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You Bring the Weather: Inside the High Performance Leadership Academy
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- [00:01]
John Brucato
You're listening to ASBO International's School Business Insider. I'm your host, John Brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Hello everyone, and welcome back to School Business Insider. Leadership isn't just about making decisions. It's about inspiring change, fostering growth, and navigating challenges with confidence. In today's fast paced world of school business, strong leadership skills are more critical than ever. That's where the ASBO International High Performance Leadership Academy comes in. This program is designed to empower school business and education leaders with the tools they need to excel in their roles and make lasting impacts. But what makes this academy different? How does it transform leadership in school districts? And most importantly, how can you take advantage of this opportunity? Well, to answer those questions, we're joined by Sabrina Soto, Chief Development Officer at ASBO International, Amanda Grace, Deputy Executive Director and COO at ASBO New York, and Tim Risculti, CEO at Professional Development Academy. Together we'll explore the why, what and how of this dynamic leadership program and share insights on what makes great leaders stand out in school business. Welcome to the podcast, everyone. I'm so happy to have all three of you today.
- [01:37]
Sabrina Soto
Thanks, John.
- [01:38]
John Brucato
So we have some returning guests and a newcomer to sbi. So why don't we start with our returning guest, Sabrina? You've been on a few times before. Why don't you just give an update of what's been going on with you and ASBU International.
- [01:50]
Sabrina Soto
Thanks, John. Yeah, things have been going great. Personally, we just did a family ski trip which was fun. AS International is very busy planning our Leadership Forum, which will be in Tampa, Florida, March 5th through the 7th.
- [02:07]
John Brucato
Awesome. And for anybody who hasn't tuned in, you and I and a couple others talked about that a couple episodes ago. So make sure to go back to the catalog and check out and see what's coming up for the Leadership Academy in March. Very much looking forward to that. Amanda, what about you? What's going on with Amanda Wing in ASBO New York?
- [02:23]
Amanda Grace
Hi, thanks so much, John. So similar to Sabrina, always working on professional development for our members, our board is super excited to go to the Leadership Forum in Tampa. So we've been working on all of the logistics and planning for that. We just hired a new staff member, so onboarding. And even though it's only January for us, it feels like it's already June because our annual conference, the Education Summit and Expo, is June 8th through the 11th. And we are by the time you launch your this podcast episode comes out, John, registration will already be open for that. And we're excited that each year we get a few more affiliate guests and we're going to have a nice ASBOI presence at the ED Summit this year. So, yeah, we're excited and we're always excited to do more with ASBO Eye and strengthen our, you know, connections with the other affiliates and other states.
- [03:17]
John Brucato
So wonderful. Well, welcome back on. And Tim, newcomer to sbi, why don't you give our listeners a little bit of your background and what you do with the High Performance Leadership Academy?
- [03:27]
Tim Risculti
John, great to be with you. Always great to be associated with anything that ASBO is putting together. As you mentioned, Tim Raschulti, I'm the CEO of the Professional Development Academy. Our flagship program is the High Performance Leadership Academy. We are excited this year. We just launched our January cohort with nearly 1,000 participants from across the country. Most of our business is within local government. We do a lot of work within counties and cities. Over two thirds of the counties across the country and many cities within those counties participate within our programs. Not just our High Performance Leadership Academy, but that is our flagship program, as mentioned. But we also have programs in CyberSecurity, data analytics, AI and others. And we're really excited to be partnered with ASBO to help make existing leaders better and emerging leaders ready to address the big pressing issues that are being faced within schools and within local government across the country. So, John, again, thank you for the invitation. It's great to be with you and Sabrina and Amanda.
- [04:32]
John Brucato
Yeah, great to have all of you on. And I'm excited to really explore the High Performance Leadership Academy because it's not necessarily new, but it is new to the ASBO international space. So that being said, can you kind of give us a program overview of what the High Performance Leadership Academy is and what does it really aim to accomplish?
