Heidi Eliopoulos: I would say it’s our responsibility as leaders to grow those around us. I, as an individual, would probably consider it the most important work I do.

[Intro music plays in the background.]

Introduction

Janet Pilcher: Hello everyone, welcome to the Accelerate Your Performance podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Janet Pilcher, founder and president of Studer Education.

Today we’re going to delve into a very important topic: leadership excellence. And more specifically, leadership development. Why is it so essential anyway? I imagine you already have some thoughts on that, but let me share a few reasons with you off the top of my head.

First, effective leaders set the tone and create a positive culture throughout the entire organization. Second, they lead with data, and they measure results. Third, they create systems and structures that support our students and staff. And fourth, as our guest highlights so clearly today, leaders multiply impact.

To dive into this with me, I’ve invited Dr. Heidi Eliopoulos of the School District of Altoona in Wisconsin. Heidi has been in education for 25 years, serving as superintendent for the last 10. One thing that’s evident about her, she believes strongly in the power of education as the vehicle that makes communities stronger. She’s also passionate about our topic.

So get ready to dive in with us and hear why leadership development is crucial, along with the tools and tactics she uses to do it.

Interview

Janet Pilcher: It’s with great pleasure that I welcome Dr. Heidi Eliopoulos to our show today. And Heidi, oh my gosh, it’s so great to have you on our show. I just have loved the work that we’ve done all these years and so happy to have you with us.

Heidi Eliopoulos: Well, thank you. It is truly my pleasure and honor to be here.

Janet Pilcher: Absolutely. So we’re going to talk about leadership because you’re one of the best leaders that we’ve had and to partner with. And so let’s just start there, Heidi.

So sometimes we think of leadership development as a nice-to-have versus a must-have. I think that’s more important than ever that it’s a must-have. And so, and I know you do, too. So can you talk about why it’s a must have for you and your team?

Heidi Eliopoulos: Without a doubt. As leaders, as much as we hate to admit it, we should not only acknowledge but embrace that not one single person of us, not any of us, can do it alone, nor should we try. That’s not going to make our organization the best it can be.

And in fact, I remember so many years ago being at one of the Studer Education events and hearing a leader I admire say, you know, “an organization with a hero is a sign of weakness.” And I was a fairly young, newer leader at the time and that caught me off guard because that was a new perspective that was new to me. Early on in my leadership, I had put that pressure on myself that I need to do it all and be it all for everyone. But actually, that’s a negative attribute in a leader is to do everything and be everything ourselves as the lone ranger of our organization, so to say.

So, it’s not just our role as leaders to grow those around us, but I would say it’s our responsibility as leaders to grow those around us. I, as an, individual would probably consider the most important work I do. It’s the best way I can serve our staff and our students and our families because I can’t teach every lesson myself and solve every problem myself. If I can make important, ensuring that we have great leaders in our system who they will be able to personally and directly meet the needs of everyone in our organization and grow their leaders to meet the needs of people in our organization, that’s how we can ensure a high-quality, high-reliability system is by growing leadership throughout the organization and being deliberate about that and being purposeful in identifying what attributes our leaders need to have and then deliberately grow and coach those in our leaders to help them be superstars.

Janet Pilcher: Yeah, so good. And as you were talking, and you were talking about your role and what your role has become, as you gained that experience over time, I think, Heidi, I’m in the same way. My job becomes more important for me to really provide the support to our teams and to make sure they’re successful.

And I don’t think I, you know, years ago when I started as a leader, I don’t think I went into leadership with that frame of reference.

Heidi Eliopoulos: Agreed.

Janet Pilcher: I don’t know if you feel that way too, but as I’ve been over the years, I’ve really learned that I’m successful if the people that I lead are successful, l and it’s pretty, pretty difficult for me to be successful as a leader if I’m not providing that support to the teams that we lead.

Heidi Eliopoulos: Right. I wish I could remember who to attribute this. Sometimes I joke about Pinterest wisdom. I see brilliant things on Pinterest and then have to save it. So I remember it, but I read somewhere that before you’re a leader, your focus is on growing yourself and after a you’re a leader, your focus becomes on growing others. And that is so true in the work that we do to become more outward facing and growing others in the love and the act and the service of serving all.

Janet Pilcher: Yeah, so good. I love that Pinterest. [laughs]

Heidi Eliopoulos: [laughs] Yes.

Janet Pilcher: I do, you know, what we get from just looking at quotes and really internalizing those in that way. And I love that. That’s a, it’s so important for how we mature ourselves in the process.

