Summary:

Dr. Jim welcomes Dr. Dan Butler, superintendent of the Western Dubuque County Community School District, to discuss effective leadership transitions and building a cohesive leadership playbook. Dr. Butler shares insights from his 21-year career journey from teacher to superintendent, emphasizing clarity, feedback, and trust as pillars of successful transitions. Learn about the strategies and frameworks Dr. Butler implemented to foster clarity, inclusive feedback, and leadership capacity, transforming educational leadership across a geographically diverse district. Discover how these principles can be tailored to enhance leadership in any setting.

Key Takeaways:

• Clarity and Feedback: Dr. Dan Butler underscores the importance of providing clear expectations and actionable feedback to build a coherent and effective leadership culture.
• Building Trust and Credibility: Ensuring transparency and integrity while taking on new leadership roles, and leveraging these to earn the trust of peers and direct reports.
• Navigating Transitions: Essential strategies for moving from peer to leader and maintaining professional relationships through honest and clear communication.
• Creating a Common Leadership Language: Utilizing strategies like regular one-on-one meetings and professional learning grounded in shared reading materials to ensure alignment and capacity building across large school districts.
• Empowerment through Professional Development: Encouraging leaders at all levels to lead with influence and empowerment, creating a ripple effect of positive leadership practices throughout the organization.

Chapters:

00:00

Navigating Leadership Transitions in Education

03:45

Challenges and Uniqueness of Western Dubuque County School District

05:09

Leadership Lessons from Coaching in Education

11:29

Navigating Leadership Transitions from Educator to Superintendent

19:53

Building Trust and Executive Capability in School Leadership

25:51

Building Leadership and Communication Structures in School Districts

28:12

Building Leadership Capacity Through Literature and Common Language

33:35

Building School Culture Through Clarity and Feedback

Connect with Dr. Jim: linkedin.com/in/drjimk

Connect with CT: linkedin.com/in/cheetung

Connect with Dan Butler: https://www.danpbutler.com/

Music Credit: Shake it Up - Fesliyanstudios.com - David Renda



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In fact, many aspiring leaders never successfully navigate the transition from individual contributor to manager because they get stuck moving back into the trenches, setting the stage for success in these transitions requires a lot of work. It requires a lot of strong communication and action planning, and it also requires building a common playbook for everyone to run.

He's got over 21 years of dedicated service with W. D. C. S. D. Dr. Butler has held diverse roles, including teacher, athletic coach, school administrator, assistant principal and human resources facilitator. He graduated from the University of Northern Iowa. Go Purple Panthers with a doctoral degree.

He enhances his leadership expertise through ongoing professional learning and has been recognized for his commitment to leadership development, positive relationships and driving continuous improvement throughout the district. He regularly presents at local, state, and national conferences and often addresses topics such as digital leadership, public relations, and organizational health.

Wow, when do you sleep? Dan, welcome to the show.

[00:02:10] Dr. Jim: I'm looking forward to this conversation because I think one of the things that we haven't covered yet in our interviews with K 12 leaders Is how they've successfully navigated the various transitions in their career.

And even in the private sector, it's going to, it's often very challenging to go from individual contributor to people leader, and then leaders of leaders. That's a common challenge across all industries. So I think this conversation is going to be valuable for a lot of folks in any context, but before we dive in, take a few minutes and give us a little bit more detail in to your background and specifically some of the key things that shaped your philosophy as you started climbing the leadership ranks within the K through 12 space.

An assistant principal, a school administration manager, a principal, and then a facilitator of human resources. So I've worked a lot of different jobs and climb the ranks of leadership. And now I serve as a superintendent entering my 3rd year of that. And, what shaped my leadership philosophy has been the great people that I've had the ability to work with and serve over my time.

Whether that is students, whether that is staff members, mentors, there's been great people that I've been surrounded by. That have really pushed me to see more and do more and I absolutely love our school district, which is very unique in and of itself. And I'll take a few minutes to explain that. So we're made up of 8 schools.

So it's giant. It's half the size of Rhode Island. It just gives you some context of the amount of busing and the transporting that we're doing within our district. And all of those different communities coming together into one school district, which is great. But it also presents a number of unique challenges with us.

[00:04:44] Dr. Jim: 1 of the things that caught my attention is that. As you were navigating your career, you spent some time as an athletics coach, and we haven't had a lot of administrators that have had that in their back pocket as something that they've done. And I'm curious how that coaching experience [00:05:00] has led into some of the leadership principles and leadership philosophies that you have as you were navigating your overall career trajectory.