- [04:50]
Tim Risculti
Well, John, one of the things you mentioned at the top of this broadcast is that you're really trying to help increase the level of confidence of individuals. And that's what we try to do as well. There are a lot of programs out there that provide great content around leadership, leadership development, management skills, how to inspire in times of change. You mentioned that at the top of the hour as well. Huge responsibility of leaders to really navigate the complexity of change. And we do focus on that. We have great content but really what we want to be able to do is we want to bring people together who can collaborate with one another and not only receive great content and, you know, have greater understanding of why things are working the way they are, how to make things better, but we really want to be able to increase their level of confidence that it can be done, that we actually can not only see that future vision, but actually realize, enact that future vision the way that we do that. To answer your question a little bit more specifically, our high Performance leadership program is a 12 week online program. And I know some folks might be thinking it's an online program. I'd rather be face to face with folks. We have intentionally designed this program with insights from over 3,000 executives. It's not hyperbole, it's not an exaggeration. We worked with over 3,000 executives, thought leaders, individuals responsible for leadership development within their organizations, private institutions, public institutions, elected officials, others. And we built this program highly intentionally to be collaborative. So yes, it's online. The reason that we do that is because we know how hard it can be because of the busy schedules that everyone keeps these days. It can be really hard to get to a destination education program. Whether it's a weekend boot camp or a week long event, or a multi week or semester based program within a university, an institution or otherwise. It's really hard. We've taken that out of the equation, making it all online. We built our own learning management system to run this 12 week program on. And it's led by our PhD leadership coaches who make sure that everyone is kept up to date and everyone is moving together collaboratively. Because we know that peer to peer collaboration is also key when it comes to complex dimensions of leadership, the nuance of management, the challenges of change, and our program focuses on all that 12 weeks. We start with the power of mindset. The need for a positive mindset, especially these days, is, is more important than ever. And there's a difference between just having a rosy outlook and an applied positive mindset. And so we let folks know that there is power in the way in which we show up. And if we show up in a negative way, we usually find ourselves with negative outcomes. If we show up in a positive way, we have a more highly probable outcome being positive. We know that we have to navigate change. So from leveraging a positive mindset, positive outlook, we then can understand how do we actually navigate change. That are four strategies of positive leadership that when entwined with positive aspects of change management, increase the probability of our success when dealing with any kind of change, whether it's a policy change, personnel change, program change, or technology change or anything like that, we increase our probability of success. And then what we also focus on. So positive mindset, positive strategies for positive outcomes, change management for positive outcomes as well. We understand that a lot of this really is built on and made possible through the most powerful tool that any leader has, and that is communication. The way in which we communicate really drives the way in which we generate outcomes. And so we spend quite a bit of time on communication. How do we communicate, what do we communicate, when do we communicate, through whom do we communicate? These kind of things become really important. And then we all know that we are managing more than we've ever managed before. We've got to balance complexity. We have to balance competing priorities. We've got to balance the speed by which we try to introduce change with the adoption rate of that change. And so the last part of our program and kind of the capstone element of those 12 weeks, John, is really focused on how do we align competing resources to generate the best outcomes possible, from which we then generate more change and from which we generate more change and go on and on and, and on. And so increasing the ability to inspire change, as you mentioned, John, is important. And also increasing one's level of confidence in their self and their team to execute leadership is what we focus on. And we do that every day through our academy, and we do that through the partnership with asbo. That's great.
- [09:38]
John Brucato
And I mean, it sounds like an awesome opportunity for really any leader. And I'd like to kind of dive in a little bit more to the curriculum and commitment and things like that. But having Tim, you run through really what this program is, I think this kind of answers my own question, but I'll ask you anyway, Sabrina, you know, why has Asborne International wanted to partner with Tim and his company and really introduce this program to school business officials?
- [10:03]
Sabrina Soto
Yeah, Tim did a great job of setting it up, but we decided to partner with the Professional Development Academy and Tim to help our members address the challenges they're facing, make informed decisions, and inspire their team. Tim talked a little bit about the positive mindset and the importance of peer to peer collaboration. And we really do feel that that this offers that to our members in these times and the importance of also, you know, building that confidence.
- [10:36]
John Brucato
Right, right. And you know, Amanda, I mean, you being a deputy executive director and CEO of an affiliate, having gone through the program yourself, you know, ASBO ny, ASBO International, and a lot of the affiliates Offer a lot of professional development. But do you feel from your experience that this high performance leadership academy is kind of filling a void that we've been trying to fill? I mean, Sabrina, talking about just being able to inspire change and being in the business office and being an inspirational leader could mean many different things to many different people. And it sounds like this program kind of ties a lot of what school business leaders are needing to really kind of move forward as purposeful leaders. Amanda, are you seeing this as that opportunity?
- [11:19]
Amanda Grace
Yeah, absolutely, John. I think, you know, anytime that there's an opportunity for affiliate staff to almost learn alongside our members, that's a unique opportunity. And so, you know, we're not in school. School districts. We do a lot to serve school districts, but we're not in the school districts. And so our professional development needs are not going to always be the same. I think this academy creates a unique opportunity for not only members, but also the affiliate and executive staff to sort of learn side by side, which I really like. As somebody who is in sort of the C suite of an affiliate, my own professional development is really important. I think as an association, you know, regardless of the association type, we're all association of school business officials. Associations are built on providing professional development for our members. And so how can you do that if you're not also attending professional development? Right. You need to attend professional development. Invest in yourself. Invest in yourself as a leader, but also sort of learn. What else is there out there? What else could we offer? What can we partner with ASBO International to offer? So I think this really is a unique opportunity for us all to learn alongside each other, but also for our members and affiliate executives to learn alongside folks from other industries, from other walks of life. And Tim did a great job of outlining the folks that they tend to attract. It was really nice going through the academy and meeting folks from a myriad of backgrounds and something, you know, even though I do a lot at a state level on my own professional development, belonging to an association for my own professional development, you can kind of get siloed. You can kind of get stuck. You talk to the same folks. This is a national program with a reach far beyond school finance and beyond, you know, a lot of the professional development opportunities that many of us may have already been exposed to. And it's a high performance leadership, as we've said, it's in the name, but it's really kind of, I think, taking folks in their leadership journey to the next level. It's not just your work within your association or your work within your school districts. It's really taking your own professional development in leadership to the next level. So I think it does a lot of things and sort of packages those opportunities for a bunch of different folks that have a ASTHMA International and we as affiliates have a reach to and sort of combines them and creates this unique opportunity for sort of a collaborative cohort that we may not have otherwise been a part of.
- [13:57]
John Brucato
So tell me what impacts it's really had on your professional network, Amanda? I mean, you said this is a program you've participated in and it's a myriad of different individuals, not just school financiers or educational professionals. Have you seen an increase of your professional network and just really positive outcomes and really developing your leadership capacity with other leaders, maybe not necessarily in the same sector?
