You Cannot Change the System Without Looking Inward First: Three California Preparation Programs with Coaching That Makes a Difference

Abstract

Numerous studies of leadership preparation programs cite coaching as a critical and underutilized support that can accelerate leadership development and contribute to leader retention. While many leadership coaching models focus on reflection and problem solving, this study investigates coaching centered on leaders’ identities as necessary components to address complex equity issues. Additionally, we explore how leader preparation programs train and support coaches themselves to reflect on their identities. Employing a metasynthesis of three larger studies of leader preparation, this study reports on themes present across multiple data sources including: interviews with leadership candidates, coaches and instructors; observational field notes; and document analysis. Findings reveal how coaches and coachees interrogated their identities to do equity and justice-oriented work. Specifically, coaching models across leader preparation programs required both coaches and coachees to bring their whole selves to the work, make themselves vulnerable, utilize tools of inquiry and apply those tools to specific leadership competencies. Further, the impact of leadership coaching is both personal and professional, while also having systemic implications for schools. Implications for state policy include dedicating funds to prioritize coaching for equity in leadership preparation. For practice, this means embedding coursework that centers identity, race, and Anti-Blackness, and redesigning coaching to intentionally address both historical and present-day realities. Programs can leverage existing resources to train equity-focused coaches while intentionally investing time and training to support sustained, transformative leadership development, ensuring that both aspiring and practicing leaders benefit from meaningful leadership coaching.

1. Introduction

Research consistently shows that principals significantly impact students’ academic and social success (Branch et al., 2013; Grissom et al., 2021; Grissom & Loeb, 2011; Leithwood et al., 2004), and California’s state leaders have signaled their belief in principals as a key lever in creating schools that better serve the state’s students. Beginning in 2020, the state invested $13 million across three years toward the 21st Century California School Leadership Academy (21CSLA), a program that provides ongoing professional learning, including leadership coaching, to teacher leaders, site-based administrators, and systems leaders free of charge. These funds were followed in 2023 by another almost $19 million investment. While coaching new and veteran leaders is clearly important, the state has made no equivalent investment in coaching aspiring leaders during their preparation programs. Numerous recent studies of leadership preparation programs cite coaching as a critical, necessary, and underutilized support that can accelerate leadership development and contribute to leader retention (Campoli et al., 2022; Clifford & Coggshall, 2021; Darling-Hammond et al., 2022; Francois & Quartz, 2021; Wechsler & Wojcikiewicz, 2023). While some leadership preparation programs include individual coaching of candidates, a substantial number of programs do not. The funding does not typically exist for this level of contact hours with faculty who might serve as leadership coaches. University administrators rationalize that candidates receive field-based mentors, but these mentors typically work with candidates in a time-delimited way (for example, for the one term of a fieldwork course) rather than across the duration of a program and a candidate’s related growth trajectory. Given the pivotal role of principals, how are leadership preparation programs rethinking and reshaping the way they coach leaders to ensure they are equipped to sustain the work of leading for justice in schools?

We, the three authors of the present study, direct three different leadership preparation programs in California in which coaching of our candidates plays a central role. In this article, we explore our unique approaches to coaching across our three educational leadership programs, all of which include the sorts of “multifarious structuring” of the coaching process shown to benefit aspiring principals (Cosner et al., 2018). We believe, and our data show, that coaching makes a difference for the educators who graduate from our programs and the students they serve. While many existing coaching models focus on reflection aimed at problem solving, best practices, and strategy development, what is often missing from coaching is the ability to help aspiring and current leaders navigate spaces where their identity and positionality must be centered. Such centering is necessary to understand how one makes sense of complicated equity issues, and how one provides adequate support to the coaches themselves to engage in the self-reflection needed to be able to guide others in doing the same. We argue that to lead with an equity and justice-orientation, educators must engage in the internal, deeply personal work of interrogating their identities–whether one is a coach, aspiring leader, or sitting administrator. Learning spaces that promote vulnerability, relational trust, and an inquiry stance can foster this sort of self-reflective work. Such spaces are necessary to adequately prepare leaders who will effectively change our school systems to better serve all students.

Our emphasis in this article is on how each of the three programs explored here creates these sorts of spaces, with a specific focus on how coaching plays a key role. We address the following three research questions: (1) How do three California educational leadership preparation programs conceptualize and design leadership coaching for candidates? (2) What are the cross-cutting themes across the programs’ experiences with coaching? Specifically, what shared affordances have we identified? (3) What has been the impact of our focus on coaching? While “many descriptions of leadership coaching provide overly opaque accountings of coaching models” (Cosner et al., 2018), the present study offers a window into what it actually looks like to do this work.

The three programs explored here predominantly serve educators of color who are committed to working in the most underserved communities. Candidates enter expecting to engage in meaningful conversations and receive support on addressing issues such as racial bias, anti-Blackness, LGBTQ+ identities, and the current political context affecting schools. By reimagining what leadership coaching can be, including how coaches themselves are trained and supported to engage in this work, these programs emphasize often overlooked aspects in traditional coaching models to meet the complex needs of the field. Notably, these programs demand vulnerability from both aspiring leaders and those who coach them. Just as aspiring leaders are expected to focus on internal exploration as a precursor to conducting the external work of leading for social justice, it is critical for leadership coaches who serve the students and graduates of these programs (which includes the present study’s authors) to do the same. As authors, we acknowledge our own identities and positionalities as one White-presenting, Ashkenazi Jewish woman an African American woman, and an Afro Latina woman. We bring differing relationships to the work and our students who are largely candidates of color.

2. Literature Review

It should be a truism by now that emotional intelligence is a crucial aspect of successful educational leadership, particularly when one seeks to lead for change and equity (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Garmston & Wellman, 2016; Irby, 2021; Radd et al., 2021). Yet the “soft” aspects of leadership and leadership development have historically received short shrift in leadership preparation. The intra- and interpersonal skills needed for successful leadership are typically insufficiently addressed in administrative credential programs, including those devoted to educational equity and justice, with unfortunate consequences for future leaders, their staffs, and the students they serve (Stein & Gewirtzman, 2003). Yet, it is precisely the evolving nature of identity that shapes how leaders show up in complex school environments.

Just as educators consider knowledge, skills, and dispositions in their work with P–12 students, dispositions are also critical in adult learning with regard to leadership preparation. The 2015 creation of the Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSELs) is to be commended for its expansion, when compared to the prior Interstate School Leadership Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) standards, of dimensions related to continuous learning and improvement. However, the PSELs language still points entirely outward to leadership behavior (what the leader does), rather than what the leader believes and who the leader is being. Critically, the latter two undergird and support the former (Aguilar, 2013).

Scholars such as Aguilar (2013, 2020) have advanced models of coaching that explicitly center the leader’s identity, emotions, and beliefs. Her framework proposes that coaching must address leaders’ personal histories, biases, and identities and how they inform decisions. The National Equity Project’s (NEP) “Coaching for Equity” model similarly emphasizes coaching as a justice-oriented practice. Coaches trained through NEP are equipped to surface and address school level and institutional inequities, and support leaders in shifting mindsets and skillsets. Research emerging from NEP’s work with developing coaches underscores that leader efficacy is enhanced when one’s identity is acknowledged and centered in the coaching process (Galloway & Ishimaru, 2017).

Likewise, as schools have become more complex and culturally diverse, the call for coaching models that foster vulnerability and relational trust has intensified. Shoho et al. (2012) affirm that “many school systems are embracing coaching as a way to influence and enhance leaders’ skill development, cognitive abilities, and emotional intelligence” (p. 165). These qualities are necessary for school leaders to address the demands of instructional leadership, staff development, systems management, and community engagement while remaining responsive to dynamic sociopolitical contexts. Kegan and Lahey’s (2001) research on adult development reinforces the potential of coaching to surface invisible assumptions and beliefs that can constrain leadership growth. For aspiring leaders, coaching provides critical opportunities to interrogate underlying beliefs reshaping their practice in ways that support more adaptive and responsive approaches to leadership. Building on this foundation, Anderson Quigley (2025) underscores coaching’s broader organizational impact, noting its role in supporting leaders in strengthening school culture, enhancing authentic communication, and improving outcomes for students. In this sense, coaching operates as the catalyst for systemic change, equipping leaders with the dispositions necessary to navigate the complexities of schools and influence change. What begins as individual growth extends outward, shaping organizational practice and fostering conditions for systemic change.

For leadership preparation programs, this signals an urgent need to move beyond surface-level coaching and instead provide coaching that supports deep reflection on identity, beliefs, and the disposition of being. Leadership is not static; identities shift over time and in different contexts. Coaching, when designed with this in mind, becomes a transformative practice, an actualization process, that equips leaders to navigate complexity with clarity, courage, and consciousness.

The notion of reciprocal coaching partnerships is a promising framework that is rooted in principles of relational trust, vulnerability and bringing forth one’s identity. Dillard (2012) and others have argued that learning rooted in relational accountability, ancestral wisdom, and cultural consciousness offers a unique pathway for leadership growth. This pathway honors the personal and collective work required for justice-oriented leadership (Drago-Severson & Blum-DeStefano, 2016; Shields, 2010). Contemporary models, such as Reciprocal Learning Partnerships (RLP), extend this by reframing coaching as a partnership, where both participants contribute knowledge and engage in identity centered dialogue (Isken & Orange, 2019, 2021). In this way, coaching is not only used as a developmental tool, but a leadership practice that equips aspiring and novice leaders to be more reflective in their roles.

