Over the past 20 years, my profession and my passion have been about one thing: leadership. Leadership is the key to impacting the lives of students and adults in all of our schools, regardless of geography, economic condition, size, or status as public or private, primary, elementary, secondary, or even post-secondary. As a result, I devote my efforts to growing, sustaining, and supporting leaders throughout the education arena.

NSDC and I share this commitment to leaders. Developing school leaders is one of the five priorities outlined in our strategic plan. The assumption behind this priority is that the knowledge, skill, and will of school leaders are essential to improving professional learning and student achievement.

To fulfill this priority, NSDC will initiate and lead networks and programs focused on improving performance of school leaders. I have learned that the power of educational leadership lies in an ability to see beyond the obvious, to envision beyond what is expected, so that both students and adults achieve powerful teaching and learning. The wisdom and work of many people, coupled with my own experiences, have taught me that leadership is not just about vision. Leadership is also about action. The Board of Trustees and NSDC staff members have made a commitment to members and to stakeholders to “walk our talk.” Each of us has created and is implementing plans of action to support the strategic priorities. These plans are designed to be in service and support of NSDC’s purpose, which is “to ensure that every educator engages in effective professional learning every day so every student achieves.” We are strongly committed to making this purpose a reality. At the same time, we hold an expectation that all members of the NSDC community share this commitment.

Leadership is about building the capacity of self and others to achieve commonly shared goals. Professional and personal routines, even those that have proven to be successful in the past, can often get in the way of changing our behavior so that we can accomplish our goals. With this in mind, the trustees and staff are committed to change as necessary to bring the tenets of the strategic plan to life through our daily actions.

Leadership is not necessarily a function of a formalized position. Through various conferences, events, programs, products, and publications (including JSD), NSDC challenges all of us to don the mantle of leadership, regardless of our current roles. We are encouraged to see beyond the boundaries of our titles, beyond the boundaries of our jobs, and even beyond the challenges of our current realities, and to be leaders, advocates, sponsors, facilitators, coaches, mentors, catalysts, critical friends, supervisors, change agents, motivators, role models, strategic planners, assessors, questioners, team builders, managers, consensus makers, mediators, and supporters.

Whatever your position, I call upon you to both lead and act.