- [14:20]
Amanda Grace
Yeah, it was really nice. So, as Tim said, you know, it creates sort of this cohort model. So the way that it's set through the 12 weeks is that you're assigned a group and you sort of travel through the program with that group and there are folks from, you know, all different states. And I really liked that you're getting, you know, we'll have a topic that we're discussing for that week or a few topics. There's one leadership leader for the group and kind of helping the others move through a set of questions. But to get so many different perspectives on questions and to see where your own blind spots may be, where you're. Because you're sort of living in the silo that you're in, or your own network to talk to folks and either sort of confirm, oh, maybe I am on the right track. Maybe I was being too hard on myself. Maybe actually I did have the right perspective. Perspective on this or to hear some different perspectives on, you know, leadership. A lot of honestly, what our cohort ended up talking about was sort of navigating interactions, you know, in staff management. Because when you're in. In your own state or your own, you know, sort of bubble, you're going to be less likely to talk about maybe some, you know, challenges that you're facing because you don't want to sort of bring up something that, oh, somebody's going to know, you know, the district down the street or the person in the association or whatever, that it gives you an opportunity to speak really candidly in a way that's, I think, really enriching and supportive that you may not have otherwise had. And so I think that was sort of a unique piece of the program as well.
- [15:56]
John Brucato
That's great. So, Tim Tell me a little bit more about the program and how it's structured. I mean, you said it's 12 weeks. It's a cohort model. You've, you've had thousands participate, which is incredible. But tell me a little bit more about time, commitments, what kind of work is required, levels of engagement. Walk me through that a little bit.
- [16:14]
Tim Risculti
Yeah. It is first and foremost a professional development program. It's not an academic program. You know, we're not. You will earn a master certificate at the end. We are certified by, by, you know, global associations that look over, you know, curriculum such as ours. But it's not an academic program. We want individuals come in, we want them to fully engage. We will measure their progress because that does help us to understand, you know, how they're progressing through the program and how they're, they're tracking relative to the curriculum that we have. But, you know, there are no, like, grades. There's no assignments that are going to be like, handed in. Amanda talked about the. One of the most important aspects of our programming is the networking, and it is the ability to collaborate. And so we have put together an expert curriculum through the feedback of a lot of individuals and that program over the 12 weeks. One of the things we've done, John, is try to recognize and honor how busy all the professionals going through our program are. And we know that any one of the topics we take on, you know, the power of mindset, the four strategies of positive leadership, we could take days, if not weeks, if not months. Studying any one of these multiple semesters of content, we could dive into the theory and practice forth. We recognize not everyone has the time for that and most people don't have the time for that. What we've tried to do is we've tried to distill our material down into what we would refer to as modules of work. And then within those modules, activities of learning. And so We've got a 12 week program, we've got 12 modules, one module per week. And then we've got activities of learning. These learning bursts of activities. We've tried to distill those down in such a way that each day takes about an hour. So if you wanted to think about it in terms of just, hey, this is part of my regular profession. It's part of my regular weekly work. And I need an hour a day of my time, either in a block or periodically. 15 minutes in the morning before I start my day, 15 minutes right after the lunch hour, you know, a half an hour toward the end of the day. However, you want to break it up? We try to express to people it's going to take you about five hours a week. Some weeks might go a little faster, other weeks might take you a little bit more time, depending on your knowledge around the topic and your comfortability of the topic and content being covered. And so it's about an hour a day, five hours a week. And as Amanda talked about, what we've done is we've taken our curriculum in such a way that we can launch thousands of people at a time. We subdivide those thousands of people into 100 person cohorts. So think about yourself going through a cohort with 100 people. That's still a lot of people. But over a period of 12 weeks, I can now network with 100 people easier than I could a thousand people. And then within that hundred person cohort, we put you together with what we refer to as a breakout group. Your breakout group typically has between eight and 12 people. That breakout group meets every single week. And as Amanda was talking about, there's different leaders or people that will sign up to say, hey, I'll facilitate this week. And there's questions that we have as part of our curriculum. You're talking about the content covered for that week. And so it's somewhat self directed in terms of leadership, but semi self directed because again, the leadership coach helping to facilitate every step along the way will help to moderate the questions being asked and how that will be asked. And so that group comes together every week. So there's asynchronous activity that makes it very flexible. It's synchronous activity to bring people together, to help deep dive into the topics being covered. And then every Friday there is a live event, a webinar that takes place with the entire cohort of individuals. And some individuals will share some of their, their observations for the week, their key takeaways for the week, their aha moments, some of the challenges that they have for the week. This is why this wouldn't work within my culture. Based on where we're at right now and our maturity level of given any topic or complexity of their business. And that webinar is facilitated by our leadership coach, which is really meant to synthesize, here's what the key takeaways are for the week. Here's how those key takeaways are going to be leveraged going into next week's learning. So 12 weeks takes about an hour a day, five hours a week or so. We have synchronous activity married up with Asynchronous activity to have a really unique blend that drives a lot of engagement. And speaking of which, you know, most people that go through our program finish our program and talk about it, just as Amanda's talking about it. Our completion rate is well in the 90% range of everyone who starts, finishes, earns their master certificate as overseen by our governing body and national accrediting bodies and global crediting bodies. And there's a huge representation of graduates who refer other people. A lot of the people that we enroll come from referrals of other individuals who have been through it, who will say it's unique, it's not your run of the mill leadership training. And in some cases, folks will say it is unprecedented in the way in which we can distill so much information in such a short amount of time. And most everybody who comes through the program, who comments on it, says that they wish that they would have taken it earlier in their career.