Despite these promising models and frameworks, leadership programs still struggle to fully integrate and embody identity work as part of the coaching paradigm, and the broader research field lacks consensus on how best to measure and sustain these types of coaching efforts at scale.

3. Methods

We offer a metasynthesis of three studies examining three different California leadership preparation programs. Metasynthesis is a methodological approach that collects, compares, and synthesizes the key findings of multiple qualitative studies, the cousin to the quantitative meta-analysis (Saldaña, 2015). Through metasynthesis, we highlight cross-cutting program themes shared by these three leadership preparation programs. In this section, we do the initial work of introducing you to the three programs and the data sources from which this metasynthesis is drawn.

3.1. Programs Studied

The three California leadership preparation programs studied here are the University of California, Los Angeles’s Principal Leadership Institute (UCLA-PLI), the University of California, Berkeley’s Principal Leadership Institute (UCB-PLI), and California State University, Fullerton’s Leadership Education for Anaheim Districts (CSUF-LEAD). Although each of these three programs has its own particular design, structure, and aims, all three programs engage by design in one-on-one coaching.

The two Principal Leadership Institute Programs (PLIs) and CSUF-LEAD exist to prepare social justice leaders to serve in the most marginalized and under-resourced communities in California. Both were created in 1999 when then-Governor Davis aimed to address the leadership shortage in the state. They were thus created with the intent to support the development of highly trained school leaders who would serve schools across the state of California. By contrast, CSUF-LEAD is a relatively new initiative, launched in 2018 to serve the city of Anaheim.

3.2. Data Sources

Each author engaged in a different, program-specific study, each with its own research design and methods, from which the findings for this article are drawn. These three, program-specific studies are summarized in

Table 1. Three Coaching Programs’ Participants and Data Sources.

	UCLA-PLI	CSUF-LEAD	UCB-PLI
Students/Graduates	23 students (17 female, 6 male) 12 Latinx/Indigenous 4 AAPI 5 AA 2 White/Caucasian	39 students & graduates (26 female, 13 male) 18 Latinx/Indigenous 11 White/Caucasian 8 AAPI 2 AA	N/A
Coaches/Others	5 coaches (5 female) 2 AA 1 Latina 1 White/Caucasian 1 AAPI	1 coach (1 White female) + 10 principals & 4 high level district administrators	10 coaches (8 female, 2 male) 7 White/Caucasian 3 AA
Data sources	46 RLP coaching inquiry cycles and narratives, coaching reflections, and field notes	Semi-structured interviews, observations, documentation from professional training, and written coaching reflections	Work products, field notes from coaching meetings, Masters’ leadership journey thesis, and recorded coaching dialogue

. For UCLA, we draw upon a year-long study that utilized a critical qualitative research design (Kincheloe et al., 2018). The participants in the study included five UCLA fieldwork coaches and 23 UCLA-PLI students. The demographic breakdown of the UCLA-PLI students is 12 Latinx/Indigenous, 5 African American, 4 Asian/Pacific Islander and 2 White/Caucasian. Among the UCLA fieldwork coaches, there are two African American, one Latinx, one Asian American, and one White/Caucasian coach. We collected 46 RLP inquiry cycles and narrative accounts from the UCLA fieldwork coaches and UCLA-PLI students.

For UCB, we draw on data collected for a larger intrinsic case study on leadership coach professional learning that investigated 14 coaches participating in professional development. This study used semi-structured interviews with 10 leadership coaches who worked for UCB-PLI between 2019 and 2021. Eight of these coaches identify as female, and two as male. Three are African American and seven are White. All are retired school leaders, having served from 10 to 29 years as P12 site and district-level administrators.

For CSUF-LEAD, we draw from a larger phenomenological case study (Yin, 2011). Data sources included 39 graduates, 10 site principals, and four high-level district administrators who served as co-instructors in the program. Twenty-six of the graduates are women and 13 are men. Their racial demographics are 18 Latinx/Indigenous, 11 White, 8 Asian American, and 2 African American. Data include the 39 candidates’ work products across the duration of the program (Anderson et al., 2007); notes from ongoing coaching meetings with those candidates; transcribed interview data which were collected by a CSUF doctoral student with the supervisors of 10 graduates from the first cohort who had moved into administrative positions after one year; Masters theses written by six graduates about their leadership journey (Goldstein et al., 2024); and ongoing recorded dialogue between program partners (university faculty and district leaders).

Due to the distinct foci of each of these larger studies, this article draws upon data from UCLA-PLI and CSUF-LEAD regarding the content and impact of coaching and from UCB-PLI regarding the content and impact of ongoing professional learning for leadership coaches. All three studies from which this article draws are forms of action research, in which we as program leaders are studying our own practice (Anderson et al., 2007; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2009). We believe a benefit exists to pulling our distinct findings into one place and speaking from across our studies.

3.3. Analytic Approach

For the metasynthesis of findings across the three programs, our main approach was dialogue across repeated meetings and subsequent analysis of resulting analytic memos. Given our proximity to the work, these meetings were akin to the process Tanksley and Estrada (2022) term “collaborative analysis meetings,” where the meetings “often interweaved analysis with additional storytelling” (Tanksley & Estrada, 2022, p. 7). Such storytelling was generative; we both sought existing cross-cutting themes and built upon our existing findings to something new. To check for potential bias, we used these meetings to interrogate our assumptions, reflect on positionality, and examine whose voices were being centered or omitted. We did not, therefore, recode raw data, but rather, engaged in “themeing” (Saldaña, 2015) of derivative data, namely our meeting notes (analytic memos) from our collaborative discussions of the raw data.

We began with a broader conception of this paper, focusing on a range of pedagogical elements to highlight the nature of these programs. As our collaborative analysis meetings progressed, we homed in on coaching as the instrumental pedagogical tool that both binds our collective work and findings as well as highlights these programs’ most salient themes and any bias that might occur. In addition, our thematic analysis yielded results supported by literature, as identified below.

The nature of metasynthesis is that we draw on a large quantity of data across our respective studies. At times, below, we preference one study or another to highlight a point, rather than strive for equality. We believe that going deep in some places to illustrate a point is more effective than speaking more generically across themes. Nonetheless, each of the five cross-programmatic themes presented in the Findings occurs for all three programs.

4. Findings for Research Question 1: Conceptualization and Design

This section first describes how each program is conceptualized and designed broadly, and then what coaching in each program looks like specifically. This provides important context for the findings related to the second research question, the cross-cutting themes/affordances.

4.1. UCLA-PLI

4.1.1. Program Concept

Since its inception, the UCLA-PLI has graduated over 850 students, with more than 90% of students in each cohort identifying as individuals of color. UCLA-PLI specifically focuses on educating leaders to serve in the Los Angeles and surrounding area schools who are committed to improving teaching and learning; advocating and ensuring quality learning opportunities for all students; creating democratic and culturally sustaining learning environments; and building collaborative and responsive partnerships with parents and communities. The mission of UCLA-PLI is to prepare aspiring principals to tackle and challenge educational inequalities that permeate our public schools in urban areas. Graduates of the 14-month UCLA-PLI program leave with a Master of Education degree and a California Preliminary Administrative Services Credential. They emerge as strong instructional leaders who have a deep understanding of the conditions necessary to create rigorous learning environments while actively working to dismantle inequitable and racially unjust systems.

4.1.2. Role of Coaching

One of the core principles of UCLA-PLI is to develop and support new principals who can become transformational change agents, leaders capable of guiding, inspiring, and supporting teachers to challenge institutional racism, and critically reflect on their leadership practices. Over the years, UCLA-PLI ’s fieldwork supervisors (coaches) were trained in various coaching models, including cognitive coaching, and equity coaching. However, program leadership continued to observe that many coaching models lacked key elements that truly humanized the coaching relationship and process. While UCLA-PLI coaches supported candidates through the program and after matriculation, they routinely encountered raw, and real-world issues taking place in schools that traditional coaching models did not account for or fully address. Many of the ways in which we were engaging in coaching conversations were missing the opportunity to surface and explore root causes that lead to inequitable practices. Discussions about bias, race and positionality were often absent, and the burden of action was placed solely on the coachee, as poignantly expressed by this former candidate:

As a new school leader, my district assigned me a leadership coach. I clearly remember our conversation and the offered strategies to help address the racial tensions at my school. During our coaching conversation, she expressed sympathy, expressing how sorry she was that our students and families had to endure such awful behavior. She started asking me questions to help me reflect on the situation and think of ways to move forward. However, as the conversation progressed, I found myself becoming increasingly angry and frustrated. I started to view my district coach, a white woman, with contempt and resentment. As an African American school leader, I thought to myself, “What can she tell me about dealing with issues of race? I don’t need an “I’m sorry”. There is not a strategy that can fix what I am feeling.” I was grappling with deep emotional pain and this conversation seemed focused on something far removed from what I truly needed. I realized I needed something different, something more.

This graduate illustrates the importance of prioritizing the intersections of invisible elements in coaching conversations, as the school leader shares the connection between her emotions and racial identity as part of how she understands and sees what is playing out in schools. However, identity and positionality were not explicitly addressed during her coaching conversation.

