on authoritative leadership in education.”

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbout the AuthorPart 1. Foundations1. A New Model of Leadership for Adult Growth and LearningIn This ChapterMeeting Adaptive ChallengesThe Need for a New Model of LeadershipSupporting Learning Across the SystemRe-envisioning Staff DevelopmentThe Research Informing This BookA New Learning-Oriented Model of School LeadershipOrganization of the BookSummary and ConclusionReflective Questions2. How Constructive-Developmental Theory Informs the Pillar PracticesWhy Constructive-Developmental Theory?Informational Learning vs Transformational LearningConstructive-Developmental Theory: An IntroductionWhy Ways of Knowing Matter When Supporting Adult GrowthShaping School Cultures: Noble Expectations and Hidden Developmental DemandsThe Holding Environment and Why It Matters in SchoolsThe Learning-Oriented Leadership ModelChapter SummaryFrequently Asked QuestionsApplication ExerciseReflective QuestionsPart 2. Pillar Practices for Growth3. Teaming: Growth Opportunities for Individuals, Organizations, and SystemsAbout Effective Teaming and Its ValueKey Elements of Successful TeamingThe Team as a Source of Individual Growth and DevelopmentWhy and How School Leaders Employ TeamingTeam Structures That Nurture Adult DevelopmentImplementing Teaming: Lessons From the FieldChapter SummaryFrequently Asked QuestionsApplication ExerciseReflective Questions4. Providing Leadership Roles: Learning and Growing From Leading TogetherAbout Providing Leadership RolesDevelopmental Benefits of Providing Leadership RolesExamples of School Leaders? Use of Providing Leadership RolesCases and Lessons From the FieldChapter SummaryReflective Questions5. Collegial Inquiry: Engaging in Shared Dialogue and Reflection on PracticeCollegial Inquiry: A Kind of Reflective PracticeCollaborative CulturesHow Collegial Inquiry Attends to Developmental DiversityWhy and How School Leaders Employ Collegial InquiryPractices School Leaders Use to Initiate Collegial InquiryCase Study: One Principal?s ?Rare and Unique Opportunity? to Engage in Reflective Practice Over TimeConvenings: Personal Case-Based Discussions That Support Collegial InquiryChapter SummaryApplication ExercisesReflective Questions6. Mentoring: Building Meaningful and Growth-Enhancing RelationshipsAbout Effective Mentoring and Its ValueMentoring and Developmental DiversityImplications: How Our Way of Knowing Influences the Way We MentorWhy and How School Leaders Employ MentoringAn Example of a Mentoring Program: Lessons From the FieldA Protocol for Mentoring Relationships That Nurture Adult DevelopmentChapter SummaryApplication ExerciseReflective Questions7. Implementing the Pillar Practices: Cases From the FieldCase 1: Mentoring Principals and Assistant PrincipalsCase 2: Coaching School LeadersCase 3: Leading Teachers by ListeningCase 4: Supporting Adult Development Through Schoolwide TransformationCase 5: The Pillar Practices, Hawaiian StyleChapter SummaryApplication ExerciseReflective Questions8. The School as Learning Center: Stepping Forward With HopeMeeting Adaptive Challenges by Building Developmental CapacityThe Promise of Building Schools as Learning CentersImplications of the New Learning-Oriented Leadership ModelAttending to and Valuing Adults? Ways of KnowingPutting the New Learning-Oriented Model Into PracticeStepping ForwardOn the Gift of GivingResearch AppendixGlossaryEndnotesReferencesIndex