Let’s talk a little bit about some of the tools and tactics that you use. You’ve been applying the Organizational Excellence Framework and the Nine Principles, and you’ve achieved positive outcomes really through two organizations in your current school district now. Talk a little bit, Heidi, about, you know, what do you think are some of our most successful tools that have helped you move your teams to get positive results?

Heidi Eliopoulos: Yeah. So in terms of the tools and tactics that really focus in on culture, one of the things that we do is we spiral the tactics. So we revisit them every year. But even before that shared learning and that shared practice, we embrace that we can’t give to others what we don’t first have ourselves. So as a leadership team, when we come together—there’s 16 of us—we come together and we understand the importance and the role of us having a culture among our team first before we even engage in our growth around the tactics.

So what we’ve done as a leadership team is we’ve identified collective commitments, and we have agreed upon the definition for each of those collective commitments. But then we take it one step further and we actually do short cycles in a monthly self-assessment of how we are keeping our commitments to our collective commitments. As a team, how are we doing in each of these areas? And we self-rate. And then every single month, we look at what were the outcomes and where do we need to adjust?

That has led us to some understandings of some additional work that we need to do in certain areas. It’s helped us focus on what our needs are. We’ve done things where we have taken our definitions and we’ve unwrapped them as a team to ensure that we’re really similar in our understanding of the granular pieces of each of these commitments. And that has led to some pretty cool growth.

We started the year on a scale of one to five. Our first self-assessment, we were 3.9. This last month, our self-assessment, we’ve grown to a 4.6 out of five. And that’s from deliberate and genuine work together to develop our culture as a team first, both how we work together in our meetings, but actually then when we go out to the greater system. How are we continuing to lift up that positive and productive team culture that we establish in our meetings but then carry through all of our work? So that’s how we’ve established our culture as a team.

And then there’s three specific culture tactics that we have spiraled throughout our leader development. Our leader development is the full team once a month for two and a half hours.

So one is rounding. We come back to rounding, actually, twice a year and spiral back about what is the purpose of rounding? How can we ensure that our rounding is authentic and meaningful? What are we doing to ensure that we’re getting actionable feedback? And then, what are we doing with that feedback? How do we report back to our colleagues and our staff members to understand we are all engaging in this process? We heard what you said and here’s what we’re doing about it. That’s one that we do.

The second tactic that we spiral at least every year is reward and recognition. That was an area where we really wanted to grow as a team. So last year, our short cycle was on counts of reward and recognition. So we have a deliberate focus on how we reward and recognize. There are some things that are for everyone like years of service. We honor commitment to the organization and then there’s also some reward and recognition where it’s very individualized and maybe even informal where we recognize specific behaviors and outcomes that are aligned with the greater mission and vision in our organization.

We’ve actually done some companion learning with Daniel Pink’s work on the truth about what motivates us because it echoes the Nine Principles and that Pink tells us we want to leverage autonomy, mastery, and purpose in order to motivate people. So we look at how can we frame up the recognition of the great work our people are doing by leveraging autonomy, by calling out mastery and progress, and then really speaking to the heart with purpose?

The third area where we’ve really come back to multiple times a year with our focus on tactics around culture is avoiding we/they and managing up. So we’re becoming increasingly mindful of positive and productive pride and that includes how we talk about our work, how we talk about our colleagues, how we talk about other leaders, how we talk about other schools and departments, and how we talk about our organization. So that’s been key, and it’s taken some clarity of understanding. And it’s also taken some deliberate commitment on the part of all of our leaders, not just to avoid we/they, but really to deliberately focus on managing up. Because then if you’re deliberately focused on managing up other people, you kind of by default don’t we/they because those things don’t go together.

Janet Pilcher: That’s right. Yeah, and you know, I love the way you’re positioning the conversation, Heidi. It’s, you know, we spiral, right, to these? So they’re rounding, reward and recognition, we/they to manage up, to overcome we/they. I mean, those are pretty specifically defined, some people say but relatively easy, tactics or strategies to do.

But what you do is continue, you’re hardwiring those in particular ways of spiraling and coming back to them, and not saying, “just because we’ve done it and it’s, it’s not just a compliance check off. It’s really coming back and making sure when we’re doing this, we’re getting value add from it.” That’s kind of what I’m taking away from it, Heidi.

Heidi Eliopoulos: 100%. In fact, each year for our leadership team, we identify a mantra or a theme. Last year was about bold leadership. This year, it’s level up. So, yep, we’ve talked about rounding before, and how do we level it up? How do we take it to the next level and really leverage the effectiveness of these strategies?