As we continued to explore how we coached UCLA-PLI candidates and guided them on how to coach others in the field, we recognized that the coaching approaches we used, as well as the ones our candidates employed in the field, were frequently neutral and lacked an equity stance, which was misaligned with UCLA-PLI ’s core mission. We noticed a continued focus on a “best practice,” followed by feedback and reproduction of those practices, without critically interrogating culture or racialized beliefs about teaching and learning. In 2019, we shifted our coaching approach and adopted a new paradigm, one that takes a clear equity stance and envisions the relationship between the coach and coachee as moving together in partnership to take meaningful action. This something different and something more was the impetus for the development of the Reciprocal Learning Partnerships for Equity (RLP) Coaching Framework.

The RLP coaching framework supports educators to collaborate to explicitly identify inequitable practices in schools and develop actions that improve social and academic outcomes for students. RLP builds educators’ capacity to critically reflect in partnerships, hold equity-focused conversations, and co-construct actions that challenge oppressive and dominant ways of thinking about teaching and learning. RLP was designed to deepen the coaching conversation and address the complex ways in which deficit thinking shows up in school leadership and instructional practices. The framework provides a common language that allows space for both coach and coachee to surface underlying beliefs and assumptions, creating a shared space to unpack practices and fostering more transformational actions in schools.

The RLP framework is built around 4 key components that guide every coaching conversation: (1) Building relational trust—Both the coach and coachee can be vulnerable within the coaching space; (2) Reciprocity—Coaching is a shared process where everyone has something to contribute, there is no expert. The focus is on “we” not “I”; (3) Identity and positionality—Both coach and coachee must explore how their identity and positionality shape the way they see the equity issues; and (4) Equity stance and co-construction of action—The conversation must center on equity, with both coach and coachee must leave the conversation with an action to take.

All UCLA-PLI fieldwork coaches are trained in RLP and coach PLI candidates with this approach throughout the year. Each PLI candidate participates in two RLP coaching cycles as part of their Fieldwork Culminating Leadership Project, during which they also coach others in the field. The RLP framework incorporates both one-on-one coaching as well as teams, enabling the exploration of complex dynamics within coaching conversations. RLP coaching dialogues intentionally center cultural identity and experiences as a necessity to address and dismantle inequitable practices and systems.

4.2. UCB-PLI

4.2.1. Program Concept

The first cohort of UCB-PLI students began classes in June of 2000. The past 25 years have yielded more than 650 UCB-PLI graduates at UC Berkeley who led schools with the most vulnerable and historically underserved youth, primarily in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. UCB-PLI graduates are highly qualified, well-prepared, diverse, and strongly committed to equity and social justice to improve educational outcomes in school systems. In addition, leader sustainability, diversification of the leader workforce and local impact are all hallmarks of the UCB-PLI. Of its 672 alumni leaders, 98% of those still working hold positions in the education field, and 81% work in the greater Bay Area. Over fifty percent of PLI alumni are people of color, making it one of the most diverse programs at UC Berkeley.

Like UCLA-PLI, UCB-PLI is a 14-month program which culminates in a Preliminary Administrative Services Credential and Master of Arts degree in Educational Leadership. Organized in a cohort model, all candidates begin the program at the same time during the summer semester and take all their coursework together. As a cohort, students are encouraged to collaborate on coursework, projects, and reading assignments in order to collectively develop their leadership competencies. This intentional program structure, which challenges traditional top-down leadership models, contributes to UCB-PLI candidates’ ability to collaboratively solve complex problems of practice and optimize the assets of their entire team once they become administrators.

The UCB-PLI program philosophy embraces five core leadership values: (1) Engaging in reflective practice; (2) Fostering strong relationships through collaboration; (3) Embracing distributed leadership to effect change; (4) Taking a systems perspective; and (5) Disrupting inequity and striving for social justice in structures, practices and policies. PLI students engage in a variety of simulations and performance-based assessments which afford them opportunities to practice embodying leadership roles and receiving feedback in real time so they can reflect and adjust their practice. Featured as a highly effective leadership preparation program in a study commissioned by the Learning Policy Institute, the study’s authors note, “The UCB-PLI’s curriculum covers a range of topics related to leading for deeper learning including equity and social justice, leadership identity, teaching and learning, and working collegially with teachers, parents, students and the community” (Wechsler & Wojcikiewicz, 2023, p. 44).

4.2.2. Role of Coaching

One of the key features which contributes to the effectiveness of leaders who are trained through UCB-PLI is individual leadership coaching. Each aspiring (and later, novice) leader is assigned a coach who supports them as a field supervisor, conducting observations at their school sites, engaging in regular coaching conversations (approximately 3 times per month throughout their preparation program), and guiding them as they grapple with leadership dilemmas, with the intent of helping leaders keep equity and justice-issues at the center of their practice.

In order to ensure that UC Berkeley’s leadership coaches are prepared to support leaders in this manner, their training and ongoing professional learning is intentionally designed to mirror some of the practices and content foci of the UCB-PLI program itself. This includes an explicit focus on interrogating how oppression impacts each coach personally, engaging in simulations and receiving real time feedback on coaching, as well as continually reflecting on how one’s identity impacts coaching practice. Coaches are even provided with some of the same readings that UCB-PLI students are assigned in the preparation program and expected to understand and grapple with issues of oppression as they play out on multiple levels, among individuals, in societal institutions, and specifically within school systems. This parallel process, where coaches are expected to be as vulnerable and open to personal development as the leaders that they serve, and where they regularly interrogate their own biases and equity stances, sets the stage for powerful and effective coaching conversations that contribute to leadership development.

The centerpiece of coach professional development at UCB-PLI, the Coaching Support Network (CSN), is a monthly four-hour professional learning opportunity, designed to help leadership coaches strengthen coaching skills and deepen their understanding about issues of equity and oppression so they are better equipped to support leaders. This includes a regular, hour-long segment of the CSN meeting entitled “Deepening Our Commitment to Equity and Social Justice.” During this segment, coaches are guided to explore issues of systemic oppression (e.g., racism, sexism, classism, ageism, ableism, gender/sexuality/transgender oppression, and religious oppression) and to interrogate the personal connections they have with these issues through readings, small group discussions, and written reflections.

4.3. CSUF-LEAD

4.3.1. Program Concept

CSUF-LEAD launched in 2018 as an offshoot of CSUF’s Preliminary Administrative Services Credential program. LEAD began as a partnership between CSUF, the Anaheim Union High School District (AUHSD), and a state agency charged with district improvement. State agency involvement culminated after one year, but the partnership between the university and district remained, and the intention to expand to AUHSD’s feeder districts has been a part of the vision from the beginning. Graduates earn the Preliminary Administrative Services Credential over four-terms (one and a half or two-years) and have the option to continue for one additional semester to earn a Master of Educational Administration if they so desire; the discussion here focuses exclusively on the administrative credential program.

CSUF-LEAD includes a host of design elements that distinguish it from CSUF’s “regular” administrative credential program. The program is housed neither with the university, nor with the district, but between the two in a “third space” (Bhabha, 2004) of inquiry and learning. In this inquiry space, both district and university partners are researchers and practitioners, and engage in authentically building new justice-focused learning together (Goldstein et al., 2024).

Certain design elements are particularly relevant to the conversation about coaching at hand. First, all the members of the cohort work in the same school district. AUHSD is roughly 80 percent Latinx, with about 22 percent of the district’s students designated as Multilingual learners–the vast majority being so-called long-term English learners (LTELs). Second, district leaders co-designed the program and its revisions. District leaders and the lead university faculty member worked together at the outset to build the program around three core threads deemed critical for aspiring leaders in the AUHSD context: emotional intelligence, commitment to equity, and understanding of systems. District leaders then participate in selecting the candidates and co-teach all of the courses with the lead university instructor. Third, we subsidize candidate tuition by 50 percent, which has made a very real difference in candidate demographics; 60 percent of our first cohort and 90 percent of our second cohort were candidates of color. Fourth, CSUF-LEAD curriculum is grounded in strategic inquiry (Panero & Talbert, 2013) focused on the district’s Multilingual learners; our central aim is generating school and district leaders who will improve learning conditions for Multilingual learners. We are able to create an entirely job-embedded curriculum because our cohorts work in a single district.

4.3.2. Role of Coaching

Individual coaching was a part of CSUF-LEAD from the outset, by design and initially funded by the state. The representative from the state agency that helped birth the program believed strongly in the need for additional clinical experiences beyond what aspiring administrators typically receive in university-based preparation programs. She also felt strongly in the need for a coach who is not district-based (i.e., not the aspiring leader coachee’s boss), whom the coachee could fully trust and who could play a mediating—or “brokering”—role (Cosner & De Voto, 2023). In short, given an instructional design centered on co-teaching between a district administrator and university faculty member, the individual coaching with the faculty member would provide a confidential, safe space for the candidates within CSUF-LEAD’s partnership design. In addition, it would allow for the development of individual leadership development plans for each candidate, generating individualized content layered on top of whole-cohort content. The lead university instructor would meet one-on-one with the candidates across the duration of the program. While the original goal was monthly coaching meetings, the reality was closer to two to three times each term with the first cohort, and one to two times each term with the second, across a four-term program; meetings last about an hour.

The inquiry work at the heart of our coaching is rooted in the work of Kegan and Lahey (2001), who provided a framework for “immunities to change” that was subsequently applied to the work of educators specifically (Helsing et al., 2008; Wagner et al., 2006). These authors posit that if one can uncover one’s big assumptions (what Senge, 2006, calls mental models), one can test those assumptions, prove them inaccurate, and be released to change one’s behavior.