- [21:27]
Amanda Grace
John I would just kind of piggyback on what Tim said just to sort of, you know, as somebody who went through the program, I have two little kids, I work full time. I also have a bunch of volunteer things that I do. And you know, I think like many of us also, you know, kind of do all of the volunteering in our own associations and what have you. I think the program really is for somebody who has a growth mindset about their own leadership and their own diversity development. Right. It's not the right fit for somebody who's like, I don't know, you have to be really intentional about it. You have to want to grow as a leader. And we were all kind of chit chatting before we got started about fitness and exercise. I think it's sort of the same mindset that you have when you say, okay, I'm going to engage in a fitness routine and I'm going to make time for it. Right? The time is not going to appear in your day. You already know you're incredibly busy. So there was many nights where I had my laptop out next to the tub and I was doing my work and listening to the videos and stuff, giving my kids a bath or in bed after hours. So I would have loved for me to be able to find time during my regular day. But it was also sort of I got to get my workout in and I've got to get this workout because I've intentionally wanted to grow and get better at leadership. So as somebody who went through it, I just wanted to kind of add that to what Tim said, that that's great.
- [22:48]
John Brucato
So it really sounds like you get out of it what you put in and you can't really be a wallflower in this kind of setting. So that being said, somebody who may be listening, who is a self identified introvert, can someone like that succeed in a program like this?
- [23:03]
Tim Risculti
I'll start off and comment on that based on the way in which we design the program. And then Amanda, Sabrina might have follow up conversation and testimony to provide, but we have designed it for the extrovert and the introvert for that individual. That's like, wow, I get to access 100 different people within the next 12 weeks. And those that might be as you described, John, the wallflower.
- [23:26]
John Brucato
Yeah, that may be nauseating to some people. So I'm wondering.
- [23:28]
Tim Risculti
That's exactly right. Some folks would be like, that's the last thing that I want. Right. So we've designed this and we've described it many times now on this call as a professional development academy, we do have self assessments throughout the program. Again, no one else is going to be assessing you, but there are self assessments because those are powerful. When we're honest about the self assessments, we can really understand, you know, what shows up when I do and how do I make improvements with what shows up and how I show up on any given day. And from those assessments we then have online discussions. Some of those online discussions are just with that 8 or 10 or 12 person breakout group. Some of those online discussions are open to the entire cohort. And then some of the posts that are made are just personal reflections and they're described that way. So this personal reflection, remember this is just for you. This only goes into your digital backpack. On our learning management system, no one else is going to see this. Our leadership coaches don't see it. Our operations team doesn't see it. No one in our academy sees it. No one at ASBO sees it. It's just a personal reflection that allows you maybe to be a little bit more hypercritical if you wanted to be so relative to yourself or situations that you're currently dealing with. The online discussions also, as I mentioned, some are open to their breakout groups as well as the rest of the cohort. And again, it's clearly noted on the learning management system what it's for and it's intentionally for that purpose. Sometimes they're leading up to the conversation. You're going to have that Thursday with your breakout group and some of that conversation will help foster that, that, that dialogue on Thursday. And again you have, because it's an online post that you're making, whether you're the introvert or the extrovert, the person who's really looking forward to that conversation online in video form or if you're the wallflower without your camera on during the Thursday event, you can participate at the same level and you can get your thoughts identified. If you're a process thinker, you need to think through it a little bit more before you make a post. Or if you're a rapid fire thinker and want to make your post right away, you can do that so you can show up. That is your most preferred preference, that is most natural, most unique for you in that way. And we think that that's really powerful for people because it allows them to participate to the extent they want to. If they want to drop in a paragraph of information, they can. If they want to drop in two bullet points, they can. But their contribution is valuable and important. And so we pull everyone out. And unlike a face to face classroom where you can't hide behind the more vocal individual, this really, it doesn't force individuals because again, everyone's got an out. Everyone can say, you know what, I've read through the conversation, I'm not going to make a post on this. I'm passing on this. That's perfectly fine. But it does give everyone an equal opportunity to have the same level of voice being heard and then again being further discussed on Thursday with their breakout group and even further discuss on Friday with the entire cohort coming together. So we have tried to introduce and design the program so that it is very equitable to everyone's voice. And Sabrina, I don't know if you've got thoughts and Amanda, you can maybe chime in after Sabrina regarding that from a practical perspective, having been through the program.
- [26:48]
Sabrina Soto
Yeah. I wanted to share that this was one of the most rewarding experiences in my career for me. It offered a great balance in how we were learning. I was going to reference a journal, but the personal reflection, that was such a wonderful opportunity to just express and look at myself as a leader after learning through some of the modules and then meeting with our cohort every Thursday night. And I will tell you it was a blend of introverts and extroverts, but it was like a therapy session really well. And I'm still connected. I graduated in April 2024 and I still connect with some of the folks from my group. So it's, it's really such an opportunity to learn from others. And I agree, I think it's, you know, you've got to be ready to invest in your leadership and professional development. But what I took away from this I will carry for a lifetime for sure.
