Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H.
5 Strategies for Supporting Teaching and Learning
Foreword by Regie Routman
Expand your leadership capacity to help your school reach its potential
All schools have the capacity for schoolwide instructional excellence. Schools with leaders who adopt a coaching stance as part of their practice are more likely to realize this success. Leaders achieve success with their teachers, their students, and their families, not alone.
Leading like a C.O.A.C.H. reframes the approach to schoolwide change from a leader acting alone to a leader working with a community in which each member contributes their strengths and ideas to improving instruction. Renwick, a well-known blogger and writer on literacy and leadership, encourages school leaders to embody five practices: 1. Create confidence through trust; 2. Organize around a priority; 3. Affirm promising practices; 4. Communicate feedback; and 5. Help teachers become leaders and learners. Throughout this practical guide, readers will find
- Reflective questions
- Activities
- Indicators of success
- Examples of leaders coaching teachers to excellence
- Wisdom from the field
This book provides new and veteran leaders with a practical approach and easily adoptable ideas for helping their schools realize their full potential.
Free resources
Activity: Four conditions for trust
"Building trust takes time and patience, as well as a common language so people can talk about this construct. Where do we begin?"
Blog Post: How I Am Present During Literacy Instruction
In this blog post from Read by Example, Matt Renwick details how to shift from judgement to curiosity during educator evaluations, as explored in his book Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H.
It is a very interesting book that is very needed during this time. It provides a clear path for effective coaching.
I really liked this book and believe it would be a good tool for administrators who want to grow together or district teams to study how to improve their instructional coaching approach. This book is a good resource for administrators who want to improve their coaching techniques.
I love this text. It helps make coaching practicable.
Matt Renwick is the principal we all wish we had and the one we all want to be. His ideas about walking alongside teachers to grow them in the same ways we want them to grow students are just-right advice. He brings the research on trust and collective efficacy to life through concrete ways to operationalize rituals and routines of observation, goal setting, and planning with teachers.
Matt Renwick makes a compelling case for deeper inquiry and more thoughtful engagement around teacher practice. Full of rich, compelling examples from Matt’s real-world experience, this book will help readers reconnect with their purpose as instructional leaders. Highly recommended.
Matt Renwick offers readers a rich, practical how-to book supported by current research. This book should be within easy arm’s reach of school administrators wishing to increase their skills of performing their major responsibility: increasing student learning.”
Matt Renwick reminds us of a key element of our shared professional leadership work: we can’t do it alone. He keeps us focused on the value of coaching tools and the pillars he references to keep instruction at the center of the work of educational leaders. This book draws on an extensive research base as well as Matt Renwick’s own professional experience to provide an accessible entry point for school leaders as they consider what it means to lead like a coach.
Research is clear: Principals can have a tremendous impact on student success by focusing on job #1: ensuring every student benefits from great teaching in every classroom. Drawing upon his vast experience as a successful leader, Matt Renwick provides compelling insights, practical tools, and real-life examples for how to effect real change in schools. Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H. is a must-read playbook for any principal seeking to improve student outcomes—not by forcing change from outside in, but rather by unleashing it from the inside out through trust, compassion, optimism, and an unrelenting focus on excellence.
Renwick unpacks conversations by describing what he said in a coaching situation and then sharing his reasoning for why he chose the actions he took. This book is not just for people who are in the positional role of leader; it is for anyone who wants to develop their leadership capabilities.
This is exactly the book educators need to build trust while navigating the tensions in today’s school systems. Leading Like a C.O.A.C.H. will provide you with strategies that humanize leadership and bring joy to the work. This is an excellent book to read with your school teams to build the leadership pipeline essential to sustaining organizational excellence and a positive culture.