We don’t have to come up with something new and crazy every single year. These things work. So we’re just going to keep revisiting them and making them better and having them be a part of the way we do business around here.

Janet Pilcher: Yeah, it’s a habit of practice. It’s in our DNA. That’s what we do every day. So good.

Let’s talk a little bit about the tools, so we talked about culture. And then let’s talk about the tools that you use for strategic execution and how you execute the work that you do in order to achieve your results.

Heidi Eliopoulos: Yeah. So we go back to over and over leveling up, but, and continuing to use our scorecards for improving our outcomes. We added short cycles to our scorecard process this year. So we started off last year with the reward and recognition, this year with our collective commitments. We leveled that up by every leader had to identify a key metric that is important to them and their prioritized outcomes.

So, one small group of leaders use attendance data. Other leaders pulled a metric from professional learning communities. And so everyone identified that key metric and engaged in short cycles that were aligned with their scorecard. And then our directors who also serve as the coaches for the different parts of our scorecard, they formed small groups and provide monthly coaching to the principals so that we’re not just doing it, but we’re practicing it and practicing it in ways that include feedback and encouragement and correction when needed.

Very fitting for me. I can tell you firsthand practicing a bad golf swing does not make you a better golfer. So, practicing those short cycles in work that is meaningful to us but with that authentic feedback to help us become scaled at it has been a valuable process for us. And we’re leveling it up again next year. Next year, leaders are going to create short cycles for at least one outcome per strand. So, they’ll have it up to four. And then beyond that the year after that we’re going to level it up again so that there’s short cycles for every outcome on the scorecard.

And we’ll just keep leveling it up. Then we’ll go from the leadership team to individual committees and leadership teams within buildings. We’ll have short cycles until that, too, just becomes something that we do because we know the more narrow our outcomes can be and the more frequently we check our progress and adjust that we are going to experience better results sooner with that approach.

Also for our leader development, just most recently, we broke up into small groups and did some practicing and some exercises where principals identified two mid-year outcomes, and they prepared a mini, I used the word “presentation,” but it was informal. They talked through their results. They talked through what they did specifically that directly gave them those results. They talked about where maybe they fell a little short than where they thought they would be at mid-year, and why that was, and then how they could adjust. So, that was again good practice among colleagues in how to talk about data. It was structured reflection that may or may not have happened without that structure. It was colleagues practiced asking questions and giving feedback and engaging in shared problem solving. It was a little bit of a practice to then go back to certain teams or staff and practice having that sort of dry run to talk about their data before going to the bigger group.

And so not only were they practicing strategy execution, but they were also collaborating and engaging shared problem solving and learning from each other, which again, goes back to leader development and why we do it.

Janet Pilcher: Yeah, so, I mean so good. There are a couple of things, Heidi, that I think are really important for our listeners. One, you know, as you were talking about right now, first of all, you don’t have to take everything. Like you’re taking one piece at a time, so you’re chiseling away. So we’re going to take one strand, and we’re going to look at a metric, and we’re going to really have conversations around that, and then we’re going to add to, and we’re going to add to, and we’re going to advance that to the point that we basically have more of a holistic picture. But when we have that holistic picture, we’re able to hardwire that Because it now becomes just part of our practice.

I think that’s so, so important, you know, so, so important because sometimes we feel like we have to accomplish it all at one time. And when we do we usually fail because it’s just too much for people. Does that make sense there?

Heidi Eliopoulos: Absolutely, and it actually goes back to the very start of our conversation when we said an organization with a hero is a sign of weakness. This is how we’re building that enduring greatness throughout the entire organization by building up the skills. One step at a time and, and getting feedback and learning how to do it well, and then scaling it up after we have it.

Janet Pilcher: Yeah, so good. So good. And I’m sure your leaders appreciate it, sure they appreciate the structure, the probing. their ability to engage with each other.

So let’s talk a little bit, you know, as you as a superintendent. So as you’re working with your team and as you’re continuing to do this work, you know, what difference has it made for you as a superintendent and a leader?

Heidi Eliopoulos: Personally, and selfishly, seeing leaders grow, I would call the most gratifying part of my job. It’s become my most important priority and my most important service to our system. When we grow our leaders, there’s a domino effect on to others because they then grow the leaders around them. Our leaders not only serve others better, but they engage in work that grows the people around them as well. And as educators, all we have ever wanted to do is make a difference. And so that’s what this does for me is I get to see the results of our leaders’ leadership in our schools and in our departments.