- [27:46]
Amanda Grace
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You know, I think as Tim was describing, you know, it's almost hard to be a wallflower because there, there is that, that small group. Right. I think most people are going to feel comfortable at least interacting with a small group of eight to 10 people. Or if you're not, the first couple of weeks, you, you start to. All right, I know these people now. It doesn't feel so. So it's strange to be talking and sharing. I think, you know, it's the people who just don't show up. Right. You have to make the time to show up and that's where it's not. You're not going to get. And as you said before, you know, you get what you put what you put into it, you get out. And so it's really, if you show up and you're just willing to have a little bit of conversation, I think you start to kind of feel more comfortable. And you know, for me, one of the things that I really liked about the program was it did do a lot to sort of, I think as leaders we struggle oftentimes with, you know, self doubt. And I think it's especially true for female leaders. But I know it's true for everyone. There were things in this program that I started to realize, you know, I was on the right path or that is something I'm already doing. And so to have that confirmation either from others, as I was saying before, or just from the program materials, I think it's really important. Right. We're not always learning new information. Sometimes we're rehearing information and it's helping to confirm I was already on the right track and I am already doing a good job. And we don't always do that for each other, we don't always do it for ourselves. And to have other people giving you positive feedback and to be able to give yourself some positive feedback I think is a really big piece that we don't always experience as leaders. It can often feel lonely in leadership roles and to be connected with other leaders I think is so valuable.
- [29:44]
John Brucato
That's great. And it's really nice to hear that everyone does have a voice in some capacity. Because I think, Tim, to your earlier point, a lot of the times with in person leadership training or just professional development in general, that boisterous self proclaimed leader may take the stage and a lot of the introverts could get kind of clouded or hide behind Someone like that. So providing multiple channels of communication and participation is great, which I think really speaks to the nuance and the importance of the online structure because you have synchronous and asynchronous opportunities to really participate. So that's good to hear. So Tim, you did mention the leadership coaches. Can you tell me a little bit more about who really is involved in facilitating these larger and smaller group meetings and you know, what kind of expertise is really brought to the table with these individuals?
- [30:35]
Tim Risculti
Yeah, our leadership coaches are fantastic. They are. They've got a unique blend. There's two requirements to become a leadership coach at our academy. And first of all, you have to be certified smart individual, you have to have a PhD. So you usually have to have a PhD in the field, you know, business education, leadership strategy, something of this nature. So that's important because we want individuals who have a research based mind, we want individuals that are curious by nature, we want individuals that have a terminal degree and understand what it takes to, to learn. And so we want them to have that level of knowledge. And so first and foremost, all of our leadership coaches have a PhD. They understand adult learning theory, they understand learning theory in general, and they understand online application of learning. The other component that is needed to be a leadership coach within our academy is you have to be a practitioner, you have to be a leader. Like as an example, one of our leadership coaches is Doctor of Business and is a professor at a major university. And he also, this is his second career, actually his third career, his first career was in military. He's retired from the Marines. After the Marines he went into it. Was in IT in the Marines, but after the Marines he went into corporate business within it. He was the worldwide global director of IT services for Nike Corporation. And he's since retired from Nike. Now he's a professor of business and IT services at a major university. That's the kind of individual that are our leadership coaches. They've run nonprofit organizations, they've run international teams, they've run these types of scenarios, these types of practices. And so therefore that's important because they understand the nuance of leadership. It's one thing to talk about the eight steps of effective change management management, but it's something completely different to have tried to apply those eight steps of change management. And John, I think you talked about that at the top of the podcast. And that is we want to understand not just what to do and why it's important, but importantly how. And how becomes one of the most important aspects because therein lies all the nuance of scenarios, situational context and so forth that makes leadership so hard. And it's one of the reasons. One of the unique aspects of our program is not only some of the other things we've been talking about, which I think there are some unique aspects based on what we've already talked about. But we have over 200, we'll refer to them as experts, if you will, that are on video throughout this program. And these individuals include executives from Fortune 500 companies, not just Fortune 500 companies, but Fortune 50 companies. They are elected officials. They are, you know, four star military generals. The late General Colin Powell was one of the individuals who first started working with us in a partnership to build this program because he saw the express need to make existing leaders better and emerging leaders ready to address the big challenges and complexity that we face today. And he's got 13 laws, 13 rules, I should say, of leadership. They're part of our programming. And you know, executive coaches, the number one executive coach in the world is often argued to be Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. And you know, he is in our videos. And we've got a whole host of others, prominent individuals, executives, coaches, you know, elected officials, private industry executives. They're captured on video explaining, you know, why has change so hard? You know, Susie Smybert, who is a security officer for Finning International, large international organization, she's responsible for cybersecurity for them. She talks about this is the reason change is so hard. And she explains it from a personal perspective and what she does within Finney International and how she best goes about managing the complexity of change within her organization. And you might be thinking, Finney International, how would that relate to asbo? It's not so much Finney International relating to ASBO or County relating to ASBO or Citi or Nike Corporation or anyone like that. It's about the context of what is trying to be done by that professional and what that individual is trying to do. And again, we've got 200 of these individuals on camera because of every organization is unique. One school board, one school district is not like the other. And there's probably some listening to this who are like, I know exactly what you're talking about. Because if so and so says something to me, it just goes right by me because maybe their scale is so, maybe they're a small rural organization. It's like, I work in a very large urban organization and I just can't relate to the context. That's fine. The same thing holds true with maybe I can't relate to General Powell, being a four star general. But I can learn leadership from Jenna Powell and I can take certain things away from Susie Smibert and I can take certain things away from any of the others, including my leadership coach. And one other important aspect of this too, John, that I think makes it interesting from a leadership coach perspective. In addition to the assessments and the online discussions and the Thursday events with the breakout groups and the Friday live event webinars, we have what we refer to as our high performance leadership plan. It is your self assessment. Periodically throughout the 12 weeks, we have individuals complete a self assessment relative to what is your plan, what are you trying to accomplish in the next 12 weeks, in the next quarter, in the next couple of weeks. And we ask them to think about that relative to the context of the programming that they're going through and not just to share that with themselves internally, but we actually encourage people to work with their supervising manager and their team one, their peers across their organization, letting them know, hey, I'm going through this program. This is what we're studying right now. Four strategies of positive leadership. How might these four strategies be applied relative to what we're currently doing today? Because we know in terms of like the Kirkpatrick model of learning and how do we assess the effectiveness of learning? We know that getting to that top level is really, really hard. Like, like not just, you know, going through the programming, but actually applying it in a meaningful way with positive outcomes. That's really, really hard to do. And it only gets done if you can share what you're doing with others and try to lean into that, be held accountable for it and measure the way in which you're going about it. We certainly can't do that from where we sit at our academy and Sabrina and Amanda can't do that based on where they sit in their roles. But, but we could certainly do that if we apply it with our managers, our supervisors, our team one and try to enact that to bring about a more positive culture within our work environment and within our workforce. And so we try to bring that into play as well. That yes, you're going through this program, but the real value is when you apply it outside the program. And if you can take your high performance leadership plan and share it with others, they'll probably share back with you how they'll help make that real and help enact that in practice. And so we try to make that take place and our leadership coaches do that throughout their engagement online, in the online discussions, during the Friday events, as well as Periodically throughout the entire program.