In order to scaffold the reflection at the heart of this process, Kegan and Lahey (2001) offer the “immunity map,” a tool to operationalize the work. Figure 1 displays an immunity map, populated with sample, representative immunity map text. Sense is made horizontally from one column to the next for each of the three Column 1 commitments (in other words, “approaching conflict with confidence in myself,” then ties to “I avoid conflict at all costs,” and so forth). Figure 1 also shows, in blue italics, how the immunity map content relates to the LEAD-Candidate Performance Standards (LEAD-CPS). The LEAD-CPS is a firmly dispositional and ever-evolving document we created, for which we drew originally from a range of sources (Boyatzis & Goleman, 2007; Lambert, 2003; National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, 2018; Stein & Gewirtzman, 2003). See http://www.tcpress.com/rudp for the complete LEAD-CPS document with descriptions of practice, under Downloads.

After completing a self-assessment on the LEAD-CPS, the candidates make an initial independent effort at completing an immunity map, perhaps focusing on one of the areas identified in self-assessment for growth. These reflections in turn form the basis for the first individual coaching session and remain as scaffold for the duration of the program. One-on-one coaching meetings serve to push candidates to test their assumptions about themselves and others and generate areas of growth in LEAD-CPS language that we can track across the two years of the program. Sometimes a candidate “graduates out” of a given focal area and identifies a new one, while others remain focused on the same leadership domain for the duration of the program.

While Kegan and Lahey (2001) provide a potent framework, it is race neutral. Nonetheless, educators have drawn upon their work to successfully promote racial equity in schools (see for example Irby, 2021). Our coaching of candidates was grounded in their immunity-mapping process, while also drawing upon more recent approaches to coaching that center race and equity by design (namely Aguilar, 2020).

5. Findings for Research Question 2: Cross-Programmatic Themes

Across the three programs studied, a collection of themes emerged that support our coaching of aspiring and sitting leaders, as well as the development of coaches. Discussed in turn, these are: bringing one’s whole self into the room, centering and modeling vulnerability and trust, centering equity and justice, centering and modeling inquiry, and grounding the work in leadership competencies that emphasize each of the prior themes. These cross-cutting themes are strongly supported by existing literature (Aguilar, 2020) affirming the critical role coaching plays in leadership development.

5.1. Promote Bringing One’s Whole Self into the Room

From the moment aspiring leaders begin their first semester in these programs, they are presented with an expectation that they bring their whole selves to this work and toward the cultivation of their beloved community (Hooks, 1996). These programs begin with the belief that our identities are locations that deserve interrogation and that who we are absolutely impacts and influences how we see the world and how the world sees us as leaders. From orientation onwards, these aspiring leaders are asked to consider how they will contribute to the creation of a brave and necessary space (A. M. Brown, 2021), one where every person commits to doing the work to transform schools in service of increasing equitable outcomes for the most underserved populations. As one UCLA-PLI Candidate, an instructional coach, noted while coaching a colleague (Juan):

We were both invested in the equity issues surrounding our English Language Learners (ELL), as we had personally experienced being English Learners during our schooling. Our shared, but unique experiences, drove our commitment to support our current ELL. Our actions formed out of the underlying equity concerns raised by Juan, a 4th grade teacher who I was coaching. Juan shared his personal story about how his older brother, classified as a Spanish speaker at home, had a very different school experience than he did as someone who was enrolled in school as an English speaker. Both Juan and I were personally invested in the equity issue because of our experiences as an EL student.

Candidates in these programs are expected to engage fully with the work of internal exploration, considering the multiple identities, beliefs and practices that make up who they are, and being willing to interrogate what it means to lead from their unique positionality. A core part of these programs’ work is communicating to these aspiring leaders, especially the “less traditional” leadership candidates, that they are precisely what their students need–all of them, including the parts they sometimes believe they are supposed to leave at the door. One CSUF-LEAD graduate, Claudia, began the program very quietly, believing both that her role as a counselor (rather than a teacher) left her less equipped to speak up regarding instruction, but also that her positionality as a Latina had trained her not to speak up. She credits coaching and mentoring as instrumental in her growth. She wrote, “My voice became stronger, and I began to lead by example. I developed a sense of urgency and a strong desire to motivate my Latina colleagues especially, and to advocate for change” (Ruiz-Flores, 2024, p. 102). In this way, coaching is instrumental not merely so that candidates enact equity leadership, but also through becoming school leaders, candidates themselves embody a shift towards greater equity in leadership.

5.2. Center and Model Vulnerability and Relational Trust

Bringing one’s whole self into the room, whether the learning space or the school site, involves a degree of vulnerability (B. Brown, 2018). One characteristic that is present across our three programs is the degree to which we center and model vulnerability, that in turn allows us to establish relational trust. Relational trust is the required internal work, placing one’s identity(ies) out in full display; it must be present to engage in cross cultural and racial conversations during coaching. Our classrooms are learning labs where we aim to create safe practice spaces for everyone–aspiring leaders, instructors, and coaches. Through first modeling vulnerability ourselves, we establish the relational trust necessary for the aspiring leaders to lean in themselves and share in ways that may still be scary but nonetheless become the norm. We believe so deeply in the need to bring our whole selves into the room and then develop the relational trust where true vulnerability is possible, precisely because our almost 50 years of collective work in the field of educational leadership have taught us these are necessary to heal our schools.

In order to understand how we establish the relational trust necessary for powerful coaching, it is necessary to also explain other aspects of these three programs’ designs. The multi-element learning designs used in these programs tether leadership coaching to other aspects of the leadership development curriculum. Centrally, all three programs begin with an autobiography assignment, which helps build relational trust. For example, UCB-PLI requires students to write an identity autobiography and an autobiography of schooling as a way of taking a deep dive inward to explore how identity shapes our realities. This assignment is completed by students and instructors and is shared collectively within student homegroups. The intention is that students are not only expected to explore and learn about themselves but also to learn about those with whom they are collaborating. These pedagogical practices are designed intentionally to create a space where vulnerability can thrive.

As the UCB-PLI program continues, the intentional building of trust from the autobiographies continues throughout the course of the program through group sense-making protocols, collective projects, and a general expectation that we are all interdependent learners, and all have a responsibility to lean into our own learning in order to optimize the development of the group. The UCB-PLI space is designed as an intentional, brave practice space (A. M. Brown, 2021) where aspiring leaders can try out their leadership stances, learn in public, and receive real-time feedback on their leadership and equity stances, how they deal with complex leader dilemmas and how they show up as leaders. This happens in classes through simulation exercises and performance assessments, hard conversation practices and remixes, and engagement with fieldwork where they are observed regularly by their field supervisors (coaches). All of this then impacts the coaching relationships that can be established.

In comparison, the CSUF-LEAD program begins with racial autobiographies (Radd et al., 2021, p. 63). Everyone has a wide degree of leeway to interpret the assignment; while race must be addressed, the inclusion of other identity markers that are salient to one’s development as a human and educator is also encouraged. Candidates hear from the first gathering at orientation that program leads value vulnerability; when the co-instructors present their own racial autobiographies at the first class, this concept becomes very real. The program instructor reflected:

So much of our work is about decentering the narratives of people like me. As I embarked on modeling an autobiography at our first day of class in August 2021, I told the candidates—candidates of color and many who faced conditions of extreme poverty in childhood—that I was absolutely terrified. But by the end, the whole tone in the room had shifted. [One Latina student] laughed after stammering through, “Jen, I mean Jennifer, I mean Professor Goldstein … oh forget it, you’re Jen now!”.

(Goldstein et al., 2024, p. 172)

The autobiographies generated a sense of trust with the instructors, including across racial lines.

The second CSUF-LEAD class session is then devoted to the candidates each presenting their own racial autobiography. Candidates reported in work artifacts and interviews that the racial autobiography experience was transformative, contributing to a bond across the cohort members, as well as the centering of the role of identity as a crucial aspect of leadership. Starting with racial autobiographies fulfilled the AUHSD Superintendent’s vision, articulated when we launched the program, of centering identity in the curriculum. He reflected on the role of the racial autobiographies:

Racial autobiography is not just who I am, but permission from the system to shout it out. I’m not in the shadows anymore. That’s a huge thing, that they know that in this district, they are affirmed for their own stories, just as we want teachers to affirm kids… I’m really proud of these candidates and their courage to say what needs to be said and do what needs to be done. Their stories, they are so emotional because they know their stories are also the stories of the kids.

(Goldstein et al., 2024, p. 172)

Data indicate that the autobiographies brought an increased awareness of the impact of White supremacy across the diversity of participants, especially pertaining to the existence of colorism and anti-Blackness across racial groups represented. This awareness makes coaching conversations about colorism, for example, much easier to broach.

At UCLA-PLI, students also begin their program by writing their autobiography. They are invited to tell their story, and share their lived experiences, with the understanding that this narrative will continue to evolve as relational trust is built over time. This is not simply an academic exercise, but a practice of vulnerability essential to leadership development (A. M. Brown, 2021). In the second quarter, students are introduced to the distinction between trust and relational trust. Trust reflects confidence that others will follow through on commitments, but relational trust goes further. It requires the willingness to express one’s emotional state without fear of judgement and harm (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). Through guided prompts, students revisit and expand their autobiographies, allowing their narratives to grow alongside their leadership journey. Instructors also participate in sharing their autobiography, modeling this practice and underscoring that progress on complex issues becomes possible only when individuals feel safe enough to bring their full selves into a space and conversation without fear of harm.

