T-L File Photo Union Local Superintendent Zac Shutler penned an article on leadership coaching that was featured in the United States Air Force Journal of Character and Leadership Development. He wrote about the benefits of training leaders in the classroom.

BELMONT — Union Local Superintendent Zac Shutler believes leadership is a vital quality for educators, and one that can be strengthened with coaching.

Recently, he wrote an article on the topic that is garnering wider attention, having appeared in the United States Air Force Journal of Character and Leadership Development.

Shutler was approached in November and worked on the article with Douglas Lindsay, editor in chief of the Journal of Character & Leadership Development, for seven months.

The article draws on Shutler’s doctoral studies from 2019 and on the work by Bernard Bass and Ronald E. Riggio on transformational leadership and the Full Range Model of Leadership created by Bass and Bruce Avolio.

“It’s always an honor to have something you worked on for a lot of years be published. It was an extra honor that the Air Force Journal of Character and Leadership Development were interested in publishing the piece,” Shutler said. “I shared it with most of my friends and colleagues and have received some very positive feedback. Leadership coaching in the field of education is something that isn’t as common as it should be. It’s very common in other businesses, and I hope that some of the research we do and the school district invests in coaching and developing educators in general and not simply relying on luck or fortune that people grow and develop in the profession.”

Shutler detailed the study, which uses data from Union Local School District educators, citing a treatment group that received the coaching and a control group that did not.

“What I did for the study is I used a Gallop 212 survey. It’s a reliable and valid instrument,” he said. “We took a small group of teachers, and they received leadership coaching from somebody from outside the district.”

He reviewed the results.

“What we noticed is teacher engagement level decreased at a higher rate for those who did not receive coaching, compared to those who did,” he said. “This was a mixed method study.

Teachers would fill out a survey. Those receiving the coaching were also interviewed.

“When we asked them specific questions, their answers changed from the pre-coaching to the post-coaching where they used more transformational language … more language focused on the aspects of leadership that were being coached.”

Shutler said the study results will be included in next school year’s curriculum renovations.

“We realized even more how important it is to coach and provide leadership skills to our new teachers, so we established a teacher induction program,” he said.

This includes a staff orientation and retention program, and teachers meet regularly to help build their leadership capacity.

“We’ve changed the entire way that we onboard and train our teachers. We provide a full-scale leadership program to help them connect with other leaders in the district, to help them connect with our teachers in the district and to teach them the skills that we think will be helpful in them being a more engaged professional,” Shutler said. “I think education as a whole, sometimes we are a little bit behind the curve on these things. It’s not unusual for private companies or coaching — especially leadership coaching — to be a norm of the culture, and slowly but surely I think this will be very common in education, and I’m excited for that.

“Teachers, they’re what makes education go. It’s a tough job. It’s a challenging job, and if we’re not investing in our teachers’ engagement levels and helping them become improved leaders and to deal with the stress that comes with the job, then we’re doing a disservice to the people that are on the ground level of supporting our kids.”

Shutler said for anyone doing research to make the area better, there are avenues to get the message out, and work being done in Southeast Ohio is as important as any going on in the country.

Lindsay responded to a request for comment via email and said Shutler’s article was a valuable contribution.

“Our goal is to publish scholarship related to character & leadership development across all domains. While we are located at the Air Force Academy, we want to shine light on development in all domains (military, academic, business, non-profit, sports, etc.). As a result, all of our articles go through a peer review process,” he wrote. “What was interesting — and important — about Zac Shutler’s article was that it was an example of a leader — in his case a Superintendent — that was looking for ways to support his faculty/staff. In his case, it was coaching.

“Through his dissertation research process, he implemented a system that supported his teachers/staff through coaching. His article focuses on that process and the results from that,” Lindsay wrote. “Since it has been published in the JCLD, it has been the most accessed and downloaded article on our site. That is a testament to the importance of the topic and its applicability across different domains. It is a great example of a leader noticing a need and then doing something about it so he can support his team.”

More information and the article can be found at jcldusafa.org.