So you have to be very efficient with what you're doing, but that starts with clarity. What are we trying to get done? What do we stand for? What do we believe in? How are we going to do that? How are we going to execute our strategy? And that changes week to week as your game planning for different opponents that you're going to play and things of that nature, that transfers over into the educational sphere and the educational leadership sphere as well.

But it's the same working with our people, whether that's our administrative team, whether that's our teaching staff, our non certified staff, whomever that happens to be. We are in a people business and the way that we grow, develop and continue to get better is through feedback. And again, whether that's supportive or whether that's constructive.

How do you, what have been some of the challenges that you've encountered when you're trying to gather feedback, deliver clear messages across a geography that might be different from county to county in terms of how they receive and process information?

And I'm sure you've heard this before, but our strategic plan is tremendous and huge for us. So we've put it what we call a plan on a page, but being very clear about what is our vision, which it's better every day in Western Dubuque schools. What's our mission? What are our values? Our three core values that we're going to hold dear in our hearts.

And yes, we've got a number of kids, we've got a number of staff members, and we've got, eight different buildings and so forth in all of this land. However, when we're in Western Dubuque, we know that our mission Is to develop individuals through lasting education and opportunities, and we know that our vision is better every day.

Now, do we see a lot of behaviors that are against that? No, not really, but it's a matter of being clear. So we all know what is expected and the direction that we're heading.

So when you think about the importance of that common playbook and language, where did you learn the value of that? As you're navigating the various transitions in your career,

[00:10:00] And I, I believe deep in my heart that people will do well and they want to do well inherently when they know what is expected of them. And at an early age, as an educator, I always appreciated that from the leaders that I served. And that served me. Just knowing what those expectations are what is the target that we're aiming for and then putting in the efforts of how to do that.

Something that we talk about a lot within our district is freedom within form where. The form is that mission, vision, values, and our commitments. But then you have the freedom to do what you need to do to achieve those marks, to meet that mission, to achieve that vision, et cetera. So it's the people before me and the mentors that I've had in my life that have really shaped that clarity.

[00:11:02] Dr. Jim: When you apply that principle to, your own career, when you went from educator to principle, and then later from principle to superintendent.

Let's take a look at that 1st transition. What was the most challenging aspect of you transitioning from educator to principal? And how did you navigate those challenges now that your role and responsibility had shifted, especially in light of the fact that, just a day ago, you were all peers.

And not a little bit, it changes the dynamic. And navigating that is tough, but coming back to what I know about [00:12:00] expectations, what I know about clarity, the common goal that we're seeking, the aim that we have as a building was huge. And now that didn't happen overnight, but it's lots of conversations about where am I going, excuse me, where are we going?

As a building, what matters to us and how are we going to go about doing that? And then who's involved and what are our roles? What seat do we fulfill on the bus, so to speak? And again, coming down to when people know what's expected, they'll do it and they'll do a high quality job. But again, conversely, if it's not clear, and there's some assumptions being made or just some guesswork, or people are not on the same page, and we weren't vulnerable enough to talk about that.

What are we seeking to achieve and just talking about that a lot? repeatedly and What's our role as a teacher as the principal? How are we fulfilling those roles?

How did you [00:14:00] build that in as part of the shift and transition into your new role?

What are the things that I'm seeking? What am I looking for? And what is the purpose behind this? And being very clear of, I'm not simply trying to check a box here. What I'm trying to do is engage. I'm trying to see what standards are in place that are being taught and I'm seeing, is this aligning with what our district expects for the curriculum that we're teaching and does it align to really the goals that we're trying to achieve as a building?

So the teacher knows the expectation. I know the expectation. We're pretty clear on, on what it is because there's no surprises and there's really not any ambiguity. It's very clear. Okay, another example would be what when our kids in an elementary school now, when our kids are dismissing, what does that look like?

What is the common system of how we want students to behave how we want our adults to behave when our children are exiting the building, whether they're getting picked up by the bus walking home, or they're getting picked up by their parents in the car pickup line, whatever that happens to be, but developing a common understanding.

[00:16:14] Dr. Jim: I would imagine When I sit in that transition space. 1 of the things that I would expect is some challenges finding the right balance of feedback. So here I am. I'm the new boss. I used to be. Part of the crew just a few days ago now I'm supposed to lead this group.

And you have this dynamic amongst the front lines where some people who are. You know close with your relationship wise probably don't know where that boundary is and Push back more than they should given the shift in the relationships and then other folks who don't have a close relationship Don't push back at all.

[00:17:05] Dr. Dan Butler: One of the strategies that I used is I would ask and name the thing a lot of times with someone coming to me.