- [38:21]
Sabrina Soto
I'm glad you mentioned the plan, Tim, because one unique aspect I found from the program was the development of your leadership oath. So I was going to reference that because I felt that I had created one at the beginning of the program. And as we were learning along the different modules, I continued to develop my leadership plan and my leadership oath. And it's something that still resonates strongly with me. And I got to see how it changed over the time of participating in the course. So I'm glad you referenced the plan.
- [38:56]
Amanda Grace
Yeah, just kind of to piggyback too. One of the things that I really liked about, about the program was, you know, the, the military side that's, that's brought in. I love that General Colin Powell and his rules were part of it. My brother's an officer in the Marine Corps and I do a leadership program for school business officials in our state that's about communication and self reflection. And he and I sort of nerd out on leadership. And he shared his leadership philosophy with me. So that's something that I've built into the programming that I bring to school business officials in our state. I think there's so much that we can learn from the military because there aren't a lot of black and whites at face value. But really, when you get into leadership philosophy and the thought process behind the great leaders within the military and the decisions that they've had to make, the hard decisions, there's so much sort of behind the curtain. And I've learned a lot from, from my brother. I've learned a lot, you know, going through this program. But I love the sort of theme of, of the military. And I think, you know, school business officials, one of the things that we see oftentimes is that they are the unsung heroes of school districts. You know, oftentimes you talk about superintendents. Everybody knows there's a superintendent, everybody knows that there's a principal. You know, you can talk to people that work in a school district and they say the business office, what we, a school business official do, we have one of those. And there's so much, I think that happens behind the scenes that, that nobody even realizes is happening. And they really are the unsung, unsung heroes. But there are so many things that I think, you know, are so the strategy, but also just all of the deadlines and rules and regulations and all of the things that they're navigating that I think you can draw some parallels between military and running an organization, that there are things that have to be done, right. We can't sort of decide if we want to do them. And my brother talks a lot about following procedures and that being a thing that you have to train folks to follow procedures or we have a conversation and how does that come into your leadership philosophy and how do you navigate? Because in schools there aren't things you can just decide not to do, right? You can't just say, this is no longer part of our business model. We're just not going to do it anymore. Right. And that's the same for the military. So I really like that that's a theme in this because I know that's something for, you know, for folks in school districts, unlike, you know, you know, a corporation might be able to say, oh, we're going to get rid of this, right? That that's not something that you can do when you, when you're in a school district. So I like that. That's, you know, that's part of it. And that folks have an opportunity to really think. Think about what is my leadership philosophy. But I think the other important thing to point out about this program is leadership training isn't just for leaders. Right? It's not just for people who are already leaders. And I think that this program is great, not only for us to talk about, as, you know, C suite at an affiliate or leadership within a district, but also programming that potentially you send your staff to. And I really like that there were not only like C suite level folks in the cohorts, but also folks who said, oh, my boss went through this program and now they've encouraged me to do it. And I am such a believer in, you know, if you've listened to me in any communication session I've done, I love disc and I love things that create common language. And I think this program is great because it helps folks create a common language on their team. So if you're thinking about going through it, I think that's great. And then also maybe something you want to consider for other members of your team, because then you can sort of share those things. As Tim was saying, you know, folks going to their boss and saying, this is the part of the module that we're in. But for your staff to have that opportunity to do it with you after you've completed the program is also great. And I think the program is not just for people who are in high leadership roles, but it really is something that staff can go. Go through as well.
- [42:58]
John Brucato
Amanda, you bring up some great points and let's talk a little Bit more about the why professional development. I think for the technical aspect of the job is self explanatory. Being able to perform the job and the technicals is kind of an obvious must have. But why is leadership development so critical for school business officials and other education leaders? You know, Amanda, to your point, you're busy giving your kids a bath, but you're still making time for these, these leadership opportunities in this pd. Why is this so important for school business officials?
- [43:29]
Amanda Grace
Well, I would love Sabrina's thoughts on this too, but I'll, I'll, I'll take a first swing at it. I think, you know, there is a lot of confidence that is generated by feeling competent as a leader. And I think the more comfortable and competent you feel in your own leadership, it starts to become muscle memory. And I think having a well oiled machine for the business office, you know, John and Sabrina, you know as well New York were doing a really amazing, I think amazing, exciting research project on the state of the profession and you know, really trying to understand the mindset of school business officials. Sort of from a hypothesis that we had that you know, we wanted to not only have anecdotes from our members about pain points, but to truly understand their pain points. But we know, you know, staff management and you know, folks, you know, staff retention, staff management, feeling like your business office is a well oiled machine is really important. And so, you know, I think that that's, that's a big piece of this, right? Is to kind of feel like that's something that's there.