One of the most joyful experiences I had this school year was seeing the outcomes out of our elementary school. We had been on a downward slide and through amazing hard work of the leaders at our elementary school, and then the followership and leadership that they evoked in the elementary school, our outcomes for students are taking off. And I feel so much joy with that for our students, for our families, these young learners who now have a stronger foundation academically, socially, emotionally, behaviorally. They have this strong foundation as they continue on their educational career. And I get to look at that and go, “Our leaders did that. Our staff did that. Our people did that. And maybe, just maybe, I got to play a little tiny part in springboarding some of that work.” Our, having strong leaders in an organization is foundational to improvement, and I get to be a part of making that happen. And that feels pretty darn good.

Janet Pilcher: Yeah, it really does. And you alluded to it a little bit, Heidi, but at the end of the day, as we’re leading and providing leaders with that support, seeing their growth and development, seeing them be able to affect their teams, teachers, and staff in particular ways, our district services areas really providing good service to the people that they serve each and every day. At the end of the day, it’s about the impact on students and families. And so, if you’ll close today, you alluded to it a little bit, but how has this really made a difference for the services that you provide to the students and families?

Heidi Eliopoulos: So a major focus of our leader development is getting better at improvement, at collaboration, and alignment. What’s really fortunate about the way our district structure is, we’re a medium-sized district, like 1800 students, but we have one elementary school, one intermediate school, one middle school, one high school. So everybody’s a railroader, and all of our fourth graders become all of our seventh graders will become all of our ninth graders, is one system.

And this work that we’re focusing on, improvement, collaboration, and alignment, has contributed to creating a, really a school system. As our students and families travel through our school system, we look at the work we do through the lens of the student and family experience. We’re working to be a high reliability district, and this leader development is helping with that. We want that, no matter which school or grade level or teacher, students will learn and grow because we’re prioritizing those guaranteed practices and experiences across our entire system. And the experiences build upon each other, and they evoke success, collaboration, they advance our outcomes.

They also vote confidence in our system when the work we do with our families, and the experiences our families are going to have as predictable, that helps all of us. And we feel like, one system, and each step builds upon the previous, which all are leading to improved academic outcomes. I use our elementary school as an example, but really we’re seeing this across the entire system. We’re seeing improved outcomes. We’re farther ahead than we were five or six or seven years ago, and that’s the ultimate end game is the growth for our students, outcome for our students, and the early stages of that is the leader development to propel the entire system forward.

Janet Pilcher: Yeah, that’s such a good closing statement because that’s, as we’re doing the work, most people come to us or even community members within their districts would come to us and say, “we want our school districts to achieve better outcomes.” I mean, that’s really kind of what, that’s the overall goal, and we’re like, “okay, there’s a lot of work to be done in order to get to that point.” We can get there, but there’s a lot of heavy lifting that the executive leaders and the leaders do along the way in order to get there. And what you provided today was just a great overview and some very specific examples of how you’ve been able to lead your district in order to do the things that are needed and that your people have committed to that, Heidi, I mean they’ve committed.

Heidi Eliopoulos: Yes, they have.

Janet Pilcher: And that doesn’t happen overnight. That takes a lot of hard work and conversations for us to get to that one system where we’re providing a reliable service to those we serve, our students and families.

So thank you so much, thank you, thank your team for the work they committed to do. And so glad to see you all making the impact you are with the students and families in your area. Thank you for being here today. Sure appreciate the work you do.

Heidi Eliopoulos: Absolutely, and thank you and to everyone at Studer for the ways that you’ve helped us grow. We are, we are grateful for that.

Janet Pilcher: Thank you, Heidi.

Conclusion

[Outro music plays in the background.]

Janet Pilcher: Thank you, Heidi, for emphasizing that leadership development is a must have, not simply a nice to have. The work you do in Altoona is a testament to your team’s commitment to create a culture of excellence. Thank you for investing in your leaders and making such a profound impact.

Before we go today, did you know that every episode of this podcast aligns with the tactics and principles in my book, Hardwiring Excellence in Education? To support you in creating great places to learn, work, and succeed, I’m offering a free on-demand book study to go along with it. It includes discussion guides, video summaries, and interviews with leaders who are applying the principles and achieving great outcomes. This book study is my gift to equip you to multiply your impact just like Heidi did. Please find the link in the show notes.

And as always, thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Accelerate Your Performance podcast. I look forward to seeing you next week as we continue to work together to develop leaders and achieve organizational excellence. Have a great week everyone.