Leadership and Alignment - Case Study

Coaching a Principal on becoming a leader

When we first met Alan Cohen, in 2003, he had recently been appointed Prinicpal of P.S. 69 in the Bronx, New York City. P.S. 69 had been designated a School in Need of Improvement by the State of New York and was in jeopardy of being taken over for poor grades or worst case closed. Alan, like most of the over 1200 principals leading the schools in New York City, was facing obstacles which most corporate leaders would pale under a challenge of this magnitude.

In 2003, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the businessman-turned politician and founder of the eponymous financial information company knew leadership was critical to reforming the school system.  New York declared at that time that principals, though rarely thought of as managers, at least not in a conventional business sense, have the same need for leadership development skills as rising corporate executives. Thus, under Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership, the New York City Leadership Academy was established in January 2003 and became a cornerstone of the Bloomberg administration’s educational reform strategy for New York City’s public schools, in a program called Children First.

Facing a chronic shortage of qualified principal candidates to fill principal positions in a system with more than 1,200 schools and 1.1 million students, Bloomberg set an ambitious three-year goal for the leadership academy to train approximately 600 principals by 2006. In addition to training new principals, the academy was to provide professional development for experienced principals.

The NYC initiative stands out, not only for the financial support it is getting from the business community; but on how the initial academy was built on the success of a highly lauded instruction and professional development program started in the 1980s by a handful of New York City school districts AND combining this experience with expertise gleaned from corporate leadership training. The Academy emerged as a model of how a public bureaucracy can adopt proven leadership training methods from business AND combine them with best practices in education instruction.

In addition to recruiting Jack Welch as a board member and instructor, the academy enlisted the business leadership teacher and consultant Noel M. Tichy. Dr. Tichy, currently director of the Global Leadership program at the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business, was GE’s manager of management education from 1985 to 1987 and one of the primary developers of the highly regarded GE Leadership Development Center (which is now called the John F. Welch Leadership Center) in Crotonville.

Through using the best leadership training methods from these companies, the academy integrated 'real-life' job challenges into teaching management techniques and built instruction around a school principal’s real challenges in such areas as team building, communications, and time management.

The mission of the Academy was to create the leadership momentum that would transform the quality of educational instruction in the school system as a whole. The academy attempted to equip its principals to be energetic change agents who elevate public school standards and expectations, motivate teachers, implement curriculum changes, and make lasting improvements in the classroom learning environment — a strategy endorsed by its business partners.

Kristin Kaufman was one of two private sector trainers/facilitators invited to be a part of this initiative and had the privilege of working for Bob Knowling and alongside Noel Tichy through this three year reformation effort. She lead scores of leadership development sessions at the Academy and served as Alan Cohen's personal executive leadership coach throughout this entire period. This close relationship between Mr. Cohen and Kristin has continued for over seven years.

Approach and  Integration of Leadership Principles

Upon taking the helm, Principal Cohen had to give the school a wakeup call. He asked hard questions of his staff: 'Who – if any – of you would want to send your children to this school?' He held the mirror up for his team and all the supporting stake holders to see the reality of the situation.

Once his team realized and embraced the harsh reality of the current state; he began to build a new vision and a new path to reach that vision. He wanted to build a community in his school – a climate of open communication, sharing, collaboration, and respect. "There's no magic formula, but what I did was give people options and opportunities where they'd never had them before," says Principal Cohen. He realized the power of ‘choice’ and giving and empowering his team.

At the core, Cohen built a very strong point of view relative to his vision for the school and integrated his mission and incremental ideas throughout the organization. His mission remained the foundational compass by which all transformation was based:

"Our mission is to create a community of lifelong learners in pursuit of academic excellence, where all students learn the necessary skills to become caring, creative and productive citizens. We will provide students, teachers and parents with a respectful nurturing community where we will educate their minds and their hearts for the 21st century."

He supported his overall ideas with a strong set of values which were represented by expected behaviors throughout the school….parents, teachers, staff, students and constituents. He held his team accountable for 'walking the talk' of these values to continue to build as the norm within the school.

NYS Tests Results

This graph of PS 69 progress in reading and math scores speaks for itself. The school's most recent score on the New York City Department of Education Progress Report was 98.7%. In mathematics, student proficiency has increased more than 50% since Cohen and his team took the helm. When compared to their peers at similar schools, the students at P.S. 69 performed 121.5% better. In reading, scores on standardized tests have improved by more than 30%. When compared to their peers at similar schools, the students at P.S. 69 performed 99% better.

From a leadership perspective, in 2007, Time Warner Inc. chose recipients of the inaugural Principals of Excellence Awards. The awards were created by Time Warner to celebrate the leadership of exemplary principals in New York City public schools. Alan Cohen was one of the five chosen winners – out of a population of 1200 principals in the New York City ISD.

Sources:

Please refer to other sources for more information on the New York City Leadership Academy and other contributing articles:

PS 69 Website

The New York City Leadership Academy

Art Kleiner, “GE’s Next Workout,” s+b, Winter 2003

Andrea Gabor, “Leadership Principals for Public School Principals”, s+b, Issue 39, May 25, 2005, Reprint number 05207

Randall Rothenberg, “Noel M. Tichy: The Thought Leader Interview,” s+b, Spring 2003

Anthony Alvarado, Richard Elmore, and Lauren Resnick, “Final Report: High Performance Learning Communities Project,” Sept. 15, 2000, University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center;

Sandra J. Stein and Liz Gewirtzman, Principal Training on the Ground: Ensuring Highly Qualified Leadership (Heinemann, 2003)

Noel M. Tichy with Eli Cohen, The Leadership Engine: How Winning Companies Build Leaders at Every Level (HarperBusiness, 1997)

The New York City Leadership Academy