- [44:37]
Sabrina Soto
Yeah, I agree Amanda, 100%. I think, you know, in terms of leadership training, looking at what our members have to deal with, with managing resources and creating even a positive culture, you know, during, during these times, I think this, provided that, you know, professional development that would support our members. I'll say again, I learned a lot. It's impacted how I am as a leader, how I treat my team. And it was a really good opportunity to, to look at myself and see how I can improve and ultimately be better for my teams.
- [45:15]
John Brucato
And I kind of follow up to that. Sabrina and Amanda, having worked with so many school business officials in your careers, what challenges do school business officials face that you feel this program is really helping to assist? Specifically?
- [45:29]
Amanda Grace
I think, I guess maybe I'm going back to my previous answer, but I think we find out from our members frequently that they are doing something in their role that we didn't even realize as an association. And so the survey that I was just mentioning, you know, we, we Had a list of questions that we asked. You know, what's your role within the district? What are the things that you do in your job? And we got things back like, oh, my goodness, they're. They're doing that. They're responsible for that. We're the association. And we didn't realize that, you know, maybe there was these other components. So I think our folks are having things thrown at them constantly, constantly put on their plates. And to have this feeling of confidence in yourself to take on more and to have an already vetted philosophy on how you're going to handle things. Tim was talking a lot about change management and how. How am I going to now navigate this? What is my philosophy as a leader? What is my oath? What is my commitment to myself? What is my commitment to my team? Those are things that translate for school business officials and translate across many industries. But I think because school business officials are constantly having a new reporting deadline or, you know, it's a new thing that's come down from the state that, okay, now I have to deal with this. You know, in New York state, we're talking a lot about electric buses. There's always something new. There's always something new that you're going to have to navigate and to have a really resolved sense of how I'm going to navigate this, but then how I'm going to lead my team through this.
- [47:11]
Tim Risculti
How.
- [47:11]
Amanda Grace
You know, there's that diagram where it shows the guy at the front and the guy at the back. I think we've all seen it. Are you the boss at the back? Are you the boss at the front? And I've always said, I feel like you have to be both. You have to be able to move from the back to the front to the middle, you know, to be able to be a leader that can do any aspect and to coach folks along that sort of continuum of what is happening, what we're now all navigating together. I think for school business officials, too, you know, okay, guys, now this new thing is happening. Now this change has happened. Now there's something new that's been thrown at us. And to have people rally around you and to feel like we all have a sense of we are collectively getting through this together is important. And I think that's a skill that many people don't have. And we've talked a lot about, you know, communication, how a lot of this program is building your communication skills. You know, I think it gives you an opportunity to be more introspective about where are the places that I'm struggling with communication as a leader, leader with my team and, you know, how can I, you know, sort of develop a better relationship sense where my team is, you know, we're disconnected. And so it's not just sort of being a good leader in isolation, it's leading a team, leading a business office through the myriad of things that are getting thrown at school business officials on an almost daily basis. That's what we hear from members because constantly. So I think that this program can really sort of help in that confidence building and feeling like, okay, I have the skills within myself to really effectively lead a team through challenging times.
- [48:52]
Sabrina Soto
Amanda, you said it perfectly. School business professionals are being tasked with more and given less. So I think I agree completely. You know, one of the concepts that was introduced early on in the course courses, a leader can never have a bad day. And I thought, yes, we can. Yes, we can have a bad day.
- [49:11]
Amanda Grace
I struggled with that too.
- [49:12]
Sabrina Soto
Sabrina, Listening and learning, you know, during the program, it's the concept of you bring the weather so you bring it for your team. And knowing how amazing school business professionals are and what they do, I think ultimately that, you know, again, this is, is a very rewarding experience. It is a time commitment. But to be able to lead your teams, lead your teams through change, the communication, it's definitely, you know, very rewarding.
- [49:45]
John Brucato
So I'm interested, can you, any of you share any testimonials or success stories that you've witnessed through this program? I mean, Tim, I'm sure you have plenty, but then maybe some other feedback that you've heard from, whether it's your cohort members or those that have went through the program themselves. How has that changed their leadership? So maybe, Tim, you can, you can kick us off with any success stories that really stand out that you'd like to share with our listeners?
- [50:10]
Tim Risculti
Well, I think the two folks we have here on the podcast are great.
- [50:15]
John Brucato
I teed that up pretty good though, right?