Am I playing the role of friend here? Or am I playing the role of your supervisor in principle right now? And I found that naming that because. You're fearful of you, you give feedback to. Someone you taught with for years and it's not great feedback and oh, my gosh, what's that going to do to this relationship or whatever that happens to be?

But I found naming to be a really effective strategy of Okay, am I listening to you as your friend and you're venting to me here or are we really talking about this is a teacher, typical teacher, principal type of conversation that we need to have and we need to get into problem solving mode.

And here's what I found, Jim. If that fractures the relationship I don't know that the relationship was that strong to begin with. So I think leaders in the seat that might be making that transition as I did. Is to not be afraid of that because it's going to happen. You can't sweep things under the rug.

You have to hold a high level of expectation and it's going to happen. If something of holding someone accountable to a high expectation fractures a relationship, I don't know that we had a relationship from the get go.

So going from educator to principal is one thing, and it presents its own set of challenges. But then when you go from principal to superintendent, There's a whole nother set of challenges that you have to deal with because now you have [00:19:00] your peer group of leaders who are now reporting into you. And I'd imagine that there is probably at least 1 or 2 people within that leadership tier that was vying for the same spot that got passed over.

So you have a lot of complexity in that transition. So tell me about how you manage that transition.

It was similar, but yet very different as well. And one of the biggest things. The biggest challenges and the most important things was really to establish trust, build and establish trust, and not just as a colleague, because the people with whom I work, yep, they know that I could operate as a principal at a pretty decently high level, and they could trust that I was going to get the job done.

And what it comes down to when I think about trust, I really follow the model of Franklin Covey, okay? It's integrity and it's intent. Okay. Integrity is following through on tasks and making sure that my word, what I'm saying, I'm going to follow through with, and I'm going to do, and then to be incredibly clear about my intentions.

Through email, through conversations, through professional learning opportunities, through meetings, et cetera, that I want to be incredibly clear with my intentions. So again, there's no surprises. Then trust is also made up of capabilities and results. Okay. So doing everything in my power to demonstrate.

That were my side to side colleagues of how now to establish that supervisor coach role. And it's been an ongoing journey for 2 years, and I will tell you is a rocky road in the 1st year. And as time goes on, and you can continue to deliver those results and follow through on tasks, doing what you're saying, you're going to do that.

Trust just does get solidified. So heading into year 3. We're in a much better place than when we started and I will tell you that very much

And that can create a whole set of issues. So what were the things or disciplines that you use to make sure that you weren't going too far into the direction of, I got to prove that I earned this seat. I got to prove my credibility which can go wrong if you go too far in one direction, tell us about what you did when it comes to that.

So one thing that I did is I was very fortunate and still am fortunate that I have an [00:23:00] executive leadership team as a superintendent. There's a director of curriculum instruction and assessment and then at the time there was a director of staff services, basically our HR leader. Two people that had deep trust and deep belief in me so I would rely on them and they'd give me some very vulnerable feedback.

If I was in fact going too far to really prove myself, or, you don't need to do that. They would be honest with me, Dan, you don't need to do what you're doing right now. And we'd talk about empowerment and then how I can set them up for success and learn from them and be vulnerable enough myself to know I don't know everything and there's no way that I'm going to know everything.

I am a learner and I will dedicate myself to figuring it out and finding it out. And when I do make mistakes, It's going to be 100 percent my aim not to make that the same mistake again, but it starts with vulnerability and just relying on the great people that are around you.

How did you broaden out your perspective so that you're getting the full picture versus the picture that you think you see?

And knowing Jim, I'm a part of that. So if things are going south, or they don't feel good about things are going south, I'm going to be a part of that. I've been a contributor as a colleague to that. So it was just a matter of having those conversations and getting all kinds of feedback from our building principles from our directors from our executive directors and then from our school board to after I was hired of.

What is our view? Where is the direction that we want to be going and taking that feedback and taking all of that data sifting and sorting and finding themes and trends and then that really informed where I want to go and where we want to go as a school district.

If something more important came up or if something that was urgent you needed pivot you have line of sight into that from The people that report in need

Now I'm in a district where that's about 16 roughly conversations per month, which is a lot, but it's doable and it gives me a really strong pulse. Of where we're going and then also allows me to pour into them with their own development, their goals. It would be, I would ask probably about 5 structured questions within [00:27:00] those 1 on ones and those regular checkups.

But you're exactly right, Jim, that it would create some pivots of, yeah we're, we're actually heading in a different direction, or we have to be ready for what's coming in 6 months. But just continuing that feedback loop, but it's very much systematic.