Throughout the academic year, students engage with structured scenarios, visuals, shifts in educational spaces, and text-based activities designed to cultivate relational trust. Using the RLP coaching framework, they practice conversations that intentionally draw upon their autobiographies to center cultural and racial identities. As one graduate explained, in every RLP (coaching) session we worked on building our relational trust with one another. We talked about aspects of our lives outside of school and collaborated on enjoyable projects. The foundation of trust proved essential when it came time to discuss classroom behavior issues, especially when disagreements arose. For example, during one RLP conversation we discussed how beliefs about discipline are influenced by culture and that many of the African American boys in the class were being disciplined the most. The conversation was tense. However, because we worked on relational trust every session, we were able to be vulnerable and express our feelings openly. We recognized that we each brought different perspectives, and both were valid. RLP taught us that relational trust requires vulnerability, and that vulnerability is key to having difficult conversations.

Building on the practice of autobiographical storytelling, UCLA-PLI positions relational trust as the foundation of its coaching approach. Within the RLP framework, this was made explicit by renaming “coaching” as a partnership. Traditional coaching models often imply a hierarchy, where one person imparts knowledge to another. In contrast, RLP flattens this dynamic by calling the relationship a partnership recognizing that each person enters the relationship with knowledge and skills to share. No one person has the correct answer, but as a partnership they seek to work together to co-construct new approaches to tackle challenges. This framing helps to address issues of positionality and power that often exist in conventional coaching models but also requires vulnerability from the coaches. Often it is the coachee, rather than the coach, who possesses the cultural capital and situated expertise necessary to make sense of the coaching context and/or coaching dilemma. In these instances, leadership coaches must demonstrate self-awareness, vulnerability and an acute understanding of how their identity plays a role in how they engage in coaching conversations, in particular, when white coaches are supporting leaders of color. Coaching across difference, with the intention of serving the needs of underserved populations requires this intentional approach.

5.3. Center Educational Equity and Justice

A non-negotiable aspect of all three programs is that they are working to, and preparing leaders who will, continue to create greater levels of equity and justice in schools (Aguilar, 2020; Hooks, 1996; Kendi, 2019; Soto, 2021). This is the north star.

UCLA-PLI takes a firm equity stance, which goes beyond merely centering equity in a general sense. It specifically names the underlying equity issues embedded in practical problems that leaders seek to improve in schools. This approach recognizes that people shape systems and make sense of what has and has not been called out. RLP conversations explicitly prioritize equity and center personal identity to jointly examine how each partner understands the issues. A clear equity stance allows the conversation to move beyond traditional school narratives and quick fix solutions, creating space for ongoing inquiry to examine the invisible factors (such as race, culture, and bias) that impact daily activities in schools. For instance, when dress code was raised as an issue, it was crucial to bring forth each person’s assumptions and beliefs about it. One partner, drawing from her own experience as an African American woman, believed Black and Brown girls were penalized more due to the targeting of body type. In contrast, her RLP partner highlighted that students from lower socio-economic status were targeted more, a perspective informed by her own experiences growing up in a low-income household where financial issues were a constant concern. Each RLP participant asks, “how are we challenging assumptions and deficit notions that are embedded and reproduced in our own actions?” The purpose of the “equity stance” in an RLP (coaching) conversation is to intentionally notice and disrupt conscious and unconscious beliefs and structures that harm and reproduce inequity. UCLA-PLI’s participatory inquiry process, which sits at the center of the RLP framework, drives this equity work and is discussed in the next section.

For CSUF-LEAD, equity cuts across all program strands, but sits most centrally at the heart of strategic inquiry (Panero & Talbert, 2013) work, where teams of candidates work over the course of the program to study the district’s Multilingual learners–for whom disproportionality is present across a range of indicators. Candidates work to first understand the system through the eyes of specific students outside the district’s sphere of success, to impact learning outcomes for those students, and then to affect their colleagues and the broader system as a result of the new learning generated through studying the students. In terms of coaching, candidates come, over time, to see themselves as part of that system–whether as subject (a former Multilingual learner themselves) and/or object (someone, however inadvertently, upholding the status quo and possessing the agency to work towards system transformation). This is not easy work, on either side of that spectrum. Candidates complete a capstone presentation at the end of the program, where the almost-graduates are asked to identify two to three high-impact practices from across the program and speak to how they have grown as a result of these. Candidates consistently identify those aspects of the curriculum which focus specifically on students and equity the most, followed by those that focus on self-reflection: the LEAD-CPS, immunity mapping, and coaching.

One White male candidate and district arts leader, for example, realized that he did not even know who his Multilingual learners were and was shocked to see what the school day looked like for some of his students outside of his band classes. Through ongoing reflection and processing, he could not “unsee” new learning and became an advocate for language development across the arts (Belski, 2024).

Latina candidates in particular have stepped into their own with the support of coaching. Many leadership candidates enter believing that conflict is bad and to be avoided. While affective conflict can harm teams, cognitive conflict is not only healthy but critical (Garmston & Wellman, 2016; Lencioni, 2002). Most of the Latina candidates (n = 13 of 39), however, report holding onto the childhood admonition that “calladita te miras más bonita,” literally “quiet looks prettier on you.” This is perhaps akin to the English “children should be seen and not heard,” except that it is universally specific to girls (as displayed in the feminine Spanish language forms). It is tough to lean into cognitive conflict when you have been trained from childhood to stay quiet (Arriaga et al., 2020). These candidates, like Claudia above (Section 5.1), have worked arduously through one-on-one coaching to unlearn habituated beliefs about conflict. Again, as these candidates fully embody their leadership, they change the face of what leadership looks like, and in so doing expand equity and justice in education.

Finally, UCB’s PLI assumes that any work to improve equity and justice in schools must begin with a commitment to doing the internal work, considering how our power and privileges positions us and impacts the work we do as leaders. What sets UCB’s program apart is the degree to which this same frame is brought to the ongoing professional learning of the coaches who work within it, where coach professional learning is modeled after the learning that occurs in PLI. Just as aspiring leaders are expected to focus on internal exploration as a precursor to doing the external work of leading for social justice, UCB-PLI’s leaders also believe this is critical for leadership coaches who serve the students and graduates of their program. UCB-PLI leaders expect leadership coaches to engage in embodied practice (role plays, simulations of coaching scenarios), to be open to real time feedback from their colleagues and to continually interrogate how their social identities impact how they enter coaching conversations. They also expect that the coaches engage with academic texts that explore oppression and its various manifestations in our society. In order to be an effective coach of a leader who has studied these issues and done the personal work, coaches must also be willing to do that internal work as well. Coaches are asked to consider how issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, and antisemitism show up in their daily lives, and how they have experienced it as victims and perpetrators. This exploration requires a great deal of trust among the coaching cadre and a willingness to be vulnerable, admit what you do not know, and a willingness to do the work to acquire the knowledge to move forward. It also requires a continual stance of curiosity and the willingness to listen and learn. UCB-PLI coaches report that they experience transformations in their personal lives as they deepen their understanding of how oppressive systems impact them personally, as well as in a professional capacity as they sharpen their ability to support leadership candidates in coaching conversations.

5.4. Center and Model an Inquiry Stance

Taking an ongoing learning stance, or a stance of curiosity, is essential to this work. Ultimately, candidates must be coachable, and everyone–candidates and coaches–must be able to engage in a process of discovery (Panero & Talbert, 2013). Given the north star of increased equity and justice, we are interested in authentic inquiry, centered on the most pressing issues facing P12 schools today, in finding new places to get stuck in our collective work, rather than re-teaching successive cohorts of candidates the same material; there is little point in teaching what our district partners already know.

CSUF-LEAD centers an inquiry stance through “strategic inquiry” (Panero & Talbert, 2013)—a reform model rooted in the notion of getting small. Unlike some approaches to continuous improvement which begin with a macro approach to problem identification, strategic inquiry begins with the perspective of small groups of students historically outside the sphere of a school’s success. As explained above, for CSUF-LEAD, we have centered Multilingual learners; candidates analyzed student data to select particular Multilingual learner students to study. Only by examining organizational functioning through the eyes of such students, strategic inquiry posits, can educators effectively diagnose problems and craft solutions. Getting small and being low inference become key habits of mind.

This pedagogical approach to inquiry dovetails with CSUF-LEAD’s coaching because it requires candidates to interrogate their pre-existing mental models about students, teaching, and learning. For example, Andy, English department chair and 9th grade teacher, believed strongly in that grade’s scope and sequence requirement to write an argumentative essay. He worked with his team of fellow candidates and their group of LTEL students over one semester on this curricular aim—despite student work samples (data) that consistently demonstrated the students could not write complete sentences. He later wrote, “I believe we have lost sight of what our students actually need… In retrospect, I now see how we glossed over needed prerequisites with a teacher-down, rather than a student-up, approach… We just wanted to teach what we believed they needed, which probably happens a lot” (Lee, 2024, pp. 124, 128). This reality dropped on Andy like a ton of bricks, an “aha” moment that shifted his relationship with curriculum and students. Only through direct coaching from an instructor was he able to see this new reality. His new mental model was not to lower expectations—students still need to write argumentative essays—but rather, that getting them there would require direct instruction of skills Andy had not previously considered it his job to teach. This “aha” is crucial; through the integration of different program elements (strategic inquiry plus coaching), the candidates’ mental models are altered in ways that change who they can be as leaders.