- [50:16]
Tim Risculti
Testimonials for us and witness from the program experiences that they have. We have had a number of folks and I'll leave it to Sabrina to share, you know, some of the key folks maybe from ASBO membership that have been through and we've had ASBO members as well as non members of ASBO participate in the program and gain great benefit as been described in terms of the outcomes that we've witnessed. One of the things that I'll share relative to the testimonials, we've had individuals that have some of the roles that we're talking about here, school board officers, officials, you know, high ranking individuals, you know, that in some cases the highest rank that they're going to get or that they are aspiring to achieve within the school district. And we've had similar individuals, those roles as well as similar. So let's just take it from asbo role as well as, you know, outside, you know, an elected, maybe a commissioner from a county, maybe a city manager or a mayor, a judge. We've had all these roles go through, you know, so think of it in terms of the highest rank that you're going to have. They're not looking for it in terms of a career advancement. And I'll talk about those in just a second, those individuals. But we're talking about people that are like interested, as Amanda's already mentioned, I'm interested in my own professional development to get better and better because so much is changing all around me. I want to recognize that I can do better tomorrow than I did today. And I'm facing different things tomorrow than I am today. And so I just need to be prepared and this allows me to do that. We've had some of these individuals go through the program saying, you know, I didn't really know how much I'd get out of this program. I've been through dozens of leadership development programs in the past and this one was unique and I did get a lot out of it because of, you know, listening to videos from General Powell perhaps, but more importantly, listening to my colleagues, my peers in the Thursday events, learning from one another. And so we constantly get feedback and testimonial John from individuals that are already pretty high in their career, maybe as high as that they aspire to go and like this is the last chapter of their career. Say, I am so glad that I invested time. I wish that I have taken this earlier in my career because it would have made me a better leader and I would have been able to get even more accomplished than what I have been able to successfully get accomplished today. Now we also have the other end of that continuum. We do have the emerging leader. Maybe it's a frontline leader, maybe it's a mid level manager who aspires to be the principal or aspires to be some other role, the superintendent or another role within the school district or outside the school district. And these individuals, they gain increased perspective. We often hear individuals say, I've got an MBA degree. This was far better than the two years I spent in graduate school. This last 12 weeks gave me more than what I learned in my graduate studies. And I think it's because we get so many comments and points of feedback like that because of the context. Again, the content is one thing we all can pull down a popular magazine or a popular book and learn about. These are the steps you go through for effective change. Or these are, you know, whatever they might be. Here's the theory around, you know, professional and positive leadership. But the practice is often lacking and it's hard to get that individually. It's hard to read from pages and get that if you're not in entrenched in it and enriched by that entrenchment through that level of experience. And this allows that experiential learning, the words become more meaningful. When we can be in those breakout groups every Thursday and learn from one another. Some of those are higher ranked officials than we are, others might be lower. But we're learning through the collective collaboration of one another and the various contexts that we bring. And so those are some of the points of feedback we get. It is unprecedented. We've heard people say this is not your run of the mill leadership training. These are testimonials and quotes from graduates and we've heard certain testimonial and quotes from Amanda and Sabrina as well. Sabrina, I don't know if you have additional specific testimonials you want to share from members or non members, but I'll turn it to you for any additional details that you might want to provide.
- [54:49]
Sabrina Soto
Thank you. Yeah, we've, we've had several members and some of our state staff like Amanda participate in the program and we've heard, you know, such positive feedback which is why we wanted to make this available to all our members for the upcoming cohort. So, you know, very positive and building confidence. I would say that also this is an investment in yourself and your team. So, you know, I feel like a more equipped leader, you know, even as an individual following the participation in this course than I did before.
- [55:30]
John Brucato
So if someone's inspired by this conversation today and wants to find out more about the program and maybe take the next step and really get geared up for 2025. Sabrina, where do they kind of get started and can you direct us to what, what would be next?
- [55:44]
Sabrina Soto
Absolutely. We would love for you to visit our website, ASBA International and we've got an education tab with information. You can always reach out to me. You can find my information on the ASPA International website and I would, I would love to talk to you about it.
- [56:00]
John Brucato
Right, so it sounds like 2025 starts in April, concludes in the beginning of August. So that's really the, the time frame of 25. So before we sign off, Tim, anything else you'd like to add to our, to this conversation and you know, anything else that maybe some, someone listening or a school business official or otherwise could, could get out of this program?
- [56:22]
Tim Risculti
I'll echo a comment that Sabrina made earlier. It is a comment that if, if you are listening to this podcast and you've been through our program, it's going to remind you of aspects of the program. If you've not been through our program, it'll give you a little bit more insight about what it is all about. And you know, how we show up as leaders is really, really important. You know, how we show up every day is important and it really does determine the outcome, the way in which we show up and how we work with one another, the outcomes that we generate together. Sabrina mentioned there's a quote in the program and it gets used so often by our graduates that we actually start making stickers out of it because so many people want to have stickers and reminders. And that quote is, you bring the weather. And so it's just a simple reminder. You know, Sabrina talked about the oath of a leader and that oath of a leader stems from the rules of leadership. We got that from General Colin Powell that having rules of leadership is important. And if you can distill those rules into an oath as a leader, it gives you a reminder as to how to show up every day. And one of those rules is you bring the weather. And so be mindful about the weather that you bring every day because it is impactful for not only yourself, your own health and well being and success moving forward, but especially those that you serve every day, the members of your team, the folks that are around you, the community that you support and provide service to every day, you might think of them as your community, you might think of them as your customers or your clients. It's those individuals. So you bring the weather. What weather are you bringing? Today is a good reminder, I think. And again, John, thank you for bringing us together and having this conversation. And Sabrina, Amanda, it's always great to be with you.
- [58:03]
John Brucato
Yeah. Thank you all for joining me today to really discuss the High Performance Leadership Academy. Sabrina, I'll make sure to link everything in the show notes. So if you're listening right now, you can scroll to the description and go directly to ASBU International education site, check out some more details and even sign up for this year's Leadership Academy. But this sounds like an amazing program, something I am certainly interested personally. But thank you all again for sitting down and sharing a little bit more about the High Performance Leadership Academy.
- [58:31]
Amanda Grace
Thank you so much. John.
- [58:37]
John Brucato
Thank you for tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics on school business.