Day: July 22, 2025
Fueling Change Through an Improvement Mindset
This blog is part of our Unlocking Collective Leadership: 7 Conditions for Lasting Impact series, highlighting the conditions that help P20 systems move from individual effort to shared leadership.
How an Orientation Toward Improvement Powers Progress
There is a general understanding that educators want better. They want better systems, better access to support, and a better experience for students. How we shift to better is often where the discourse varies. Positive change can occur as long as there is a desire and orientation to improve.
What is an Orientation Toward Improvement?
The seventh collective leadership condition, orientation toward improvement, is more than a positive attitude; it’s a way of working. It means individuals and teams regularly ask:
- What’s working?
- What could be better?
- What’s our next right step?
This condition supports inquiry, reflection, and risk-taking in the name of innovation and impact. When paired with clear systems for testing, refining, and acting on ideas, it shifts improvement from a hope to a habit.
Across our partner schools and districts, we’ve seen how this mindset leads to more staff-led innovation and sustained growth over time.
Orientation to Improve in Practice
Educators, whether knowingly or not, practice school improvement in all facets of their work. Whether it’s refining a lesson plan or analyzing next year’s budget. School improvement in the work of all educators. What makes the difference between successful school improvement and unsustainable efforts is whether or not schools and districts have the strategy and support to move through improvement cycles together.
One school we partnered with in Berkeley County began its improvement journey by identifying a challenge: inconsistent instructional quality across classrooms. Rather than jumping to a solution, the leadership team facilitated collaborative inquiry walks. Educators across roles observed, reflected, and surfaced patterns together. They co-developed a cross-role improvement plan from that shared learning, grounded in real needs rather than assumptions.
This approach was a product of collaborative thinking and a vision to improve shared outcomes.
Within a year, the school observed an increase in instructional consistency, as indicated by observational data. But more than that, staff shared in a coaching session that they felt “more confident stepping into each other’s classrooms and actually using what we’re seeing to improve our own practice.”
Similarly, Cliffdale Middle School used an improvement lens to reframe culture and leadership through a schoolwide house system. Each house included both student and adult leadership with a designated administrator and teacher leader. This structure didn’t just build student engagement. It created space for deeper teacher collaboration and adult relationship-building. One leader reflected, “We’re seeing teachers step into leadership roles in new ways [like] coordinating events, mentoring colleagues, and showing up differently for each other.”
This is what orientation toward improvement looks like in action: shared problem-solving, not top-down directives. Co-owned change, not merely compliance.
Reflecting on Your Orientation to Improve
Improvement doesn’t happen just because we want it to. It takes attention, alignment, and an ability to reflect honestly about what’s working and what’s not.
Use these prompts to assess where your team stands:
- Where in our current work do we make time to reflect on what’s not working, and what we can try next? If this doesn’t happen regularly, it’s worth asking: What would need to shift to make this possible?
- When new ideas or feedback emerge, how often do they lead to action? Consider whether your team has the structures to test small changes—and to follow up on what’s learned.
- What’s one small shift we can try this month that could have a big ripple effect? Improvement doesn’t require overhauls. It starts with one thoughtful, visible step that signals, “This is who we are.”
Resources to Support Your Orientation to Improve
Now that you’ve explored all seven conditions of collective leadership, it’s time to zoom out.
This self-assessment tool helps your team identify which conditions are already strong and where focused attention can lead to meaningful change. Use it to clarify your next steps and spark deeper conversations.
Want help bringing collective leadership to life in your system? Learn more about Mira Education’s approach or reach out to start a conversation.
How Shared Influence Moves the Work Forward
This blog is part of our Unlocking Collective Leadership: 7 Conditions for Lasting Impact series, highlighting the conditions that help P20 systems move from individual effort to shared leadership.
The Power of Decisions Made Together
What can happen when a few people make all the decisions for the many? In top-down decision-making, staff disengage, the same few voices dominate every meeting, and improvement efforts often fail to materialize.
It’s not that people don’t care. It’s that they don’t see themselves in the work. Instead of co-owning goals as a team, formal leaders are chasing buy-in.
But when influence is shared, meaning staff across roles have real ownership over decisions, collaboration deepens, silos break down, and solutions get sharper.
This is what shared influence looks like in action. It’s not about everyone agreeing. Rather, it’s about everyone contributing.
What is Shared Influence?
The sixth condition in collective leadership, shared influence, happens when decision-making power and problem-solving responsibilities are distributed across a team and not hoarded at the top.
It honors each person’s expertise and perspective, regardless of their title.
In P20 education, that can look like:
- Teachers designing new assessment strategies
- Paraprofessionals contributing to student support planning
- Counselors leading school-wide wellness initiatives
- Cross-role district teams co-creating improvement plans
When influence is shared, leadership isn’t a job title. It’s a function of your team’s culture.
Shared Influence in Practice
Shared influence doesn’t happen by accident. It’s built through intentional structures and cultural norms that invite people into the work, not just to implement decisions, but to shape them.