At UCLA, meanwhile, the RLP partnerships engage in participatory inquiry, where open dialogue and the sharing of identities help clarify the equity issues leading to a co-constructed action. Critical reflection then informs the next co-constructed action, fostering deeper understanding and more meaningful dialogue and change. Participatory inquiry recognizes each person’s agency and actively engages them in the exchange of ideas, the creation of new knowledge, the examination of perspectives and assumptions, and the actions needed to support equitable outcomes for students. All UCLA-PLI coaches and candidates are trained to guide RLP participatory inquiry conversations, ensuring that they facilitate meaningful, equity-driven dialogue. Every PLI candidate participates in a year-long learning experience, engaging in coaching conversations in class, learning from peers and watching RLP modeled via coaches. These conversations are an integral part of their culminating leadership project that is enacted in their school setting, allowing each candidate to practice and apply the framework in real-world contexts. The RLP participatory inquiry cycle process, as displayed in Figure 2 is where relational trust is built, and reciprocity is enacted. The cycle consists of (1) identifying an equity issue, (2) discussing one’s identity and positionality, (3) co-constructing an equity action, and (4) engaging in critical reflection.

In order to illustrate how the RLP participatory inquiry process unfolds in practice, consider the following real context example: The partners name the problem that Latinx students are using the “n” word. As the partners move through participatory inquiry they move beyond the surface-level problem to identify the underlying equity issues. They ask one another, what is the equity issue? Who is not benefiting or being marginalized in this situation? They explore how each person’s identity and positionality may influence their perception of the issue. One participant identifies the marginalized group as African American students and acknowledges that her identity as an African American mother and experience with the use of the word by other communities influences her understanding of the equity issues. The other partner highlights Latinx students as not benefiting, emphasizing that those students are not being explicitly taught why using such language is harmful and in turn are not able to learn in diverse and inclusive spaces. He notes that his upbringing as Latino and his experiences with racial incidents shape his perspective on how these issues are addressed in schools. Both see the equity issues from different perspectives, and there can be more equity issues listed besides the two brought in this example. Together, they decide which equity issue/marginalized group to prioritize, with all members contributing to the co-construction of actionable solutions. It is important to differentiate between the equity issues, as what is effective for supporting African American students may differ from the approach needed for Latinx students.

This example demonstrates why understanding one’s identity and positionality is essential in these conversations, allowing for deeper exploration of equity issues rather than simply addressing surface-level problems in schools. The concept of reciprocity ensures that everyone is fully engaged in the learning process because everyone has something to contribute. This inquiry process is repeated through critical reflection, continuously starting anew. In this example, participants bring not only their “work” identity, but also their full selves into the conversation. Their personal identities shape how they see and respond to the issues in schools, emphasizing the importance of addressing the whole person in equity work. Sustained change can only occur when there is a shift in underlying behaviors, and these shifts require individuals to critically examine their beliefs. It is essential to ensure that identity and positionality are consistently addressed during coaching conversations. When we avoid these critical conversations about the “invisible,” we risk jumping to superficial solutions that fail to address the deeper root causes contributing to inequity. This perpetuates a race-neutral and culturally ambivalent stance. One program graduate highlighted the potential of RLP,

A few years ago, we faced a troubling racial incident involving teachers followed by an increase of incidents between students. Fast forward to the present, and through the RLP, both my site administrators joined weekly RLP coaching discussions for a year-long engagement about the presence of racial slurs at our site, examining their frequency, context, and impact. It was during these honest conversations that we decided to explore the possibility of inviting someone to guide us as we leaned into our discomfort around race. The RLP especially helped my principal lean into her discomfort of confronting this long-overlooked topic. It also made her realize that this training can’t be a one-time event. As we discussed during the RLP cycle, “one and done” training creates cosmetic changes and unintended harm. The RLP process has shown us the importance of being in community to ensure we stay active rather than passive, that it’s okay as leaders to not know everything, okay to make mistakes, and to seek help outside our school to initiate these critical conversations.

A single strategy cannot address the underlying emotional, cultural, and systemic complexities that perpetuate and sustain inequitable practices and policies. The RLP framework used here functions as an inquiry process that adopts an equity stance and rejects neutrality.

UCB-PLI, finally, also centers inquiry and continual learning. In the Learning Policy Institute publication on exemplary leader preparation programs cited earlier, specific mention of PLI’s coaching model was highlighted. The authors noted that, “Although they bring years of experience, they are expected to ask questions, and push candidates’ thinking, not ‘download’ everything they learned as administrators. These expectations drive a rigorous hiring and development process for coaches” (Wechsler & Wojcikiewicz, 2023, p. 54). As noted above, the training and development process for PLI coaches features many parallels to the pedagogy of the PLI program itself. This aligns with the ideology that we would not ask our students to do anything we are not willing to do ourselves. Therefore, coaches are expected to read academic texts about issues of oppression, increase their own knowledge base about critical equity issues facing school leaders, and analyze how these equity issues play out in their own lives given their positionalities. All of this serves as a prerequisite for, and ongoing expectation of, the coaching process.

UCB-PLI students conduct a Continuous Improvement Inquiry project during the third semester of their preparation program where they identify a problem of practice at their school site and engage with teachers and leaders at their site to implement an equity-based change initiative. Leadership coaches play an integral part in this process, providing thought-partnership to PLI students, conducting direct observations of PLI students facilitating change, and asking critical questions that help the PLI students remain reflective about how their leadership moves are impacting marginalized populations that they serve.

The role of inquiry is evident across all three programs. Our candidates (and coaches) must reflect deeply on their own beliefs and ways of being through repeated cycles of inquiry, in order to move the needle for P12 students through changed behaviors.

5.5. Ground the Work in Leadership Competencies

A final important theme that connects our programs’ coaching work is the use of leadership competencies (and related pedagogical tools) to drive the ability to lean in, be vulnerable, and learn in public (Young et al., 2022). For all three programs, this has meant creating our own competency documents, as the California Administrator Performance Expectations do not sufficiently include the “soft skills” of emotional intelligence, nor do they present leadership competencies in clearly behavioral terms. One notable distinction between our competency framings is that the two PLI programs, being Principal Leadership Institutes, have crafted documents that specifically center the work of principals. CSUF-LEAD, meanwhile, frames its work as “leadership development” more broadly defined. While many CSUF-LEAD graduates move immediately into administrative positions, this is neither required nor even a stated goal; rather, CSUF-LEAD focuses on leadership enacted across the system from wherever one holds influence, in service of improving conditions for students outside the sphere of success–which is reflected in the wording of its competencies.

CSUF-LEAD candidates self-assess during the first week of the program on a competency document introduced in the discussion of research question one, the LEAD-CPS. They identify areas of strength and areas for growth, and then also self-assess at the end. The LEAD-CPS, and in particular those standards related to emotional intelligence (Goleman et al., 2002), are the “metric” for candidate self-reflection throughout the program, providing a shared language to examine intra- and interpersonal phenomena. To give the reader a sense of these competencies, some examples (three out 43) demonstrating their inward focus include: sense of agency (“Defines self as an agent of change, both independent and interdependent…”), leadership presence (“Is willing to assume the role of leader. Projects one’s voice with confidence. Is able to inhabit the public, political and symbolic dimensions of leadership while projecting authenticity and staying true to one’s core values/vision…”), and conflict (“Surfaces, addresses, and mediates conflict within the community. Facilitates the community’s ability to discuss what matters most with emotional intelligence… Understands that negotiating conflict is necessary for personal and organizational change”).

We analyzed the CSUF-LEAD first cohort’s self-assessments at program outset and completion (n = 20) using descriptive statistics. Out of a possible score of 86 (43 total competencies by a Likert score of 0–2 depending on rating), improvement from the original pre-assessment (M = 59.6; S.D. = 10.95) to the post-assessment (M = 71.1, S.D. =10.95) was significant (p < 0.001). In other words, taken as a whole cohort, LEAD candidates showed significant, albeit self-reported, growth across the domains of our LEAD-CPS. Disaggregating the data by competency, however, did not yield many significant, subdomain-specific differences, likely due to the relatively small sample size of 20 candidates. There were two exceptions: one, although not reaching the bar of statistical significance, was “leadership vulnerability/learning individual” (p = 0.0703). These data, self-assessments at both the individual and aggregate level, then support our curriculum. Knowing where swaths of a cohort consider themselves weak allows targeted whole-class instruction, and candidate’s individual self-assessments feed directly into the individual coaching process.

The Kegan and Lahey immunity mapping process is where we house the individual work, and it is deeply personal. Even having already completed the Racial Autobiography assignment, many candidates find themselves moving to a new level of vulnerability with the immunity map and individual coaching. One graduate, Amanda, captured the initial dynamic:

The immunity map assignment was not just about analyzing our leadership potential, it was about identifying the barriers holding us back and addressing them head on. It was about being vulnerable and honest with ourselves, naming the obstacle and finding the courage to work toward rising above it… It was not until my scheduled one-on-one meeting with our professor that I realized how tightly I had been keeping the lid on… As I waited for the meeting to begin, I noticed that the person whose office we were borrowing had kindly left snacks, water, and tissues for us. I remember thinking, “Why tissues?”.

