THE FIVE ELEMENTS OF STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

Introduction

Strategic leadership is essential in education because schools, districts, and learning communities operate in complex environments. Educational leaders are responsible not only for managing daily tasks but also for guiding people toward ambitious goals. These goals often involve improving student learning, strengthening teacher practice, building trust with families, and creating more equitable systems.

The book Leading Strategically: Achieving Ambitious Goals in Education by Elizabeth A. City and Rachel E. Curtis provides a useful framework for understanding this kind of leadership. The authors identify five important elements of strategic leadership: 1. Discern, 2. Cultivate Relationships, 3. Understand Context and History, 4. Harness Power, and 5. Think Big, Act Small, Learn Fast. These five elements help leaders make thoughtful decisions, work effectively with others, and respond wisely to complex challenges.

Strategic leadership is not simply about having authority or creating a plan. It is about knowing what matters most, understanding the people and systems involved, using influence responsibly, and learning from action. In education, where every decision affects students, teachers, families, and communities, these abilities are especially important.

Strategic Leadership in Education

Strategic leadership means leading with purpose, awareness, and adaptability. Educational organizations are complex because they involve many people with different needs, experiences, and responsibilities. A school leader may need to support teachers, respond to families, follow district policies, improve student achievement, manage resources, and address equity issues all at the same time.

Because of this complexity, educational problems are rarely solved by one simple action. For example, low student achievement may be connected to curriculum, instruction, attendance, student well-being, family engagement, language support, or school climate. A strategic leader does not rush to one solution without understanding the deeper causes.

City and Curtis explain that strategic leaders must learn to balance different tensions. They must simplify problems enough for people to act while still respecting complexity. They must act with confidence while remaining open to learning. They must focus on immediate needs while also keeping long-term goals in mind.

This kind of leadership requires reflection, collaboration, and continuous learning. It helps leaders avoid reactive decision-making and instead choose actions that are thoughtful and purposeful.

Overview of the Five Elements

1. Discern: Knowing What Matters Most

The first element is Discern. Discernment means identifying what is most important in a situation. Leaders face many demands every day, such as meetings, emails, urgent problems, staff concerns, student needs, and policy requirements. Without discernment, leaders may try to do too many things at once or focus only on what feels urgent.

Discernment helps leaders pause and think before acting. It includes three main practices: identifying purpose, understanding the problem, and choosing the right action.

First, leaders must identify the purpose of their work. They need to ask why the work matters and what goal they are trying to achieve. A clear purpose helps leaders communicate better and keep people focused.

Second, leaders must understand the problem. They should gather information, listen to different perspectives, study data, and look for root causes. For example, if students are not performing well, a leader should not immediately assume that the problem is poor teaching. The issue may involve attendance, student motivation, curriculum alignment, family challenges, or lack of support.

Third, leaders must choose the right action. After understanding the problem, leaders decide what action will best support progress. They consider resources, timing, capacity, and possible impact.

Discernment prevents leaders from rushing into ineffective solutions. It helps them act with greater clarity and intention.

2. Cultivate Relationships: Leading Through People

The second element is Cultivate Relationships. Leadership depends on people. Even the best strategy will fail if people do not trust one another or feel connected to the work.

Cultivating relationships means building trust, showing respect, listening carefully, and honoring people’s contributions. It also means recognizing that teachers, students, families, and staff are human beings with experiences, emotions, and knowledge that matter.

In schools, relationships are essential for improvement. Teachers need trust to collaborate honestly. Families need trust to communicate openly with schools. Students need trusting relationships to feel safe and supported. Leaders need relationships to understand what is really happening in the organization.

Cultivating relationships also involves understanding how people and groups depend on one another. For example, a decision about curriculum may affect teachers, students, families, assessment practices, and professional development. Strategic leaders identify these connections and help people work across roles and departments.

Relationship-building is sometimes seen as less urgent than other leadership tasks. However, it is a necessary part of strategic leadership. Meaningful work happens through people, and people work best when trust and respect are present.

3. Understand Context and History: Learning Before Acting

The third element is Understand Context and History. Leaders must understand the environment in which they are working. Context includes the current conditions of a school or organization, such as culture, resources, routines, staff morale, community expectations, policies, and challenges.

History is also important because the past shapes the present. People’s reactions to new ideas are often influenced by previous experiences. For example, if teachers have experienced many failed reforms, they may be skeptical of a new initiative. If families have been excluded from decision-making in the past, they may not immediately trust new invitations to participate.

Strategic leaders learn from context and history before taking action. They ask questions such as:

• What has happened before?
• What worked well in the past?
• What failed, and why?
• Who was included or excluded?
• What are people’s current concerns?
• What patterns continue to appear?

Understanding context and history helps leaders avoid repeating mistakes. It also helps them make decisions that are respectful and realistic.

This element is especially important for equity. Schools are shaped by histories of opportunity and inequality. Leaders who understand these histories are better able to identify unfair patterns and create more inclusive practices.

4. Harness Power: Using Influence Responsibly

The fourth element is Harness Power. Power exists in every organization. It affects who makes decisions, whose voices are heard, who has access to resources, and whose needs are prioritized.

Some people feel uncomfortable with power because they associate it with control or unfairness. Others may seek power for personal recognition or authority. Strategic leaders take a more responsible approach. They understand power and use it to support important goals.