So how did you build that into this structure that you built and this playbook that you built? What other resources did you use to build out this capability?

We'd have management items. We try to work in instructional items, but, they're all mush together. [00:28:00] Your it all turns into management and check in boxes and all that kind of stuff So one of the things I did was simply We're going to have a monthly meeting once per month and it's going to be three hours and we're going to dedicate specifically to professional learning and what that professional learning will be is to grow our leadership capacity as superintendent leading our principals and our directors and To speak to the foundation that we wanted to establish Jim, I'm a reader.

I'm a podcast listener. I am a learner. It is core value of mine. I can't consume enough. So I'm constantly reading articles, books, blogs, etc. and I'm speaking a language. I wanted my administrators, our administrative team, if I know that these are good, solid practices, best practices, I want us to be speaking the same language.

Great books because they have models of how we work together as a team, and it's fable driven. So there's a story involved and then leadership lessons at the end of the book, which is fantastic. It's easily consumable for administrators. Another book that we read was the Servants by James Hunter.

Okay, very similar format, fable based with a leadership model toward the end of the book and the leadership model embedded within the fable, of course, but working through those. That's delivered a common language of us that we're talking about what servant leadership is to us, what the ideal team player is, someone who's humble, who's hungry, who's smart.

Dan is very strong in the area of enablement. He will allow the success of other people to occur. So through literature, And those studies and those focused meetings, it's really allowed some common conversation and ultimately building the leadership capacity of our team. Because what I found is, I'm leading these on a monthly basis.

Great leadership at the top can then cascade down to all of our other buildings.

How is it how it shows up in terms of your overall capability and capacity at every level from a leadership perspective?

And we believe deeply within our school district as a leader is anyone who motivates others to improve. Okay. And everybody possesses that, that influence that ability to influence and to lead. And speaking that way. It is empowering, and it allows people to view that differently. Prior to my time, we would have people say I'm just a paraeducator.

I'm just a teacher. I'm just a custodian. Frankly, leadership is influence, and everyone has the ability to influence. And we're influencing all the time. That can be for good, or that can be for bad. But either way, whether we like it or not, we are influencers. And using that language, using that terminology with our people and leading those professional learning efforts is in our everyday conversations.

[00:33:03] Dr. Jim: Great stuff, Dan. We've had a really strong conversation about what you did in your district. Now, let's take it 1 step further. And talk about what are the key things that other district leaders need to think about when they're navigating these transitions, but also building that evergreen playbook and language that is going to help them be much more effective in their role.

So what are the key principles that you want people to pay attention to when they're trying to do this themselves in their districts?

What are your deeply held beliefs? beliefs. And then what are the actions to be able to achieve those beliefs, those [00:34:00] results, etcetera. And I know I'm speaking kind of high level here and generally speaking here. But what I 321

what I want people to think about and is how do you make that your own with what do we stand for? What do we believe in? What do we hold deep in our hearts? Mhm. And what is the type of culture that we want to create, that we want to enrich within our schools, within our school district. And for me, culture is this big elusive term that is used by people all the time.

You know it when you feel it when you walk into the building, et cetera. I want clarity around that. And what I say for culture, what it means to me, culture is belief. It is behavior and it is the experience that you deliver to others and the experience that you receive in return Okay, so when we're talking about that What do we believe as a group as a team as a school as a district?

Because what works for us in Western Dubuque is not going to work In texas necessarily it's not going to work in california necessarily there's nuance to every little place that we're at However, if you can define belief you can define behavior you can define experiences that are going to be good for you Then it's a matter of just doing the work But what again it's coming back to a word that i've used probably a hundred times in this conversation.

It's clarity

[00:35:54] Dr. Dan Butler: Yeah, you can visit me on my website, Dan p butler.com is where all my socials can be found. [00:36:00] But basically any social media platform is Dan p Butler.

And I engage pretty regularly. But I would love to take any questions or communications that you may have.

There was an interesting change management framework that actually popped into my head as we were talking. So if we're taking what you describe and building a framework that other people can operate in to build their own playbook or build their own language. What I gathered from this conversation is that there's a 5 step process.

And it's okay to say no. Once you've communicated all of those things. The critical next step is to take action to move the needle forward towards the goals that you're aligned to And then as you move forward, it's important to go ahead and iterate and improve as you move forward, so When you were talking about hey what works in western dubuque might not work in texas or ohio or wherever There are some principles that underpin the things that you're talking about That I think are important for everybody to keep in mind, but that needs to be rooted in feedback.