(Bryant, 2024, p. 111)

A coach is not a therapist. Coaching requires guardrails and we have at times referred coachees to mental health professionals when issues raised go beyond program staff’s expertise. Nonetheless, our data show that an enormous amount can be accomplished just by engaging in highly intentional individual coaching, as well as the fact that certain themes emerge repeatedly across coachees–often by gendered and racialized lines. With Amanda, for example,

In the coaching conversation, I finally opened the gates to being genuine and vulnerable when answering the questions my professor asked. From my answers, it became clear that my colleagues’ opinions of me weighed more heavily on me than I had let myself realize… My tears—yes, we did need that Kleenex—came from my frustration with myself that, although I try to inspire my students to find their voice and confidence despite what others think, I was doing the exact opposite for myself.

(Bryant, 2024, p. 112)

Amanda’s growth was such that she wrote about her experience with coaching for her masters’ thesis/book chapter (Bryant, 2024).

For UCB-PLI, the Leadership Connection Rubric serves as a guide on the developmental journey towards becoming a justice-oriented leader. It includes seven areas of leadership competencies that are aligned to the California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (CSPELs) (Commission on Teacher Credentialing, 2014). The CSPELs outline what effective leadership looks like for school administrators across the state. These standards guide preparation, professional learning, coaching, and evaluation for California leaders. However, the Leadership Connection Rubric is written with an explicit emphasis on the need for leaders to engage in internal identity work and the development of self-awareness, to be effective equity leaders throughout their career trajectories. Aspiring leaders in this program use the 100-page Rubric to guide their fieldwork and continuous development throughout their leadership preparation journey. As one coach recounts, the Leadership Connection Rubric helps to keep her coaching conversations centered on issues of identity and equity right from the start. She notes,

I think the Leadership Rubric helps a ton with that, because the first three elements are presence and attitude, identity and relationships, and equity and advocacy. So from the get-go, we’re talking about Who am I? Who do I want to be? And it’s wide open for both of us to talk about. For me, I’m an old white lady. How does that land with you? Then to invite coachees to identify where they are in terms of whatever identities they have.

During the fall semester, UCB-PLI students collaborate with their leadership coaches to identify 3 specific leadership goals aligned to competencies in the Leadership Connection Rubric. Together, they craft a coaching plan which includes a theory of action, indicators of progress, and a place for the coach to record notes from coaching interactions across their time in the preparation program. This coaching plan is a way for coaches and aspiring leaders to remain accountable to the identified goals and to ensure that all leadership actions are analyzed using the competencies of the Rubric.

Finally, UCLA-PLI relies on eight core competencies, fleshed out with descriptions of practice: (1) principals are instructional leaders; (2) principals make instructional decisions based on qualitative and quantitative data sources to engage in school-wide inquiry for continuous improvement; (3) principals are transformational change agents; (4) principals are leaders of equity and access for all students; principals are leaders of equity and access for all students; (5) principals are problem-solvers adept at conflict resolution; (6) principals know how to build collaborative, democratic communities to serve students, families, teachers and staff; (7) principals are well versed in standards and curriculum mandates; and (8) principals are reflective learners.

UCLA-PLI candidates and their Field Supervisors work throughout the year to deeply explore how these leadership competencies are brought to life within their unique social and political context. This exploration via coursework and field experiences is also guided by candidates’ personal identities, lived experiences, and goals and aspirations for their leadership. The students are not guided by a specific rubric, but are encouraged to engage in a dynamic process of reimagining and reshaping their leadership beliefs and practices to align with the changing realities and needs of their school communities. This flexibility allows candidates to critically examine how their leadership fits within the current educational narrative, encouraging them to think beyond traditional frameworks and practices. They are encouraged to create “restorative spaces”—where conversations are reflective, participatory, challenge the status quo, disrupt and interrogate underlying assumptions, and actively work to repair harm. As candidates engage in the work, they are asked to reflect on how they articulate and embody the core leadership competencies. This process fosters a deeper understanding of their impact, helping them grow into leaders who can not only navigate traditional systems, but also transform the complex social and political landscapes of their schools.

In these ways, all three programs use their own competencies to guide work between the coaches and the candidates. The reader can hopefully see the prior cross-cutting themes—such as bringing one’s whole self into the room and centering an inquiry stance—reflected in our competencies and their use. Defined competencies are crucial to providing clear direction for coaching work.

6. Findings for Research Question 3: Impact of Coaching Focus

The cross-case themes identified in the previous section hold implications for leadership preparation programs that may be considering utilizing leadership coaching to support aspiring and practicing leaders. Two clear considerations emerge: the impact of leadership coaching is personal as well as professional, and the impact is systemic, going beyond impact for individuals.

6.1. Impact Is Personal as Well as Professional

While our programs are of course focused on educational leadership development, we cannot extricate who we are as leaders from who we are as human beings. As a result, we find ourselves with data that speak to the deeply personal impact from participation in our programs. One UCLA-PLI graduate noted, for example: “One of the most impactful realizations for me has been the change in my well-being. Unlike last year, my mind isn’t racing, and my body isn’t feeling the urgency to constantly search for solutions. I think I am healing in ways I don’t maybe even fully recognize yet, but it feels goooood to truly be present.” This realization is indicative of how candidates across all three programs report feeling personally transformed and better prepared to apply their leadership skills to the high stress and racially charged contexts of urban P12 school settings. Coaching plays a significant role in this transformation and leadership development.

In CSUF-LEAD, cohort members of color—especially women of color—reported being empowered by the focus on identity and the centering of racial narratives. One example is Lorena, a social worker, who ended her capstone presentation—read aloud as a letter to herself—with the following words:

In your 30s you will enroll in an administrative credential program. You will once again doubt yourself and your decisions. But on the 2nd class of your 1st year, you will do a project—a racial autobiography—that will change so many things. The autobiography will allow you to see the chapters of your life that you thought were unfinished. It will allow you to go back and heal from some of those moments in time in your life where you felt “stuck.” But most importantly, it will increase your ability to feel, to ask and receive help, to listen and validate. Lore, that autobiography at the end will make you a badass Latina leader! Lore, Si se puede y si se pudo!

(Goldstein et al., 2024)

Even though the racial autobiography was literally the first assignment Lorena completed for the program, its impact followed her and continued to unfold over the course of two years of the program and of coaching. She drew a thread from the Racial Autobiography through subsequent reflections through this final capstone, in ways that centered not only a work identity but aspects of self that were core to her being.

As a result of participating in professional learning designed to encourage an interrogation of the personal and the professional, leadership coaches participating in UCB-PLI’s coach professional learning program reported uncovering their own biases, seeing new ways of thinking about social issues through the eyes of their coach colleagues who had a diverse range of interpretive lenses, and developing more openness through regular engagement with one another and the content of the sessions. Several coaches shared that because of their ongoing coach professional learning, they began questioning and challenging issues of bias and discrimination as it showed up in their family and friend networks. They reported feeling compelled to speak up in situations where they would have previously remained silent because of what they learned in their coach training. Additionally, some coaches referenced a shift from a more limited “black and white” perspective to more nonbinary thinking. This new perspective greatly benefited their ability to coach for equity as they became more skilled in understanding the nuances of intersectionality that many of our candidates grapple with. Coaches expressed an increase in their feelings of self-efficacy, skills, and confidence to respond to inequities they witnessed in both their personal lives and in coaching sessions with leadership candidates.

We believe that integral to this personal impact is an element of healing (Ginwright, 2022). It became evident that candidates and coaches were often transformed on a personal level through our program elements, with coaching playing a central role.

6.2. Impact Is Systemic as Well as Individual

Practitioner inquiry is sometimes regarded in the literature as myopic, not holding the promise of systemic change (Hiebert et al., 2002). With no insult intended to our teacher education colleagues, we believe it is crucial to distinguish between practitioner research in teacher education, and practitioner research in leadership education. While practitioner inquiry by teachers typically involves the study of individual classrooms, practitioner inquiry at the grade or subject, site, or even district level holds a very different promise. The nature of leadership is system change. Our graduates–after bringing their whole selves, making themselves vulnerable, learning the tools of inquiry, applying those tools to the cause of educational equity and justice, and grounding all of the work in meaningful leadership competencies, like earthworms, spread out and turn over the soil, creating systems where new possibilities can grow.

Although findings for UCLA-PLI are still being analyzed, preliminary results indicate an equity-focused stance among graduates that supports them in fostering common ground and co-constructing equity actions. This early evidence suggests that PLI graduates are integrating equity into their leadership, helping them navigate complex conversations about race and equity. One notable trend is that graduates indicate how much time and effort is required to facilitate conversations intentionally focused on equity. They note that these conversations are not quick or simple. They demand deep reflection and vulnerability, which often contrast with the priorities and ways of working in schools. Graduates have shared that some educators, particularly those accustomed to traditional forms of coaching centered on best practices, push back against this approach. Some of these educators question the relevance of personal identity in teaching and learning, often asking, “what does my identity have to do with teaching and learning”? This resistance highlights an ongoing challenge in shifting the focus from technical solutions toward understanding that teaching and learning are deeply influenced by one’s lived experiences and identity. Graduates are finding that navigating this tension requires patience and persistence, as well as the ability to create spaces where educators feel comfortable exploring the connections between their personal identities and their professional practice.