When done well, shared influence leads to:
- A team culture where diverse perspectives guide key decisions,
- Systems that elevate expertise beyond formal leadership roles, and
- Opportunities for staff to lead in ways aligned with their strengths.
It also improves the quality of decisions. When multiple voices are at the table, teams are more likely to challenge assumptions, identify blind spots, and build solutions that reflect the real-world needs of their community.
At Blythewood High School, shared influence is an integral piece of the school’s identity. Structures are in place for teachers to take ownership of major school-wide decisions, including the design of the professional development plan. For their team, this means teacher-led sessions and opportunities for staff to choose professional development (PD) aligned with their own goals and growth areas.
That same spirit of shared leadership extends to students, who have helped shape their own learning experiences, influencing the extracurricular offerings available at school.
As Principal Matt Sherman puts it: “Collective leadership is not another thing on your plate; it is the plate.”
As a result, Blythewood has seen staff return year after year, with a rare occurrence of vacancies, and when openings do arise, they’re quickly filled. When staff are invited to lead, they stay.
Are you practicing Shared Influence?
A lack of shared influence can lead to burnout. When team members sense that they have no ability to influence or be influenced by others, they become more isolated, and so does the work.
Use these three questions to reflect on a recent decision your team made that impacted people, time, or resources.
- Who shaped the decision and how?
Whose input was gathered? Who offered ideas? Whose feedback changed the outcome? If you’re not sure, chances are influence wasn’t widely shared. - Was the process transparent and inclusive?
Did everyone understand what was being decided, how they could contribute, and when a decision would be made? Even limited decisions can be made transparently. - Who led the work, and who implemented it?
Shared influence means leadership doesn’t stop at the top. It shows up in facilitation, ownership, and accountability across roles. If the same people always lead, the team may be stuck in hierarchy mode.
Resources for Shared Influence
Want to dig deeper?
This self-assessment rubric helps your team explore where shared influence is working and where it may be absent.
Use this tool to surface strengths, name opportunities, and plan your next step.
Download Assessing Your Current State, Shared Influence Rubric
Want help bringing collective leadership to life in your system? Learn more about Mira Education’s approach or reach out to start a conversation.
From Staff Turnover to Trust
This blog is part of our Unlocking Collective Leadership: 7 Conditions for Lasting Impact series, highlighting the conditions that help P20 systems move from individual effort to shared leadership.
Building School Culture That Lasts
Team culture isn’t just a vibe. It’s the heartbeat of every school and district team. When staff relationships are strong and social norms are clear, collaboration becomes easier, trust builds faster, and leadership spreads further. But when norms are unclear or relationships are strained, progress stalls.
Want to build a team culture that supports, not stifles, leadership? Start with intentional relationships and inclusive norms.
What are Relationships and Social Norms?
As the fifth condition of collective leadership, Relationships and Social Norms form the foundation of a school’s culture. They influence how teams communicate, solve problems, and show up for one another in the daily work of improvement.
In collective leadership, this looks like:
- Building trust across roles
- Making space for honest dialogue
- Co-creating behavioral expectations that support collaboration
When these elements are in place, schools see the difference: clearer communication, stronger team identity, and higher staff retention.
One school that’s seen this firsthand is J.C. Lynch Elementary, where relationships became the starting point for a bold shift in culture.
Relationships and Social Norms in Practice
At J.C. Lynch, a Collective Leadership Initiative school, the team set out with a bold but essential goal: improve staff culture by strengthening trust and relationships across the building.
They started by listening. Staff were invited to share honest, anonymous feedback to name frustrations, surface ideas, and shape next steps together. The result was a shared commitment to shift the culture, not just through values, but through action.
Teacher and student advisory councils were created. An open-door policy between staff and administration took hold. Professional learning was redesigned to elevate teacher leadership.
“Besides us being leaders, students have their own [committees], and they feel comfortable enough to reach out to [the principal] and let him know what’s going wrong and what’s going well with the school,” said Sherena Brown, 4th Grade Math and Science teacher. That sense of shared voice and mutual respect became a cultural norm.
Three years in, the work is paying off: the school now holds a 92% staff retention rate, has expanded participation in leadership roles, and earned national recognition for student growth.
Reflecting on Relationships and Social Norms
Culture will always factor into the decision-making process, whether positively or negatively. As you begin adopting collectively led practices, use these prompts with your team to reflect on current culture and identify opportunities for growth:
- Are we a group of individuals or a unified team? What evidence supports your answer?
- What defines our team identity—roles or shared purpose? What do our conversations and behaviors suggest?
- Are our communication channels clear and inclusive? How do we support open, two-way communication?
Resources for Relationships and Social Norms
Ready to align your team around shared communication norms? This tool guides small, cross-functional teams through a simple process to clarify expectations, create consistent communication protocols, and build stronger connections across staff.
Download this tool to foster deeper relationships and stronger social norms
Want help bringing collective leadership to life in your system? Learn more about Mira Education’s approach or reach out to start a conversation.