For districts moving toward personalized, competency-based learning, the challenge isn’t just adopting new instructional practices, it’s shifting mindsets and cultivating the leadership skills required to effectively and sustainably steward systems change.
Like many leaders in the trenches of transformational work, Rose Hooton saw that while technical solutions and new learner-centered strategies were producing real wins at her school, to sustain the momentum and scale beyond isolated instances of success, she needed to focus on refining her own skills as a human-centered leader.
Enter: Emerging Leaders
As a site coordinator at Amphitheater’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) Department in Tucson, Arizona, Hooton entered the Lead for Learners Emerging Leaders experience with a strong commitment to her work, but a growing desire to move beyond implementing individual initiatives and towards broader systems-level shifts.
From the outset, she and her Emerging Leaders peers were asked not only what changes they wanted to see at their schools and districts, but who they aspired to be as leaders. Using a shared Portrait of a Leader, participants identified individual growth areas and designed personalized leadership learning plans that made development purposeful and measurable.
For Hooton, this meant leaning into the human-centered attributes of leadership: acting with compassion, offering support, showing empathy and prioritizing wellbeing. Through professional reflection, Hooton realized that her views are shaped by who she is, what she’s experienced, and her role. She now pays closer attention to how bias can go unnoticed when people don’t speak up.
“I may misconstrue information, and I really need the voices of others to help me look at things critically,” she said. “We need other people to call those out in us, so that we can grow. […] I’ve really appreciated the brave people around me who’ve chosen to do so.”
Changes in leadership practice
As the year progressed, Hooton’s leadership practice began to shift in visible ways. She consciously practiced empathetic listening and created opportunities for colleagues that strengthened relationships and trust. She moved away from compliance-driven approaches toward capacity building. This reframing changed how she listened to teachers, how she interpreted evidence and how she designed structures to support the work.
“I’ve learned to listen to the teachers around me, to listen to the teams around me,” Hooton said. “How can I give them what they really need?”
Instead of relying on surface level motivators, Hooton focused on how she could deliver what educators said they needed the most: time. That insight led her to rethink schedules, routines and expectations so teams could collaborate differently and more often.
Originally, professional learning time was structured as a “sit and get,” where district initiatives and updates were reviewed and administrative tasks were addressed. Those days were reconfigured to allow for small group collaboration and independent work time. “The biggest thing that people need is time, and so I’m constantly trying to figure out or restructure things so that people have more time to work on what they need to work on.”
A positive cultural shift
Hooton noticed almost immediately that as educators were given more ownership and support, the work culture began to shift. Teachers that had been showing clear evidence of burnout started leading professional development sessions, sharing information back with their sites and contributing in more meaningful ways.
One teacher in particular transitioned to an alternative evaluation pathway focused on trying new instructional practices, while also becoming a key contributor to student internships and industry partnerships.
As a culture of shared ownership was built, teachers were more willing to reach out to one another for support. They began opening their classrooms for peer observations, sharing instructional strategies and having conversations about grading practices, professional standards and skill development for students.
During her celebration of learning, Hooton shared with the Emerging Leaders cohort pictures from a recent CTE professional learning experience hosted at her school, her pride evident. In the design of the program, Hooton made the deliberate decision to step back and invite teachers to step up. She noted that letting go of control did not mean releasing accountability. It meant she designed a system that allowed others to contribute meaningfully and grow into leadership roles themselves. “I really need to learn how to distribute ownership and to identify leadership skills in others,” she said. “Through this process, I’ve learned the importance of establishing standard operating procedures and intentionally redistributing responsibility.”
A shared space for discomfort and growth
Throughout the cohort experience, participants returned repeatedly to the human side of systems change. They all wrestled with resistance, grappled with their own shortcomings and had to work at staying present during difficult conversations. Within the safety of the Emerging Leaders community, discomfort became a signal of growth rather than something to avoid. In classrooms with kids, this is often referred to as “productive struggle.”
“As we do with our students,” Hooton explained, “you understand that we need a safe space to fail, and I think when people have that, they tend to take more risks and be more creative and tend to lean into things.”
Through the structured learning cycle of peer feedback, reflection and shared language, challenges were normalized and a sense of collective support took hold.
A defining feature of Emerging Leaders is the structure of the learning experience — it mirrors the learner-centered approaches participants are working to advance in their schools and systems. Progress is demonstrated through real leadership work in practice.
A new vision of leadership
By the end of the experience, Hooton and her peers articulated a vision of leadership that focuses on removing barriers, building trust through clarity and sharing power so progress extends beyond any one classroom, school or leader.
“Instead of always leading from the front, [it’s] creating systems that transcend your involvement and transcend your presence: How am I designing systems as a leader that will continue when I’m no longer in the position? What are we doing with that institutional knowledge,” she pondered.
Hooton’s journey reflects the deeper purpose of the Emerging Leaders experience. It’s designed to nurture personal growth while shifting how leaders show up, listen and lead within their systems. Through a professional learning community and opportunities to apply learning in real time, participants strengthen both their confidence and their capacity to lead change with others. The result is more than individual development. It is the cultivation of leaders prepared to carry forward lasting, systems-level transformation.