As mentioned above, UCB-PLI was featured as a highly effective leadership preparation program in a study commissioned by the Learning Policy Institute (LPI) (Wechsler & Wojcikiewicz, 2023). The study highlights the impact that PLI alumni have had on the schools, noting that “PLI graduates have enacted equity-oriented leadership practices such as prioritizing historically underserved students in scheduling, managing the equitable distribution of financial resources, and facilitating explicit conversations about opportunity gaps” (Wechsler & Wojcikiewicz, 2023, p. 56). The professional learning provided to UCB-PLI coaches contributed greatly to coaches’ ability to support aspiring leaders to make the types of changes described by the LPI study. As one coach reflected,

I just feel like [the professional learning sessions are] making me a better-informed coach, that it’s making me able to coach in situations that weren’t necessarily my own experience… it’s just like knowing more, and then being able to have the coaching strategies to say, “Well, tell me more or, wow, that’s a lot to unpack. Do you mind if we stay here with this topic for a while?”

Knowing when to invite coachees to lean into discomfort and having the ability to recognize when the coachee’s experience and expertise should be foregrounded in the conversation is a critical learning that many UCB-PLI coaches noted, and one that allows them to generate systems change through powerful coaching conversations.

Meanwhile, CSUF graduates and AUHSD district leaders often refer to a phenomenon known as “six degrees of LEAD.” It is hard to move around the district without encountering a LEAD graduate, or even just a book, idea, or instructional strategy that stems from LEAD; it is increasingly unclear where LEAD as a program ends and AUHSD as a district begins. This is perhaps as fine a definition of system change as we know.

Of the 39 CSUF-LEAD graduates included in this study, 13 are now assistant principals, including five who were promoted immediately upon completion of the program. AUHSD has 20 schools, which means that 65% of sites have a LEAD graduate administrator after two cohorts. An additional four graduates are non-administrative site-based leaders: three are Teachers on Special Assignment (TOSAs) and one is a Social Worker on Special Assignment. Factoring in these four teacher leaders, 85% of district schools have a site leader who is a LEAD graduate. Another 10 graduates are serving as district office–based leaders—as directors, coordinators, curriculum specialists, TOSA/COSAs, and the public information officer. It is impossible to walk into the district office today without bumping into a LEAD graduate, most of whom sit next to one another in cubicles in an open workspace. (Of course, AUHSD is far smaller than the regions served by the two PLI programs, making this sort of rapid spread possible.)

As a group, these CSUF-LEAD graduates have a collective decision-making power which, as much as anything, is changing experiences for Multilingual learners across the district. AUHSD’s Assistant Superintendent noted, “What we were doing with LEAD didn’t just sit with LEAD, it began to ripple to other aspects of our work like a pebble in a pond” (Goldstein et al., 2024, p. 190). Innovations that have spread from within CSUF-LEAD out across the district include Multilingual learner shadowing (Soto, 2021) and racial autobiographies (Radd et al., 2021) at the classroom and site level. While the candidates in the first cohort widely named shadowing as a high-impact practice in their capstone presentations, none of the second cohort did—because by the time they entered CSUF-LEAD, they had already experienced shadowing at their sites.

System spread also involves changes made by district leaders as a result of their engagement with LEAD candidates. Like UCLA-PLI’s notion of reciprocity, the Assistant Superintendent emphasized the impact that the CSUF-LEAD candidates had had on district cabinet members: “The work that they did influenced us as Education Division. Let’s be honest, even though [candidates] learned a great deal, cabinet members also learned a ton from them. They asked lots of reflective questions as practitioners in our system. Why do we frame it this way? Do it this way? As a cabinet, we have grown and learned…” (Goldstein et al., p. 178).

System change is the gold standard for education reform. Within leadership preparation, we expect to see changes in knowledge, followed by changes in beliefs, followed by changes in individual behaviors (Orr & Orphanos, 2011). Determining impact on systems which can then impact student outcomes can only distally follow documented changes in graduates’ behavior. We are therefore thrilled to be able to report impact at the system level across our programs.

7. Discussion

The findings, in particular the cross-cutting themes that address research question 2 and the impacts reported for research question 3, are in alignment with the literature on coaching and emotional intelligence (e.g., Aguilar, 2020, 2024; Helsing et al., 2008). We argued at the outset that navigating one’s identity is a key aspect to successful school leadership, and that coaching can be instrumental to promote the emotional intelligence and dispositions, including vulnerability and relational trust, necessary for that navigation. The current findings present a plethora of candidates and graduates doing just that. As candidates are encouraged from the outset to bring their whole self into the room, identity is made central (Radd et al., 2021). As we center vulnerability, candidates learn to lean into learning in public and making their mental models explicit for excavation and review (Helsing et al., 2008; Kegan & Lahey, 2001; Wagner et al., 2006). As we center relational trust, candidates and coaches alike are challenged to explore who they are in relation to one another, sometimes in uncomfortable ways (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). As we center equity and justice, candidates’ emotional intelligence must expand to navigate challenging terrain (Boyatzis & Goleman, 2007). As we center an inquiry stance, the disposition of taking a learner stance is strengthened (Stein & Gewirtzman, 2003). As we ground all of our coaching work in leadership competencies, candidates learn that who they are being is just as important as what they are doing (Aguilar, 2013, 2024). With this article, we argue and demonstrate that strong coaching in educational leadership programs goes beyond mere instructional coaching to truly address educators’ identity development. This centrally includes looking inward to emotional intelligence, and the educators’ beliefs and ways of being. Leveraging this type of coaching can shift outcomes for children.

8. Implications and Conclusion

In this final section, we briefly address our recommendations for practice, as well as the limitations of our analysis and implications for future research.

8.1. Implications for Practice

While more time and money would of course facilitate the spread of individual coaching in leadership preparation programs--as well as the professional learning needed for coaches to work with coachees deeply on matters of identity--we understand that these two resources are not always in large supply. Nonetheless, states must consider investing in funding for leadership coaches to do this work. As evidenced by the shared experiences across the three preparation programs highlighted in this article, coaches can have a critical impact on the development and ongoing work of aspiring and continuing leaders in the field. A state-wide investment in funding leadership coaching for all leadership preparation programs would signal a recognition of the value of this element of leader preparation. Similarly, states should invest in funding for the training and ongoing support of coaches who are actually able to do this work. Maintaining a cadre of highly effective leadership coaches takes investments of time, skillful facilitators and an intentionally developed curriculum of coach training that allows coaches to engage in ongoing reflection as they continue to cultivate their craft. Even coaches who have long careers as successful administrators require ongoing coach training and support, particularly in the areas of equity, social justice and understanding the complexities of systems of oppression. This effort requires continual investment to sustain it. Finally, we must actually provide time for coaching. Finding sufficient time for meaningful coaching conversations that focus on building relational trust and addressing equity is challenging. The participants in RLP, for example, noted how coaching invited them to “slow down” instead of attempting to address systemic problems with a quick fix solution. Coaching helps leaders recommit to reflective practice.

Until the field takes the need for coaching seriously, and provides the resources needed to engage in high-quality coaching, there is a limit to our ability to improve educational practice. Ultimately, the state is the driver of these resources, both to state universities who run preparation programs, and the districts who are our partners in coaching endeavors. We know, however, that these implications are likely frustrating to most readers. As such, we can identify two critical leverage points that programs might utilize to successfully begin this work, going beyond the need for additional time and money. First, consider how to leverage or revise current program structures to center on meaningful, collaborative coaching conversations that move beyond technical change and into adaptive spaces for reflection and growth. These conversations should reframe existing supervising to embrace coaching for equity. Consider how you might reframe what is already in place and perhaps leverage grants for new training of your coaches (mentors). Elena Aguilar’s company, Bright Morning, is one example where such training can be found. Second, develop and implement central course assignments that tackle issues of race and Anti-blackness. These assignments should occur early in programming, so that subsequent coaching conversations can be grounded in and draw upon them. We believe that both of these changes could begin to occur without increased resources.

8.2. Study Limitations and Implications for Future Research

Both a strength and a limitation of the present work is the authors’ roles as directors of three leadership preparation programs, who understand deeply the needs of the students, K12 partners, and coaches reflected in this study. We view our proximity to the work as an asset that positions us well to interrogate the work that we do on behalf of those we serve (see Goldstein et al., 2024, for a defense of practitioner research in educational leadership). We also recognize our proximity as a limitation, and that third party analyses by those not directly involved in the day-to-day implementation of this work would offer a broader perspective and additional insights which could inform future program design.

In addition, our study is almost strictly qualitative. The field would benefit from other sorts of methods and analyses, such as explorations that would allow quantitative aggregation across program graduates—especially regarding impact on students, schools, and districts. Finally, we recognize that such aggregation would be challenging given the vastly different program duration—and therefore scale of graduate numbers—between the PLI programs and CSUF-LEAD.

8.3. Conclusion

That the impact of our coaching work is personal, not merely professional, should not be surprising. Given the personal nature of identity work, it would be surprising if the personal lives of the candidates—and even the coaches—were not touched. That the impact is systemic as well as individual should lend hope to a field that is often overwhelmed with where precisely to begin, given a wide range of educational reform needs. As Panero and Talbert (2013) have advised, we can start small to achieve big results. Focusing on the identity of our leadership candidates may seem very small indeed. But it is a lever for larger change. As our leadership candidates fully grow into themselves and their leadership capacity, it is they who will go out and create more justice in our schools.