Power can come from different sources. Some power comes from a formal position, such as being a principal, superintendent, or department head. Other power comes from trust, expertise, relationships, or experience. There is also power in policies, systems, and informal networks.

Strategic leaders ask:

• Who has authority in this situation?
• Who has influence?
• Who has information?
• Who is affected by the decision?
• Who is missing from the conversation?
• When should power be used, shared, or given to others?

Harnessing power responsibly means using influence to advance meaningful and ethical work. Sometimes leaders must make firm decisions. Sometimes they must share decision-making with others. Sometimes they must step back and allow others to lead.

In education, responsible power use is closely connected to equity. Leaders must make sure that power does not silence students, families, or staff members who are already marginalized. They must use power to create fairer and more inclusive systems.

5. Think Big, Act Small, Learn Fast

The fifth element is Think Big, Act Small, Learn Fast. This element helps leaders connect ambitious goals with practical action.

Thinking big means having a clear and meaningful vision. Educational leaders should have high hopes for students, teachers, and communities. They should work toward important goals such as improving learning, increasing belonging, strengthening instruction, and creating equitable opportunities.

However, big goals can become too abstract if they are not connected to action. Acting small means taking manageable steps toward the larger goal. Instead of launching a large reform all at once, a leader might begin with one team, one classroom practice, or one short pilot project.

Learning fast means studying what happens after action is taken. Leaders collect feedback, examine evidence, reflect on results, and make adjustments. This allows them to improve continuously.

For example, if a school wants to improve student engagement, leaders might begin by testing a new discussion routine in a few classrooms. They can gather student feedback, observe participation, and adjust the strategy before expanding it.

This approach helps leaders avoid two common mistakes. The first is having a big vision without action. The second is taking many actions without learning from them. Strategic leaders do both: they aim high and learn quickly from small steps.

The Five Elements Working Together

The five elements are most powerful when used together. For example, imagine a school wants to improve student attendance.

A strategic leader would first discern the real problem by studying attendance data and listening to students and families. The leader would cultivate relationships with families, teachers, counselors, and community partners. The leader would understand context and history by learning about past attendance efforts and current barriers such as transportation, health, or school climate. The leader would harness power by identifying who can make decisions about schedules, resources, and student support. Finally, the leader would think big, act small, and learn fast by testing a small intervention and studying its results.

This example shows that strategic leadership is not one action or one decision. It is a way of thinking and working that helps leaders respond to complexity with purpose and care.

Strategic Leadership and Equity

Strategic leadership must include attention to equity. In education, decisions do not affect all students and families in the same way. Some groups may face barriers related to race, language, disability, income, gender, or other factors. Leaders must be aware of these differences and work to create fairer outcomes.

The five elements support equity in important ways:

1. Discern helps leaders look for root causes rather than blaming individuals.  
2. Cultivate Relationships helps leaders listen to people whose voices may be overlooked.  
3. Understand Context and History helps leaders understand patterns of exclusion or harm.  
4. Harness Power helps leaders recognize who has influence and who does not.  
5. Think Big, Act Small, Learn Fast helps leaders test improvements and adjust based on evidence.

Equity-centered strategic leaders are willing to ask difficult questions. They examine their own assumptions, listen with humility, and challenge practices that create unequal outcomes.

Practical Implications for Educational Leaders

Educational leaders can use the five elements as a guide for reflection, planning, and action. The framework can support principals, teacher leaders, district leaders, department heads, and leadership teams.

Useful guiding questions include:

1. Discern: What matters most in this situation? 
2. Cultivate Relationships: Who needs to be involved, and where is trust needed? 
3. Understand Context and History: What current and past conditions shape this issue? 
4. Harness Power: Who has authority or influence, and how should power be used? 
5. Think Big, Act Small, Learn Fast: What small action can help us learn and move toward the larger goal? 

These questions help leaders slow down, think clearly, and act wisely. They also encourage collaboration and shared learning.

Conclusion

The Five Elements of Strategic Leadership offer a clear and practical framework for educational leaders. Based on Leading Strategically: Achieving Ambitious Goals in Education by Elizabeth A. City and Rachel E. Curtis, the framework shows that strategic leadership requires discernment, relationships, contextual understanding, responsible power use, and continuous learning.

Strategic leaders do not need to have all the answers. Instead, they need to ask thoughtful questions, understand the systems they work in, build trust with people, use influence ethically, and learn from action. These practices are especially important in education, where leadership decisions affect students, teachers, families, and communities.

When leaders discern what matters, cultivate strong relationships, understand context and history, harness power responsibly, and think big while acting small and learning fast, they are better prepared to achieve ambitious goals. More importantly, they are better prepared to lead in ways that are thoughtful, equitable, and sustainable.

References

1. Bryk, A. S., Gomez, L. M., Grunow, A., & LeMahieu, P. G. 2015. Learning to Improve: How America’s Schools Can Get Better at Getting Better. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
2. City, E. A., & Curtis, R. E. 2022. Leading Strategically: Achieving Ambitious Goals in Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
3. Heifetz, R. A., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. 2009. The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
4. Khalifa, M. A. 2018. Culturally Responsive School Leadership. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
5. Northouse, P. G. 2022. Leadership: Theory and Practice. 9th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.