LEADING SCHOOLS FORWARD

Decades of research establish what makes schools improve. Most leaders — and the programs that prepared them — have never been taught how to collectively create it. Culture.

The Work Before the Work

READ THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

THE MISSING PIECE OF SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT

Leadership matters. Instruction matters. But sustainable improvement depends on the organizational conditions that shape trust, relationships, shared responsibility, and collective action.

Heavily Invested in Leadership and Instruction. Underinvested in What Makes It Stick and Last.

Shared Purpose
Delivering on Why People Came to Education
Shared Values
Purpose-Driven Behavior
Shared Responsibility
Positive Goal Interdependence
Employee Engagement · Family Partnership · Community Support · Transformative Leadership
Adult Conditions
Trust · Clarity · Support · Manageable Load
Student Academic Resilience
Calm · Focused · Confident
Student Academic Growth & Performance
Learning That Lasts

Building Sustainable School Improvement

THE MODEL

Compliance

  • Improvement rises and falls with individual leaders

  • Trust and coherence vary across teams

  • Meetings focus on logistics and mandates

  • Initiatives outpace organizational capacity

  • Improvement feels episodic or externally driven

Is your school built for compliance or commitment?

THE CORE DISTINCTION

Commitment

  • Shared purpose and responsibility endure

  • Trust, clarity, and support are strengthened

  • Meetings reinforce purpose and priorities

  • Systems strengthen alongside expectations

  • Continuous improvement becomes part of the culture

Overview
Executive Summary
PDF · Part 1
In Practice
Implementation Guide
PDF · Part 2
For Teams
Tools & Templates
PDF · Part 3
42 Pages
Full Framework Paper
PDF · Parts 1–3

The Missing Piece of School Improvement

A CULTURE-FIRST SCHOOL FRAMEWORK

A research-grounded working framework for building improvement that endures through stronger organizational conditions.

New to the work? Start with the Executive Summary, then, if you want the research behind it, review the evidence and learning.

Rich is an educator, school leader, and doctoral researcher focused on the organizational conditions that help schools sustain improvement over time. In 2009, after leading the collaborative turnaround of three schools, K-12, he became increasingly interested in a question that followed him across schools and systems.

Why did improvement efforts so often depend on changing leaders, programs, initiatives, and mandates rather than a coherent framework for continuous improvement? That question ultimately led to the development of Leading Schools Forward in 2016.

Professional Position Statement →

ABOUT THE WORK

Rich Sinclair

The Influences

BEHIND THE WORK

Mukara Meredith

Founder of MatrixWorks and pioneer in helping organizations unlock collective intelligence and creativity. Her teachings and coaching transformed Rich's understanding of collaborative leadership & culture.

Ann Rhoades

Founder of People Ink and internationally recognized culture strategist. Her work in building commitment (vs. compliance) -centered organizations shaped the principles reflected across LSF.

Gayle Watson

Co-founder of People Ink and an organizational culture specialist. She helped Rich adapt their approach for K-12 education to build shared purpose, values, and organizational health.

Dr. Charles R. Coble

Internationally recognized authority on teacher preparation and educator development. Through years of conversation and challenge, he has helped galvanize LSF's value proposition.

Christopher T. Cross

Nationally recognized education policy leader whose work has influenced American education for more than five decades. He has been a strong advocate for LSF's distributed leadership approach.

Dr. Neil Hawkes

Oxford-educated educator and international consultant pioneering values-centered school culture. His support and guidance have sharpened the continued development of LSF.

Their Selected Clients or Affiliations
Education Commission of the States – Mayo Clinic – Southwest Airlines – University of North Carolina – Disney – The New Teacher Project – Procter & Gamble – Maryland State Board of Education – General Electric – United Nations – Chase – Texas Tech University System – Mattel – UNESCO – Hershey's – Juniper Networks – Gap – Western Association of Schools and Colleges – General Mills – Loma Linda University Hospitals – P.F. Chang's – The Business Roundtable – National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
& hundreds of school systems and ministries across the US, UK, Australia, China & New Zealand

Pam Andrews

One of Rich's early teachers and the primary reason he went into education. Her commitment to students and belief in the transformative power of teaching continue to inspire the purpose of LSF.

Martin Terrell

Author and community leader who reflects the power of resilience, growth, and contribution. As a longstanding influence in Rich's life, his values and beliefs are reflected throughout LSF.

Want the view from inside the work? Hear from the educators and leaders who've experienced it →

Scholarship & Publications

PEER REVIEWED & PRACTITIONER WORK

Built for Continuous Improvement: Professional Accountability in the Academic (K-12) Setting

2023

Journal of Values-Based Leadership

2025

Colorado’s Alignment to Reduced Educator Turnover Based on the Work of Its Teaching and Learning Conditions Initiative

Educational Research: Theory and Practice

2026

Working Paper

Compliance to Commitment: A Culture-First School Framework

Leadership Before the Leader: How Principal Preparation Program Heads Perceive and Conceptualize Fostering Internal Cohesion in Schools

2027

DISSERTATION IN PROGRESS

Question, critique, or a school in mind?

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